Don’t take our word for it. Here’s every fact on this site, with its evidence grade, its caveats, and a link to the source, so you can check us.
We start you on the strong ones: findings that have been replicated or come from one large, well-controlled study. Moderate and weak facts are here too, labeled for what they are. Use “Link to this fact” to share a single card.
Fragrance is everywhere / Measured in people or real products
In New York City, everyday chemical products (paints, glues, cleaners, personal care) release about 50% more smog-forming vapor by weight than vehicles and other fossil fuels, and their tracers (D5-siloxane, ethanol) rise with population density across US and European cities.
Moderate evidence: NOAA FIVE-VCP inventory checked against tracer measurements; same group as McDonald 2018, so not an independent inventory method.
Source: Coggon 2021 Link to this fact
Fragrance is everywhere / Measured in people or real products
On New York's worst smog day of 2018, consumer and industrial chemical products added about 11 ppb of ozone to a 114 ppb regional peak (standard: 70 ppb), slightly more than vehicle and industry fuels (8 ppb).
Moderate evidence: Modeled attribution (WRF-Chem) for one heat-wave episode; the box model gives fossil fuels ~60% instead. Say 'comparable to vehicles'.
Source: Coggon 2021 Link to this fact
Fragrance is everywhere / Measured in people or real products
Scented product categories (personal care and cleaning) made about half of the ozone from consumer and industrial chemical products in New York, mostly through their alcohol and glycol solvents rather than the fragrance molecules.
Moderate evidence: Box-model budget, one city/episode; 'fragranced VCP' is a product category: fragrance compounds are ~6% of VCP ozone, oxygenates 24%, and ethanol 15%.
Source: Coggon 2021 Link to this fact
Fragrance is everywhere / Measured in people or real products
About two in three children's sunscreens (87 of 134) and toothpastes (40 of 61) in a Danish registry listed fragrance or a named fragrance allergen.
Moderate evidence: Label data, registry sample; Brazilian children's sunscreens were 34.5% (Uber 2024), so rates are market-specific.
Fragrance is everywhere / Measured in people or real products
The more densely populated a US city center is, the higher its outdoor air levels of personal-care and fragrance-product chemicals relative to traffic pollution, a pattern found consistently across four different cities.
Moderate evidence: Correlational (R2 0.48-0.82 depending on compound); does not by itself prove causation or rule out other density-linked sources.
Source: Gkatzelis 2021, Environmental Science & Technology Link to this fact
Fragrance is everywhere / Measured in people or real products
In summer Manhattan, citrus/pine-scent chemicals from fragranced products reached an outdoor air level comparable to benzene, a chemical that mostly comes from vehicle exhaust, even though the two come from completely different sources.
Moderate evidence: One city, one season, one compound class (monoterpenes); not a claim about total organic mass, ozone, or particle formation versus vehicles.
Source: Gkatzelis 2021, Environmental Science & Technology Link to this fact
Fragrance is everywhere / Measured in people or real products
In a 2018 test of 18 hair products (hot oil, anti-frizz, leave-in conditioner, root stimulator, hair lotion, relaxer) commonly used by Black women, 45 of 66 targeted endocrine-disrupting and asthma-associated chemicals were detected, including every chemical class tested.
Moderate evidence: N=18 products, purchased 2008 based on a 2004-5 NYC usage survey; descriptive/exploratory, no statistical testing.
Fragrance is everywhere / Measured in people or real products
In FDA's 2006 cosmetics survey, fragrance products carried the highest diethyl phthalate levels of any category tested (up to 3.9% by weight), and nail products carried the highest dibutyl phthalate levels (up to 6% by weight).
Moderate evidence: N=48 products, one purchasing round; category sizes as small as 1-9 products.
Source: Hubinger & Havery 2006, Journal of Cosmetic Science Link to this fact
Fragrance is everywhere / Measured in people or real products
A silicone ingredient in everyday deodorants, lotions, and hair products (D5) shows up in city outdoor air on a clear morning schedule tracking when people shower and dress for work, peaking around 6-7 AM and fading over the following several hours.
Moderate evidence.
Caveats
Diurnal emission-rate profile derived for one mid-sized US city (Boulder, CO, winter 2015/2017); Toronto ground-site data (2009) show a similarly timed morning peak in concentration, but the emission-rate model itself is Boulder-only.
Source: Coggon 2018, Environmental Science & Technology Link to this fact
Fragrance is everywhere / Measured in people or real products
During the morning rush hour in a US city, the mass of a personal-care-product ingredient (the silicone D5) entering outdoor air can exceed 30% of the mass of benzene entering the air from vehicle traffic, and the city-wide daily D5 emission total is in the same order of magnitude as the city's traffic-benzene emissions.
Moderate evidence.
Caveats
Based on a correlation-derived enhancement ratio (D5 vs benzene), not a direct product-based emission inventory; the comparison benzene emission inventory is itself a likely lower-limit estimate (excludes evaporative and off-road vehicle emissions). City-wide 24-hour totals (3-5.5 kg/day D5 vs 15.6 kg/day benzene) show D5 at about a fifth to a third of benzene's mass, not equal to it.
Source: Coggon 2018, Environmental Science & Technology Link to this fact
Fragrance is everywhere / Measured in people or real products
In a study of 427 people smelling real body-odor samples, individuals stayed identifiable by smell even when wearing a deodorant, but any deodorant (their own or an assigned one) still made people significantly worse at telling them apart than smelling the unfragranced body odor alone.
Moderate evidence.
Caveats
Direct triangle-test design (large for this subfield); deodorants only, not perfumes; public-venue convenience sample; one subgroup (female donor odor + assigned fragrance) fell to chance level.
Source: Allen, Havlíček & Roberts 2015, Frontiers in Psychology Link to this fact
Fragrance is everywhere / Measured in people or real products
People were better at telling two individuals apart when both wore their own habitual deodorant than when both wore an unfamiliar, experimenter-assigned deodorant, consistent with fragrance choice tracking a person's own body chemistry rather than being arbitrary.
Moderate evidence.
Caveats
Own-vs-assigned effect is modest (Exp(B)=1.375, p=0.03); cannot rule out a familiarity confound (using a product you already use vs. a brand-new one) separate from body-chemistry matching.
Source: Allen, Havlíček & Roberts 2015, Frontiers in Psychology Link to this fact
Fragrance is everywhere / Government agency
The cosmetics industry's own safety panel (CIR) reported PTFE (Teflon) in 365 US cosmetic products in 2018, at up to 13% in mascara, 12% in eye shadow, 2.4% in hair bleach, and 0.5-3% in face and fragrance powders.
Moderate evidence: Self-reported by the industry to FDA's voluntary registration program and to the industry's own trade association survey; not independently audited.
Source: CIR 2018 Industry-funded Link to this fact
Fragrance is everywhere / Measured in people or real products
Using a statistical method that does not assume the answer in advance, scientists confirmed that everyday chemical products, not traffic, were the dominant source (about 70-78%) of the measured organic-vapor emissions at the New York City site, contributing roughly three-quarters of it, versus about a quarter in the much less crowded city of Boulder, Colorado.
Moderate evidence.
Caveats
Positive matrix factorization (PMF) of ground-site data in two cities, independently agreeing with the FIVE-VCP bottom-up inventory within 25-30%; replicates the same NOAA/CIRES group's inventory conclusion with a methodologically independent top-down technique.
Source: Gkatzelis 2021b, Environmental Science & Technology Link to this fact
Fragrance is everywhere / Measured in people or real products
In most U.S. cities, everyday chemical products likely account for 50 to 80% of the outdoor smog-forming and particle-forming potential from human activities, rivaling or exceeding vehicle traffic almost everywhere except the least densely populated areas.
Moderate evidence.
Caveats
The 50-80% figure for cities beyond Boulder and NYC comes from the FIVE-VCP inventory alone, not independent measurement at each site; mobile sources still dominate at the lowest population densities.
Source: Gkatzelis 2021b, Environmental Science & Technology Link to this fact
Fragrance is everywhere / Measured in people or real products
Health Canada's modeled median dermal DEP exposure for Canadian women from cosmetic and personal-care product use (2.6 ug/kg bw/d) independently matches a Korean team's measured estimate (2.017 ug/kg bw/d) from a different country's products and a different exposure-assessment method.
Moderate evidence: Both are modeled/estimated exposures based on product content and use-pattern surveys, not biomarker-confirmed doses; this is a median, not a worst-case, comparison.
Source: Koniecki 2011, Environmental Research Link to this fact
Fragrance is everywhere / Measured in people or real products
As early as the mid-1990s, the musk fragrance chemicals galaxolide (HHCB) and tonalide (AHTN) were already detectable in the body fat and breast milk of every German person tested, 19 out of 19 samples.
Moderate evidence: Small sample (14 adipose + 5 milk, one German region, 1993/1995); no product-use data or health outcome measured.
Fragrance is everywhere / Measured in people or real products
A 2015 survey of 817 unique detergent products from 131 German households found limonene and linalool — the two fragrance chemicals most often linked to skin allergy when oxidized — named on 23.1% and 20.1% of product labels, more than any of the other 24 EU-declarable fragrance allergens.
Moderate evidence: Label-declaration frequency above the EU's 0.01% threshold, not a chemical measurement; Northern Germany, 2015, convenience sample, not representative.
Source: Wieck 2018, Regulatory Toxicology and Pharmacology Link to this fact
Fragrance is everywhere / Measured in people or real products
Tumble drying real household laundry released 256-342 milligrams of textile microfiber per kilogram of fabric dried, whether the dryer vented outdoors or condensed the moisture indoors, a similar order of magnitude to what washing machines release.
Moderate evidence: One UK lab, one detergent, one condenser model, and one vented model, n=8 real loads per dryer type; measures plain cotton/polyester fiber, not fragrance or VOCs.
Source: Cummins 2023, PLOS ONE Industry-funded Link to this fact
Fragrance is everywhere / Self-reported survey
In a 1995 population-based telephone survey of 4,046 California adults, 15.9% said they were 'allergic or unusually sensitive to everyday chemicals' (like cleaning supplies, paints, perfumes, or soaps) and 6.3% reported a doctor's diagnosis of environmental illness or multiple chemical sensitivity.
Moderate evidence.
Caveats
Self-report only, no clinical verification of diagnosis or symptoms; California-specific, not national; the study's own authors take no position on whether this reflects a real physiologic condition or societal apprehension about chemicals.
Source: Kreutzer, Neutra & Lashuay 1999, American Journal of Epidemiology Link to this fact
Fragrance is everywhere / Measured in people or real products
11 of 12 women with MCS, and none of 12 controls, developed headache and nausea during a brain-scanning session simply from smelling ordinary odorants (vanillin, acetone, cedar oil, lavender oil, eugenol, butanol) at levels used for a routine imaging study.
Moderate evidence.
Caveats
Small clinic-referred sample; symptom reporting is not blinded to which condition (odor vs air) the subject is in at that moment, since presentation was randomized but subjects could still perceive the odor itself.
Source: Hillert et al. 2007, Human Brain Mapping Link to this fact
Fragrance is everywhere / Other evidence
Personal care product use is nearly universal in the general population.
Moderate evidence: Single national survey; category definitions are broad (e.g., 'fragrance' includes perfume, cologne, and aftershave).
Source: Dales 2013, Annals of Epidemiology Link to this fact
Fragrance is everywhere / Other evidence
In a 36,446-subject Europe/US market-research survey, most people use only one type of deodorant rather than combining formats: 59% used roll-on only, 17% used spray only, and only about 2% used both spray and roll-on deodorant.
Moderate evidence.
Caveats
Deodorant format preference was strongly regional: in the EU roughly 30% used roll-on only and 30% used spray only, while in the US about 80% used a non-spray format and only about 5% used spray only.
Source: Comiskey 2015 (RIFM/Creme Global), Regulatory Toxicology and Pharmacology Industry-funded Link to this fact
Fragrance is everywhere / Other evidence
The most common personal-care product combination in this 36,446-subject Europe/US survey was deodorant, oral care, and a shower product used together, at about 19% of subjects; only about 1% of men but about 7% of women used products from all 7 surveyed product categories.
Moderate evidence: This reflects only the 19 personal-care/cosmetic product types surveyed; it says nothing about household, laundry, or air-care product use, which were not included in this study.
Source: Comiskey 2015 (RIFM/Creme Global), Regulatory Toxicology and Pharmacology Industry-funded Link to this fact
Fragrance is everywhere / Other evidence
In a 2016 barcode-scan inventory of 2,963 household products from 131 German homes, EU-regulated biocidal active substances (preservatives, disinfectants, insecticides, repellents) were found in every single household, and personal care products plus washing/cleaning agents accounted for 90% of all such ingredient observations, far outnumbering the biocidal products the regulation is actually built around.
Moderate evidence.
Caveats
German sample; convenience sampling in 2 of 3 neighborhoods (response rate not calculable there); 65% response rate in the rural site; ingredient-list presence, not measured wastewater concentration or biological exposure.
Source: Wieck 2016, Environment International Link to this fact
Fragrance is everywhere / Other evidence
Citric acid, methylisothiazolinone, phenoxyethanol, benzisothiazolinone, and the fragrance chemical geraniol were the five most commonly listed biocidal active substances in a 2016 scan of German household products, appearing on 859, 471, 409, 357, and 281 products respectively out of 2,963 scanned.
Moderate evidence.
Caveats
"Biocidal active substance" is the EU BPR's legal category (intended preservative/antimicrobial/pest-control function), not a general hazard label; single-country convenience-leaning sample.
Source: Wieck 2016, Environment International Link to this fact
Fragrance is everywhere / Review of other studies
Burning, stinging, or itching sensations in the eyes, nose, and throat from airborne chemicals are caused by a specific, receptor-mediated nerve reflex (activation of TRPV1, TRPA1, TRPM8, and related channels on trigeminal nerve endings), not by allergy or immune response.
Moderate evidence.
Caveats
This is established sensory-irritation physiology synthesized from many primary studies the review cites, not new data from this paper; it describes the receptor mechanism, not whether any specific product or exposure reaches an irritating dose.
Source: Nielsen & Wolkoff 2017, Regulatory Toxicology and Pharmacology Industry-funded Link to this fact
Fragrance is everywhere / Measured in people or real products
A home field study found that microfibers from a clothes dryer travel through outdoor air and land on the ground at least 30 feet from the vent, though most land within about 5 feet.
Moderate evidence.
Caveats
Two homes, one artificial pink polyester blanket used as a tracer; 30 ft was the farthest distance tested, not a demonstrated maximum travel distance; this is fiber mass deposited on snow, not an air concentration or an indoor/breathing-zone dose.
Source: Kapp & Miller 2020, PLOS ONE Industry-funded Link to this fact
Fragrance is everywhere / Measured in people or real products
Even with a dryer's lint trap in place, tens of milligrams of lint still escape out the vent into outdoor air per drying cycle (35 mg at one home, 70 mg at a second home, averaged over three cycles).
Moderate evidence.
Caveats
Small sample (2 homes, 9 cycle-replicates total); the amount varied with dryer age, duct length/material, and lint-trap size, so these exact figures are not necessarily typical of all dryers.
Source: Kapp & Miller 2020, PLOS ONE Industry-funded Link to this fact
Fragrance is everywhere / Measured in people or real products
Besides the fragrance-mix allergens, 14 other common fragrance materials (including linalool, benzyl acetate, and hedione) were found in 40-97% of the 73 deodorants tested in 1996; for three of them (hedione, linalyl acetate, alpha-isomethyl ionone) no published human contact-allergy case existed at the time despite their widespread use.
Moderate evidence.
Caveats
Absence of published reports as of 1998 is not the same as absence of risk; testing history for these three substances specifically was not systematically reviewed by the authors beyond a literature check.
Source: Rastogi et al. 1998, Contact Dermatitis Link to this fact
Fragrance is everywhere / Measured in people or real products
Among 5,588 fragranced cosmetic products identified through a Danish consumer app, 85.5% of those labeled to contain at least one of the 26 EU-mandated fragrance allergens contained at least two, and 73.9% contained at least three; the 26 allergens were labeled 17,870 times in total across the products (mean 3.2 per product).
Moderate evidence: Label survey (declared ingredients only, no chemical analysis); self-selected app-user sample, not a market-representative survey.
Source: Bennike 2017/2018 Link to this fact
Fragrance is everywhere / Measured in people or real products
Unlike the classic hazardous air pollutants in the same 482-deodorant survey (formaldehyde, benzene, methanol, ethylene oxide, trichloroethylene, chloroform), which each appeared in only 0.4-13.7% of products at generally low concentration, the two intentionally added biocides (chlorine dioxide, silver) and the fragrance allergens were found far more consistently and at far higher concentrations, consistent with the classic HAPs being incidental base-formulation contaminants rather than deliberately added ingredients.
Moderate evidence.
Caveats
An inference from detection-frequency and concentration patterns in one survey, not a source-attribution (chemical-origin) study; the paper itself does not test whether these HAPs come from the base formulation.
Source: Kim et al. 2018, Science of The Total Environment Link to this fact
Fragrance is everywhere / Other evidence
More than 2,000 chemical substances, of which 300 to 400 are of natural origin, are used across the fragrance industry, and a single perfume can contain from a few to several hundred individual fragrance materials.
Moderate evidence: Industry-wide chemical count from a single review citing an industry-adjacent source (ref 10); see the broader chemical-count provenance problem.
Source: de Groot 2020, Dermatitis 31(1):13-35, Dermatitis® Link to this fact
Fragrance is everywhere / Advocacy group testing
The UV filter ethylhexyl methoxycinnamate, found in several of the tested perfumes, and limonene, one of the most common fragrance ingredients, are both flagged by this report as environmentally problematic; the EU classifies limonene as very toxic to aquatic life.
Moderate evidence.
Caveats
The water-contamination claim for ethylhexyl methoxycinnamate specifically is supported in the report only by a citation to a review of a different, though related, UV filter (oxybenzone); however, an independent peer-reviewed marine-ecotoxicology review (Hodge et al. 2025) now corroborates the general pattern that organic UV filters including EHMC are detected in marine water, sediment, and biota worldwide (ng/L-mg/L), including remote regions with no direct use (Antarctica, the Arctic), and lists EHMC as the third-most-studied organic UV filter in that literature.
Source: Tegengif 2022 Link to this fact
Fragrance is everywhere / Self-reported survey
Among 718 non-smoking Saudi university students surveyed in 2020, 65.7% (472) reported using scented candles, and usage was far more common among women (74.9% of female respondents) than men (28.4% of male respondents, chi-square p=0.0001).
Moderate evidence: Convenience/snowball sample recruited via WhatsApp and Twitter, not a probability sample; may not generalize beyond young, social-media-active Saudi university students.
Source: Al Khathlan et al. 2023, BMC Public Health Link to this fact
Fragrance is everywhere / Government agency
Endocrine disruptors can combine to produce a 'cocktail effect': a mixture of several endocrine disruptors, each too dilute on its own to cause a detectable effect, can still produce an adverse effect together.
Moderate evidence: The Commission cites this as a general, growing evidence base, not as a demonstrated effect for any specific consumer-product combination.
Source: EU Commission 2018 Link to this fact
Fragrance is everywhere / Measured in people or real products
Matching the ingredient lists of 7,603 Korean household chemical products (cleaners, synthetic detergents, fabric softeners, air fresheners, deodorants) against a hormone-disruption hazard database found 293 flagged chemicals, and nearly two out of three products listed more than one of them.
Moderate evidence: Counts ingredient-list matches against EPA ToxCast/CompTox hazard flags, not measured concentrations or confirmed toxicity in the products as sold; single-country database study.
Source: Lee & Ji 2022, Ecotoxicology and Environmental Safety Link to this fact
Fragrance is everywhere / Other evidence
Researchers found multiple fragrance sources (cosmetics, air fresheners, cleaning/laundry products, fragrance-emitting devices, or candles) in every one of the 37 homes they surveyed for a chemical-intolerance study.
Moderate evidence.
Caveats
Sample is self-selected chemical-intolerance patients recruited from a specialty clinic, not a general-population sample; fragrance ubiquity may be overrepresented relative to the general population's home inventories.
Source: Rincón et al. 2024, Primary Health Care Research & Development Link to this fact
Fragrance is everywhere / Measured in people or real products
In a study of 164 pregnant women in New York City, the phthalate metabolites MEP and MnBP were detected in 100% of urine samples.
Moderate evidence.
Caveats
Single cohort (n=164), minority pregnant women in one US city, not nationally representative; the video's specific '95% of 100 people' figure is not itself confirmed anywhere in our evidence base, but the direction is right and, if anything, conservative — this and a second small cohort (33 breastfeeding North Carolina women, Hines 2009, c-bdc5cb74a2, 'nearly all' urine samples) both found detection at or near 100%, and MEP (DEP's metabolite) is separately confirmed as the most abundant phthalate in US biomonitoring (c-287b7bebca, Crinnion 2010, citing NHANES). No single graded claim states a national (NHANES) detection percentage in our evidence base.
Source: Just 2010 (or equivalent NYC pregnant-women cohort), Journal of Exposure Science and Environmental Epidemiology Link to this fact
Fragrance is everywhere / Measured in people or real products
Even mothers with no known triclosan-containing personal care products had detectable triclosan in their blood plasma and breast milk, showing everyday exposure sources beyond labeled cosmetic products.
Moderate evidence: The paper does not identify which background source (textiles, plastics, fatty food) is responsible; it only shows that some non-product source exists.
Source: Allmyr 2006, Science of The Total Environment Link to this fact
Fragrance is everywhere / Measured in people or real products
Using a mannequin-head aerosol sampler and real product-use simulation, researchers found that every one of 10 consumer spray products tested (antimicrobial silver, facial, hair, disinfectant, and skin-hydrating sprays) released measurable ultrafine (14-100 nm) aerosol particles into the breathing zone, whether or not the product was marketed as 'nanotechnology-based.'
Moderate evidence: Single-lab study, 10 products (not a market survey); doses were very low (about 0.002-0.05 ng/kg bw per one-minute application) and no health outcome was assessed.
Source: Nazarenko 2014, Environmental Science: Nano Link to this fact
Fragrance is everywhere / Measured in people or real products
The spray products with the most visible nanoparticles under an electron microscope (a silver nanospray, a disinfectant nanospray, and a regular silver spray) actually produced the LOWEST measured aerosol inhalation exposures of the 10 products tested, while some products with little or no visible nanoparticle content produced among the highest nanosized-aerosol exposures — so how much nano-material a product visibly contains does not predict how much aerosol you actually breathe in from using it.
Moderate evidence: Single-lab study of 10 products; the paper reports this as an internal finding across its own product set, not a replicated cross-study result.
Source: Nazarenko 2014, Environmental Science: Nano Link to this fact
Fragrance is everywhere / Measured in people or real products
Regular, direct mucosal exposure to a high-ethanol mouthwash (21.6% ethanol, gargled 4 times daily for up to 13 days) did not raise blood phosphatidylethanol, a sensitive systemic ethanol biomarker, to the 20 ng/mL forensic threshold in any of 15 participants; group means stayed under 4 ng/mL throughout.
Moderate evidence: Small (n=15), single-lab, uncontrolled pilot study with no control group; one participant showed an isolated, unexplained 12-13 ng/mL rise on the final day.
Source: Reisfield 2021, Journal of Analytical Toxicology Link to this fact
Fragrance is everywhere / Measured in people or real products
The study's own protocol lists 'hygiene products (e.g., deodorant sprays; aftershave lotions; perfumes; cosmetics; insect repellents)' alongside mouthwash as products that contain or may contain ethanol, and had participants avoid them as confounding ethanol sources.
Moderate evidence: This is a study-design control list, not a measurement of ethanol content or absorption from perfumes/cosmetics specifically.
Source: Reisfield 2021, Journal of Analytical Toxicology Link to this fact
Fragrance is everywhere / Measured in people or real products
In a lab test using isolated yarn bundles soaked in a synthetic sweat solution spiked with nine odor VOCs, cellulosic fibers (cotton, mercerized cotton, viscose) released far less ketone and aldehyde odor compound into the air at 30 minutes and 3 hours than wool, nylon, or polyester fibers did (e.g. 2-heptanone at 30 min: 201-559 ncps for the three cellulosics vs. 9983-55,609 ncps for polyester, wool, and nylon; F(5,12)=28.86, P<0.001).
Moderate evidence.
Caveats
Single lab, isolated yarn bundles rather than fabric or worn garments, sterile synthetic sweat solution with no skin bacteria, room temperature and pH 4.3 rather than axillary conditions (32-35C, pH 5.2-6.6).
Source: McQueen 2024, Textile Research Journal Link to this fact
Fragrance is everywhere / Measured in people or real products
By 24 hours after sweat-solution treatment, polyester was the only one of six fiber types still releasing significantly higher amounts of ketone and aldehyde odor compounds into the headspace than the rest (e.g. 2-heptanone 63.8 ncps vs. 1.7-4.3 for the other five fibers, F(5,12)=3.22, P<0.05), while wool and nylon — the highest emitters at 30 minutes — had dropped to levels statistically indistinguishable from the cellulosic fibers by then.
Moderate evidence: Single lab, isolated yarn bundles not fabric or garments, only 24 hours of drying tested (no longer wear/storage period), sterile synthetic sweat only.
Source: McQueen 2024, Textile Research Journal Link to this fact
Fragrance is everywhere / Measured in people or real products
Sweat-borne carboxylic acids (butanoic, isovaleric, hexanoic acid) behaved oppositely to ketones and aldehydes in the same experiment: wool released significantly less of all three acids than every other fiber tested at 30 minutes and 3 hours (e.g. butanoic acid at 3 h: wool 269 ncps vs. 605-1361 ncps for the other five fibers; F(5,12)=44.77, P<0.001), even though wool was among the highest ketone/aldehyde emitters in the same test.
Moderate evidence.
Caveats
Single lab, isolated yarn bundles not fabric or garments, sterile synthetic sweat solution; acid-vs-ketone/aldehyde reversal for wool is specific to this compound set and has not been replicated.
Source: McQueen 2024, Textile Research Journal Link to this fact
Fragrance is everywhere / Other evidence
In a 2013 national survey of 7,131 French people, two-thirds of adult women (67%) and nearly half of adult men (47%) used perfume in the past year, applying it close to once a day on average.
Moderate evidence.
Caveats
Single cross-sectional French survey using categorical 12-month recall, not a weighed diary; frequency for very-frequent products may be underestimated (the scale capped at twice-daily).
Source: Ficheux et al. 2015, Food and Chemical Toxicology Link to this fact
Fragrance is everywhere / Measured in people or real products
Girls aged 4-14 generally used less cosmetic product per application than adult women — for example, 2.94 g vs 10.19 g (95th percentile) of make-up-remover micellar water — but used *more* face moisturizing cream per application than adult women did (95th percentile 3.03 g vs 2.63 g).
Moderate evidence: Small girls' subgroups (n=12-18) relative to the adult-women comparison groups.
Source: Ficheux et al. 2016 (amount data), Food and Chemical Toxicology Link to this fact
Fragrance is everywhere / Measured in people or real products
Aerosol deodorant/antiperspirant delivers more product per application (mean about 1.27-1.39 g) than roll-on (about 1.0 g) or stick (about 0.6 g) formats, for both French men and women — a pattern relevant to comparing inhalation-relevant exposure across deodorant formats.
Moderate evidence.
Source: Ficheux et al. 2016 (amount data), Food and Chemical Toxicology Link to this fact
Fragrance is everywhere / Self-reported survey
The most commonly named problem odors among migraine patients in this German clinic sample were sweet perfumes, food odors, and cigarette smoke, with sweet perfumes the single most frequently named odor across every phase of the migraine cycle (approx. 36% of patients named it for osmophobia in general, read from Fig. 1).
Moderate evidence: Fig. 1 percentages are approximate, read from a bar chart, not printed as exact table values.
Source: Gossrau 2022, The Journal of Headache and Pain Link to this fact
Fragrance is everywhere / Measured in people or real products
Even at musk levels roughly an order of magnitude below US, South Korean, and Danish cohorts, synthetic musk fragrance chemicals were still detected in 95% of blood, cord-blood, and breast-milk samples from 42 Shanghai mothers and their newborns.
Moderate evidence.
Caveats
Shanghai musk levels were roughly an order of magnitude lower than comparable US, South Korean or Danish cohorts, reflecting lower musk-containing product use in China in 2007; no product-use data were actually collected in this study to confirm the cause.
Source: Zhang 2015, International Journal of Hygiene and Environmental Health Link to this fact
Fragrance is everywhere / Other evidence
Retailers deliberately diffuse essential-oil scents such as lavender and grapefruit into stores through ceramic diffusers and coordinate them with background music.
Moderate evidence: Describes one experimental store; the paper does not measure how common this is and gives no air concentrations.
Source: Mattila & Wirtz 2001, Journal of Retailing, Journal of Retailing Link to this fact
Fragrance is everywhere / Other evidence
The 2005 flavor-industry paper names, as components of the essential oils it covers, chemicals that are also common fragrance allergens: linalool (coriander oil), limonene, citral (lemongrass), eugenol (clove bud oil) and cinnamaldehyde.
Moderate evidence: The paper evaluates oral intake only and never mentions allergy or sensitization; it supports the shared chemistry, not any skin or airway effect. Industry-authored (FEMA).
Source: Smith 2005, Food and Chemical Toxicology Industry-funded Link to this fact
Fragrance is everywhere / Other evidence
In a lab study, lemon-oil microcapsules (gelatin-gum arabic, hardened with glutaraldehyde) applied to cotton gave strong scent that disappeared after one to two washes: a scent survived one 40 C wash only at higher hardener ratios (glutaraldehyde-to-polymer 0.05:1 or more), and no sample was detectable by the sensory panel after the second wash.
Moderate evidence: Single oil, single fabric, qualitative sensory scoring, no statistics; says nothing about health.
Source: Miró Specos 2010, Journal of Industrial Textiles Link to this fact
Fragrance is everywhere / Other evidence
Scent-finished ('aroma') clothing is a deliberately engineered product: fragrance oil is encapsulated and bonded to cotton fibers, and in this study yeast-cell capsules were still visible on the fibers by electron microscopy after the scent was gone.
Moderate evidence: Lab prototype from an Argentine textile institute, not a survey of what is sold; capsule fate in wash water and dust was not measured.
Source: Miró Specos 2010, Journal of Industrial Textiles Link to this fact
Fragrance is everywhere / Other evidence
Ambient fragrance is diffused deliberately into ordinary retail spaces, including clothing stores, by commercial scent-marketing firms using electric heated-evaporation diffusers.
Moderate evidence: Describes one store; the paper does not measure how common the practice is.
Source: Doucé & Janssens 2013, Environment and Behavior, Environment and Behavior Link to this fact
Fragrance is everywhere / Other evidence
Many 'natural flavor' oils judged by this food procedure are also fragrance and essential-oil materials, but the procedure only counts what is eaten, with no branch for inhaled or skin exposure.
Moderate evidence: Absence of an inhalation step in a food-intake method, not evidence of harm; overlap of materials is from the group list, not stated by the authors. Industry-authored (FEMA).
Source: Cohen 2018, Food and Chemical Toxicology Industry-funded Link to this fact
Fragrance is everywhere / Other evidence
Most human phthalate studies measure breakdown products in urine or blood, which cannot show whether the phthalate came from plastic, food, cosmetics, or fragrance.
Moderate evidence: Review-level description of the exposure measures in the cited studies; the review itself notes plasma and serum samples may be contaminated by lab plastics.
Source: Mesquita 2021, Molecular Reproduction and Development Link to this fact
Fragrance is everywhere / Other evidence
In a 2022 test of 120 new garments for pregnant women, babies, and toddlers bought in Catalonia, Spain, formaldehyde was measurable (at least 12.8 mg/kg) in about 1 in 5, up to 55.7 mg/kg, and none exceeded the 75 mg/kg EU limit.
Moderate evidence: One study, one region, 10 items per category, new garments, and a high detection limit (12.8 mg/kg); lower levels were not quantified.
Information, not medical advice. See also: myths we won’t tell you.