Every fact on this site, with its evidence grade, its caveats, and a link to the source.
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.
The industry / Measured in people or real products
The independent dermatologists who ran this study suggested deodorants should contain hydroxycitronellal at less than 0.032% to protect people already sensitized, well under the fragrance industry's own 1987 recommendation equating to about 1% in finished consumer products.
Moderate evidence.
Caveats
Authors' own recommendation, not a regulatory outcome; 0.032% is only the lowest concentration this single-center study tested, not a demonstrated safe floor, and the industry cap was set from human sensitization (induction) testing, not this elicitation data.
Source: Svedman et al. 2003, Contact Dermatitis Link to this fact
The industry / Other evidence
The fragrance industry lowered its recommended limit for isoeugenol in consumer products from 0.2% to 0.02% in 1998, in response to documented high and rising rates of contact allergy to it.
Moderate evidence.
Caveats
A single documented industry guideline change; the review notes it is unknown whether this will actually reduce isoeugenol sensitization, since chemically similar substitutes can cross-react.
Source: Johansen 2003, Am J Clin Dermatol 4(11):789-798, American Journal of Clinical Dermatology Link to this fact
The industry / Measured in people or real products
The fragrance industry's own study found that grasping a scented candle for a total of 100 seconds transfers only about a quarter of a microgram per square centimeter of cinnamic aldehyde and eugenol to skin, which the authors say leaves a 1,000-fold or larger safety margin below the industry's own dermal sensitization threshold.
Moderate evidence.
Caveats
Industry-funded (RIFM and fragrance-industry co-authors); the comparison threshold ('NOEL-HRIPT') itself comes from an unpublished 2006 RIFM/IFRA technical dossier, not independently reviewed data. The paper itself states two different safety-factor numbers for cinnamic aldehyde in the same paper (~1,000 in its own table vs ~2,000 in its discussion text), an unresolved internal inconsistency.
Source: Api 2007 (RIFM), Regulatory Toxicology and Pharmacology Industry-funded Link to this fact
The industry / Measured in people or real products
In the same candle, d-limonene transferred to hands in undetectable amounts in every subject and every round tested, while cinnamic aldehyde and eugenol transferred consistently — the study authors could not explain the difference and did not test whether the missing d-limonene had oxidized inside the candle into breakdown products that are known allergens.
Moderate evidence.
Caveats
Industry-authored (RIFM); the authors themselves raise, but did not test, in-candle auto-oxidation of d-limonene as one possible explanation, citing separate evidence that limonene's oxidation products are allergenic.
Source: Api 2007 (RIFM), Regulatory Toxicology and Pharmacology Industry-funded Link to this fact
The industry / Other evidence
An industry-funded study measured that leave-on antiperspirants, skin lotions, and hair-styling products send well under 1% (often under 0.1% by 24 hours) of their D5 (cyclopentasiloxane) content down the drain, with the rest inferred to evaporate.
Moderate evidence.
Caveats
Funded by the Canadian Cosmetic, Toiletry and Fragrance Association on behalf of the global personal care industry; two of three authors are employed by Procter & Gamble and Unilever; initial (dose) samples used only 3-4 replicates; evaporation is inferred by mass balance, not directly measured.
Source: Montemayor 2013, Chemosphere Industry-funded Link to this fact
The industry / Other evidence
A rinse-off, in-shower hair conditioner discharged an estimated 40% of its applied D5 dose directly into wash water within 1-3 minutes of application, far more than any leave-on product tested.
Moderate evidence: The authors themselves call the 40% figure 'only an approximation' because the dosing control had just 4 replicates with high relative variance.
Source: Montemayor 2013, Chemosphere Industry-funded Link to this fact
The industry / Lab study (cells or chemistry)
Five parabens tested for comparison were, as a group, more estrogenic in this assay than any of the fragrance ingredients: benzylparaben was the single most potent substance in the whole study, exceeding estradiol's own maximal effect, yet the paper notes several fragrances with comparable estrogenic potency to parabens have not received similar regulatory attention.
Moderate evidence.
Caveats
Comparable EEF means similar relative potency ranking within this one assay, not equivalent real-world exposure or risk; parabens and these fragrances both need human dose data before any exposure comparison can be drawn.
The industry / Review of other studies
The 2016 published critique that prompted Kim et al. to revise their scented-candle formaldehyde paper was authored by two National Candle Association staff members, not independent scientists.
Moderate evidence.
Caveats
The critique also identified a real methodological point (chamber concentrations do not equal room concentrations), which the responding authors accepted; industry authorship does not by itself make that specific point wrong.
Source: Kim et al. 2016, Journal of Hazardous Materials Link to this fact
The industry / Review of other studies
After a separate 'exception letter' sent in March 2015 by the National Candle Association, the original study's authors deleted a sentence reporting that formaldehyde in three scented-candle types (925, 1022, and 2098 ppb) exceeded workplace TLV (325 ppb) and PEL (730 ppb) limits, and softened a paper highlight from 'exposure levels of some species are high enough to exceed guideline values' to 'can approach or exceed certain guideline values.'
Moderate evidence.
Caveats
This is a documented instance of a trade association prompting language softening and deletion of a specific hazard finding in an academic paper's corrigendum; it does not mean the underlying revised emission-factor numbers (which went up, not down) are wrong.
Source: Kim et al. 2016, Journal of Hazardous Materials Link to this fact
The industry / Review of other studies
Heinze and Silverman correctly identified that Kim et al.'s original formaldehyde concentrations, measured in a small 4.2-liter test chamber, cannot be directly scaled to real room volumes without correction.
Moderate evidence.
Caveats
Kim et al. accept this specific scaling point in their response; it is the critics' resulting room-scale 'safe' number, not this methodological point itself, that is undermined by the emission-factor correction.
Source: Kim et al. 2016, Journal of Hazardous Materials Link to this fact
The industry / Animal study
Scented candles are marketed and used in hotels, restaurants, and spas for a calming, stress-relieving aromatherapy effect, but in a mouse model, scented candle fume exposure did not significantly reduce the stress hormone corticosterone that chronic social-disruption stress had raised.
Moderate evidence.
Caveats
The study exposed mice to candle combustion fumes, not a controlled scent-only stimulus, so it cannot separate a candle's psychological/olfactory calming effect (untested here) from its combustion-product toxicity; a human user's subjective calming experience is not ruled out by this animal biomarker result.
Source: Chandrasekaran 2021, Current Research in Toxicology Link to this fact
The industry / Review of other studies
Fragrance safety in the EU currently relies on industry self-regulation, managed by the International Fragrance Association (IFRA) and its research arm, the Research Institute for Fragrance Materials (RIFM); this report says it is unclear how much EU member states independently monitor compliance.
Moderate evidence.
Source: Tegengif 2022 Link to this fact
The industry / Measured in people or real products
A single fragrance molecule, beta-ionone, blocks the same nose receptors that detect the sulfur malodor methanethiol (a component of bad breath and sewer gas): when the malodor and beta-ionone were mixed and inhaled through one nostril, people rated the smell as weaker and less unpleasant, but when the same two odors were delivered to separate nostrils at the same time, that reduction disappeared, showing the masking happens at the receptor level rather than only in the brain's later processing.
Moderate evidence.
Caveats
Single lab, single 20-to-30-person Japanese cohort with no independent replication; several authors are S.T. Corporation (deodorant manufacturer) employees or patent-holders on this work, and one author has received fragrance-industry funding (Givaudan, Kao, ChemCom), which does not invalidate the physiology but is relevant to how the finding may be marketed.
Source: Fukutani et al. 2023, Current Biology Industry-funded Link to this fact
The industry / Lab study (cells or chemistry)
In lab dish tests, three human smell receptors that detect the sulfur gases methanethiol and hydrogen sulfide (OR2T1, OR2T6, OR2T11) only responded strongly when copper was added to the mix, and a copper-grabbing chemical shut the response back down, indicating these malodor receptors sense sulfur gases by using copper ions to grab onto them.
Moderate evidence.
Caveats
Heterologous cell-culture assay only, at concentrations far higher than natural environmental levels, per the authors' own discussion; not directly observed in olfactory neurons or in vivo.
Source: Fukutani et al. 2023, Current Biology Industry-funded Link to this fact
The industry / Measured in people or real products
Comparing this follow-up survey to FDA's original 2002-06 testing, 8 of 25 directly comparable cosmetic products no longer contained any phthalate ester, and nail products' any-phthalate detection rate fell from 6 of 6 to 11 of 24, evidence that some manufacturers reformulated to remove phthalate esters.
Moderate evidence: Category-level comparison across two separate market-basket surveys of not-identical product lots, not a matched before/after test of the same products.
Source: Hubinger 2010, Journal of Cosmetic Science Link to this fact
The industry / Measured in people or real products
FDA's own follow-up survey found dibutyl phthalate (DBP) persisting in nail products at concentrations essentially unchanged from its earlier 2006 survey (max 62,607 vs 59,815 ug/g), even as the share of DBP-positive nail products fell, complicating the assumption that phthalates were fully phased out of US nail polish by 2010.
Moderate evidence: Single FDA lab's own two surveys of different, non-identical product lots each time, not a matched-brand or matched-lot before/after test.
Source: Hubinger 2010, Journal of Cosmetic Science Link to this fact
The industry / Review of other studies
Global production of UV filters is estimated at about 10 million metric tons a year, of which 6,000-14,000 metric tons are released into coral reef zones annually; the global sunscreen market was valued at $10.3 billion in 2022 and is projected to reach $13.64 billion by 2026.
Moderate evidence: Production and market-value figures are industry/market-research estimates relayed by the review, not independently measured environmental releases.
Source: Hodge 2025, Marine Pollution Bulletin Link to this fact
The industry / Review of other studies
The study's authors estimate the societal cost of DEHP-attributable years of life lost at roughly $10.2 billion to $3.7 trillion depending on the economic valuation method used, and argue that plastic producers pursue production for profit without this cost being reflected in economic tradeoffs.
Moderate evidence.
Caveats
Cost estimates are illustrative extrapolations using standard economic valuation methods (SCYLL, value of a statistical life), not a formal cost-benefit analysis; the wide range reflects high sensitivity to the valuation method chosen.
The industry / Government agency
In February 1992, the Business Council on Indoor Air (an indoor-air industry trade association) told HUD that the American Medical Association, American Association of Allergy and Immunology, American College of Physicians, and American College of Occupational and Environmental Medicine had all stated (December 1991) that there was "inadequate scientific evidence to establish the existence of MCS as a disorder," and asked HUD to correct guidance that recognized MCS as a handicap.
Moderate evidence.
Caveats
Reported via the trade association's own letter and white paper, not read directly from the cited medical-society statements; BCIA is an interested industry group asking a housing regulator to narrow disability protections, which does not by itself make its scientific summary wrong but is a relevant interest to disclose.
Source: BCIA letter (1992) Link to this fact
The industry / Self-reported survey
The cosmetics industry generated its own dataset for how much lipstick, body lotion, and face cream people actually use, written by staff of the cosmetics trade association (CTFA), the fragrance industry's safety institute (RIFM), a contract statistics firm, and personal-care manufacturers including P&G, Unilever, Avon, Johnson & Johnson, Mary Kay, L'Oreal, Bath & Body Works and Takasago.
Moderate evidence.
Caveats
No funding statement is printed in the paper, but every author's affiliation is a cosmetics/fragrance trade body or personal-care manufacturer; absence of a disclosure is not evidence of independence.
Source: Loretz 2005, Food and Chemical Toxicology Industry-funded Link to this fact
The industry / Measured in people or real products
The fragrance industry's amount-per-use inputs for lipstick, body lotion, and face cream in its own aggregate exposure model come from a study where subjects used an unfamiliar substitute product for two weeks, not their own regular brand, and where the probability of daily use fell from about 99% on day 1 to 74-79% by day 14, fastest among the women who disliked the assigned product.
Moderate evidence.
Caveats
The study's own authors note this decline could mean either real underuse from dislike or could mean the high end of use reflects spillage or other household members using the product; the direction of any resulting bias in the industry's exposure model is not established.
Source: Loretz 2005, Food and Chemical Toxicology Industry-funded Link to this fact
The industry / Self-reported survey
The cosmetics and fragrance industry generated its own dataset for how much perfume, hairspray, foundation, shampoo, body wash, and antiperspirant people actually use, written by staff of the cosmetics trade association (CTFA), the fragrance industry's safety institute (RIFM), and personal-care manufacturers including P&G, Unilever, Avon, Johnson & Johnson, Mary Kay, L'Oreal, Dial, and Takasago.
Moderate evidence.
Caveats
No funding statement is printed in the paper, but every author's affiliation is a cosmetics/fragrance trade body or personal-care manufacturer; absence of a disclosure is not evidence of independence.
Source: Loretz 2006, Food and Chemical Toxicology Industry-funded Link to this fact
The industry / Self-reported survey
Real-time diaries found people using hairspray and other personal-care products up to six times more often than an older survey that just asked women to recall their past use, even though the two studies agreed fairly well on how much was used per application — suggesting recall surveys mainly undercount how often people use a product, not how much they use each time.
Moderate evidence.
Caveats
The 1983 comparison survey's protocol was not standardized or described, so the size of the gap cannot be fully attributed to recall bias versus a real change in behavior over the intervening two decades.
Source: Loretz 2006, Food and Chemical Toxicology Industry-funded Link to this fact
The industry / Government agency
Twelve of the 28 public comments on the 2007 air-freshener petition came from air-freshener manufacturers and industry trade associations (including Reckitt Benckiser, SC Johnson, the Consumer Specialty Products Association, the American Chemistry Council's Phthalate Esters Panel, and the Fragrance Materials Association), all opposing every part of the petition and citing the fragrance industry's own self-regulatory bodies (RIFM, IFRA) as sufficient oversight.
Moderate evidence: Comment content as characterized by EPA, not independently verified against the original comment letters by this evidence base.
Source: EPA 2007 Link to this fact
The industry / Self-reported survey
The cosmetics industry generated its own dataset for how much facial cleanser, hair conditioner, and eye shadow people actually use, written by staff of the cosmetics trade association (CTFA), the fragrance industry's safety institute (RIFM), a contract statistics firm, and personal-care manufacturers including Procter & Gamble, Dial, Unilever, Johnson & Johnson, Mary Kay, L'Oreal, and Takasago, whose own conflict-of-interest statement says 'there are no conflicts of interest.'
Moderate evidence.
Caveats
No separate funding statement is printed in the paper, but every author's affiliation is a cosmetics/fragrance trade body or personal-care manufacturer; the paper's own 'no conflicts' declaration does not amount to independent verification.
Source: Loretz 2008, Food and Chemical Toxicology Industry-funded Link to this fact
The industry / Measured in people or real products
US women in this study used far more hair conditioner (28.2 g/day at the 90th percentile) and somewhat more eye shadow (0.052 g/day) than the amounts the EU's cosmetics safety regulator (SCCS) uses in its own risk-assessment formula for those same product categories (3.92 g/day and 0.02 g/day) — a 7.2-fold and 2.6-fold gap, unlike lipstick, where the EU and US figures are essentially identical when compared at the same percentile.
Moderate evidence.
Caveats
The SCCS's hair-conditioner/eye-shadow figures trace to older, smaller European sources (a 2000 opinion, a 2012 paper, a 1997 industry document) not benchmarked the same way as its main 11-category dataset; the gap could reflect a real US-EU usage difference, a dataset-quality gap, or both, and is not resolved by either paper. The SCCS Table 3B values have no stated percentile (they come from older SCCNFP/Colipa sources, not the Hall P90 data); the US mean (13.77 g/day conditioner, 0.04 g/day eye shadow) is also about 3.5x and 2x higher, so the gap holds either way.
Source: Loretz 2008, Food and Chemical Toxicology Industry-funded Link to this fact
The industry / Other evidence
A QSAR model (SKINPERM) used to predict skin permeability over-predicted the actual measured penetration rate and permeability of propylene glycol and dipropylene glycol through human skin by roughly 2.6- to 5.1-fold in this 2011 study.
Moderate evidence.
Caveats
One of the study's own co-authors (ten Berge) developed the SKINPERM model being validated here, a non-independent validation; the error runs in the conservative direction (over-prediction), which does not favor the sponsors' commercial interest in showing low absorption.
Source: Fasano 2011, Toxicology in Vitro Industry-funded Link to this fact
The industry / Government agency
Benzophenone is widely used as a UV-curing photoinitiator for inks and varnishes, a fragrance fixative/enhancer and flavoring agent, a UV blocker in plastic packaging, and an additive in coatings, adhesives, laundry and household cleaning products; the US EPA classified it a high-production-volume chemical in 2003, with US annual production exceeding 1 million pounds (453,000 kg).
Moderate evidence: Production/use figures are the Working Group's synthesis of industry and HSDB/NTP secondary sources, not independently verified primary measurement.
Source: IARC 2013 Link to this fact
The industry / Other evidence
The industry surveys behind today's EU and US cosmetic safety limits (Hall 2007/2011 for Europe, Loretz 2005/2006/2008 for the US) measured how much product people use and how often, but the US survey never itself calculated a dose-per-bodyweight exposure figure — that conversion is done later, by the industry's own aggregate exposure models.
Moderate evidence: Describes only whether a dose-normalized figure was computed in the original survey, not whether the industry's later exposure models (Comiskey/Safford) did so correctly.
Source: Ficheux 2019, Table 3, Food and Chemical Toxicology Industry-funded Link to this fact
The industry / Lab study (cells or chemistry)
Cosmetics Europe (the European cosmetics industry trade association) funded a standardized, OECD-compliant lab study measuring 24-hour skin penetration of 56 cosmetic-relevant chemicals, authored by scientists employed by L'Oreal, Unilever, Pierre Fabre, Procter & Gamble, BASF, Coty, and Beiersdorf, with the explicit goal of replacing a flat 50% default assumption about how much of an applied chemical passes through skin with chemical-specific measured data.
Moderate evidence.
Caveats
Industry-funded and industry-authored throughout; the paper states 'the authors state no conflict of interest,' which addresses personal financial conflicts, not the industry funding and employment of the entire author list.
Source: Hewitt 2020, Journal of Applied Toxicology Industry-funded Link to this fact
The industry / Lab study (cells or chemistry)
For the 7 chemicals in this dataset with published human in vivo comparison data (hydrocortisone, testosterone, ibuprofen, benzoic acid, caffeine, DNCB, and nitrobenzene — none of them fragrance ingredients), measured skin penetration ranged from about 3% to 63% of the applied dose, a more than 20-fold spread that straddles the industry's flat 50% dermal-absorption default from well below to just above it.
Moderate evidence.
Caveats
Only 7 of the 56 chemicals had in vivo comparison data available; none of the 7 is a fragrance ingredient; single industry-funded lab, though methodology follows OECD test guideline 428.
Source: Hewitt 2020, Journal of Applied Toxicology Industry-funded Link to this fact
The industry / Lab study (cells or chemistry)
In this standardized dataset, several volatile test chemicals lost most of their applied dose to evaporation from the skin surface rather than to skin absorption — naphthalene's mass balance was only 27% of the applied dose and 4-tolunitrile's only 20% — but the study measures only dermal delivery (skin plus receptor fluid) and never quantifies or discusses the airborne exposure that this evaporation implies for someone wearing a product containing these chemicals.
Moderate evidence.
Caveats
This is a methodological gap in the study's design (dermal-only endpoints), not a measured inhalation finding; extends our C178 entry on the fragrance/cosmetics industry's recurring lack of an inhalation branch in its safety-assessment research.
Source: Hewitt 2020, Journal of Applied Toxicology Industry-funded Link to this fact
The industry / Government agency
The cosmetics industry's own safety panel (CIR, funded by the Personal Care Products Council) concluded in 2021 that Benzophenone-1, -2, -3, -4, -5, -6, -8, -9, -10, -11 and -12 are 'safe' in cosmetics at their present concentrations of use, including Benzophenone-3 (oxybenzone) used as a light stabilizer or fragrance-formulation ingredient at up to 0.5%.
Moderate evidence.
Caveats
This is the industry panel's own conclusion, not an independent or governmental safety finding; CIR is funded by the Personal Care Products Council. The Panel's Discussion and Conclusion sections address only carcinogenicity and incidental inhalation; they never revisit the extensive endocrine-activity data the same report catalogs in its own body.
Source: CIR 2021 Benzophenones Industry-funded Link to this fact
The industry / Lab study (cells or chemistry)
A 2022 skin-absorption study of linalool, funded by the fragrance industry's own safety institute (RIFM) and run by RIFM's long-term contract lab, tested only fresh linalool and did not report the test material's oxidation state or test air-oxidized linalool, the form clinical studies link to skin allergy.
Moderate evidence: Industry-funded (RIFM); the gap mirrors the same undisclosed-oxidation-state pattern documented in RIFM's separate 2003 sensitization dossier for linalool.
Source: Brain et al. 2022 (An-eX/RIFM), International Journal of Pharmaceutics Industry-funded Link to this fact
The industry / Government agency
The COSMILE Europe cosmetic-ingredient app and database is run by Cosmetics Europe, described in its own press release as "the European trade association for the cosmetics and personal care industry," together with 12 national cosmetics-industry member associations, not by the European Commission or any EU government body.
Moderate evidence: This is the organization's own self-description of its ownership and funding, not an independent audit; the app itself was first built by a German industry association (IKW).
Source: Cosmetics Europe 2023 Industry-funded Link to this fact
The industry / Measured in people or real products
This study, funded by NIEHS and NSF with no fragrance, cosmetic or nanotechnology industry funding declared, provides independent quantitative aerosol inhalation-exposure and respiratory-deposited-dose data for consumer spray products — exactly the kind of physical measurement missing from industry inhalation-exposure processes that have historically modeled only dermal or systemic routes for sprays.
Moderate evidence.
Caveats
This paper measures physical aerosol mass only; it does not itself assess systemic absorption, toxicology, or health risk, so it settles the exposure-measurement gap, not the risk question.
Source: Nazarenko 2014, Environmental Science: Nano Link to this fact
The industry / Government agency
A 2024 CIR draft stated that industry-submitted laser-diffraction survey data show an average of 26.6% (+/- 13.4% SD) of particles released from propellant deodorant/antiperspirant sprays are small enough to reach the deep lung (<10 micron), versus under 1% for pump sprays.
Moderate evidence.
Caveats
Document is stamped 'Distributed for Comment Only — Do Not Cite or Quote' and was still under Panel discussion as of the Dec 2024 meeting; the underlying particle-size data are unpublished industry submissions (self-reported, small n=3 companies), not an independently published study.
Source: CIR draft (Zhu) 2024 Industry-funded Link to this fact
The industry / Government agency
A 2024 CIR draft stated that dry shampoo powders released the highest respirable-particle fraction (<10 micron) of any cosmetic spray type tested in a 2023 study, ranging 16.66-32.27% across 8 products, and set a default assumption of 25% respirable fraction for dry shampoo in its own exposure calculations.
Moderate evidence: Draft, marked do-not-cite; the 25% default is CIR's own conservative modeling choice, not a measured population average.
Source: CIR draft (Zhu) 2024 Industry-funded Link to this fact
The industry / Government agency
A 2024 CIR draft's meeting transcript recorded that an earlier version of its propellant-deodorant exposure calculation used a 5% respirable-particle-fraction assumption, which two Expert Panel members identified as very likely wrong given the same document's own data showing a median particle diameter of about 10 micron for these sprays (implying roughly half the particles should be below the respirable threshold); the assumption was later revised upward (33%, then 26.6-40%).
Moderate evidence.
Caveats
This is a self-corrected internal drafting error surfaced in transcript discussion, not a peer-reviewed finding; the transcript indicates the error was first raised by an outside commenter (Women's Voices for the Earth) rather than caught internally.
Source: CIR draft (Zhu) 2024 Industry-funded Link to this fact
The industry / Government agency
A 2024 CIR draft stated that it could not determine whether cosmetic ingredients used in airbrush-delivered products are safe to inhale, citing a complete absence of publicly available particle-size or consumer-habits data and an unresolved regulatory jurisdiction gap between the FDA (ingredients) and the Consumer Product Safety Commission (devices).
Moderate evidence: Draft position, not a final published safety determination; reflects an acknowledged data gap rather than a tested finding.
Source: CIR draft (Zhu) 2024 Industry-funded Link to this fact
The industry / Other evidence
Using the cosmetics industry's own recommended default values, a typical fragrance pump-spray application works out to a systemic inhalation exposure dose of about 1.5×10^-6 mg per kg body weight per day for a substance present at 0.5% of the formula.
Moderate evidence.
Caveats
Every input is a literature-derived default, not a direct measurement of a real consumer's breathing-zone air; treat as an industry worst-case-to-realistic model output, not a measured exposure.
Source: Steiling et al. 2025, Toxicology Letters Industry-funded Link to this fact
The industry / Other evidence
As of 2025, the cosmetics industry's own safety scientists say the 'airborne fraction' values used to calculate inhalation exposure to hairspray, deodorant, and perfume sprays are a heuristic convenience carried over from a 2009 model, not physically grounded measurements, and a dedicated industry project (ICCS) to generate real product-specific values is still ongoing.
Moderate evidence: This is the industry's own admission of a data gap in its own exposure model, not an outside critique.
Source: Steiling et al. 2025, Toxicology Letters Industry-funded Link to this fact
The industry / Other evidence
Two industry surveys of how much hair pump spray women use give 95th-percentile (P95) values almost five-fold apart — 15.62 g/day (Loretz et al. 2006) versus 2.99 g per application and per day (Ficheux et al. 2015/2016) — and the 2025 review's own authors say the difference 'cannot be really explained.'
Moderate evidence: Splicing a mean from one survey next to a P95 from a different survey is a percentile mismatch, not evidence the two studies actually agree.
Source: Steiling et al. 2025, Toxicology Letters Industry-funded Link to this fact
The industry / Other evidence
A fragrance fixative left on skin for hours in a lotion or perfume penetrates far more than the same chemical in a soap that is quickly rinsed off: an FDA lab's modeled estimate for musk xylol found roughly 50-60 times more absorbed mass from a 12-hour lotion application than from a 4-minute soap wash, at realistic in-use concentrations and body-surface areas.
Moderate evidence: Modeled, not directly measured for this scenario; the Kp was derived from more-permeable hairless guinea pig skin, which the authors themselves say overestimates human absorption.
Source: Hood 1996, Food and Chemical Toxicology Link to this fact
The industry / Other evidence
The daily-use amounts the EU's official cosmetic-ingredient safety assessments (SCCS Notes of Guidance Table 3A) use for body lotion, lipstick, and deodorant non-spray trace directly to a Colipa (the EU cosmetics trade association)-commissioned industry study of 44,100 households and 18,057 individual consumers in five countries, and check out against that study's own published P90 data.
Moderate evidence.
Caveats
Industry-funded and industry-run (Colipa, with authors from L'Oreal, P&G, Unilever, Henkel, Beiersdorf and the commercial modeling contractor CREMe Software); the paper's own Conflict of Interest statement says "there are no conflicts of interest" despite only one of eight authors being academic.
Source: Hall 2007, Food and Chemical Toxicology Industry-funded Link to this fact
The industry / Other evidence
For body lotion, facial moisturizer, toothpaste and shampoo, the more often a person uses the product the less they use per application (an inverse correlation between frequency and amount-per-use); no such correlation exists for lipstick or deodorant/antiperspirant, so multiplying the maximum daily frequency by the maximum amount-per-event overstates exposure to the first four products — for body lotion, that naive worst-case calculation (47 g/day) is well above the study's own calculated 99.9th percentile of 17 g/day.
Moderate evidence.
Caveats
Industry-funded (Colipa); the correlation and its practical consequence are the study's own stated headline finding, not independently replicated elsewhere in this evidence base yet.
Source: Hall 2007, Food and Chemical Toxicology Industry-funded Link to this fact
The industry / Other evidence
This 2007 industry study found Europeans' deodorant/antiperspirant non-spray use had roughly tripled versus the ~15-year-old figure it replaced — from 0.5 g/day to 1.5 g/day (90th percentile) — which the authors attribute to changing personal-hygiene habits rather than a change in measurement method.
Moderate evidence: Industry-funded (Colipa); the attribution to genuine habit change versus improved/different measurement methodology is the authors' own interpretation, not separately tested.
Source: Hall 2007, Food and Chemical Toxicology Industry-funded Link to this fact
The industry / Other evidence
This paper's conservative-model design assumed every unit of cosmetic product recorded as sold (in national purchase-panel data) was actually used, and applied the single highest-use country's scale factor to the entire EU15 population for every product — e.g. EU15 shampoo exposure was modeled on Denmark's (the highest) usage and EU15 deodorant-spray exposure on Great Britain's (the highest) usage.
Moderate evidence: Industry-funded (Colipa); conservatism assumptions chosen by the study's own industry sponsors, not independently audited.
Source: Hall 2007, Food and Chemical Toxicology Industry-funded Link to this fact
The industry / Other evidence
An industry-funded 2014 modeling study (RIFM-organized consortium) found that formaldehyde and benzene exposure from normal scented-candle use, modeled using two indoor-dispersion models, came out well below WHO and EU indoor air guideline values.
Moderate evidence.
Caveats
The paper did not test acrolein or NO2 at all, and its PAH detection limit (8 ng/m3) was too coarse to have found the pg/m3-level benzo[a]pyrene a later, comparably-funded candle study (Salthammer 2021) measured exceeding WHO guidance; the 'no known health risk' conclusion is narrower than the pollutant panel it did not cover.
Source: Petry 2014, Regulatory Toxicology and Pharmacology Industry-funded Link to this fact
The industry / Other evidence
This industry-funded candle study's own conservative first-tier model found that modeled PM2.5 and PM10 exposure from scented candle use exceeded WHO guideline values, before being revised downward using more realistic candle-use habit data.
Moderate evidence.
Caveats
The exceedance is reported in body text and Table 7, not headlined in the abstract; the paper's final 'no safety concern' conclusion depends on substituting realistic use-frequency assumptions, not on the first-tier model alone.
Source: Petry 2014, Regulatory Toxicology and Pharmacology Industry-funded Link to this fact
The industry / Other evidence
The SCCS's own frequency-of-use default for conditioner, used across the EU to assess cosmetic ingredient safety, is lower than what French people actually report using — a gap the study's authors say could lead regulators to underestimate real-world exposure.
Moderate evidence.
Caveats
Most other common-cosmetic SCCS frequency defaults were in the same order of magnitude as the French data in this same comparison; conditioner was the clearest gap, not a general pattern.
Source: Ficheux et al. 2015, Table 7, Food and Chemical Toxicology Link to this fact
The industry / Other evidence
Comparing modeled French exposure against the EU regulator's (SCCS) own safety-assessment defaults, shampoo, conditioner, styling gel, styling lacquer, and styling foam all came in higher than the SCCS assumes for at least one demographic group — most strikingly styling foam, where every one of the three women's subgroups tested exceeded the SCCS value, by up to 3.6 times for women aged 15-39.
Moderate evidence.
Caveats
Single independent study (ANSM government-funded, not industry); the SCCS's own reference values come from older/smaller EU datasets (a 2000 SCCNFP opinion, a 1997 Colipa document) for some products, so part of the gap may reflect outdated SCCS inputs rather than only French-specific behavior.
Source: Ficheux et al. 2016 (exposure assessment), Food and Chemical Toxicology Link to this fact
The industry / Review of other studies
Ethyl acetate, toluene, and the acrylate monomers ethyl and methyl methacrylate were the predominant VOCs in nail-salon personal and area air, and were also confirmed as ingredients of nail polish and artificial-nail products via safety data sheet review.
Moderate evidence.
Caveats
Single pilot study of 7 salons in one US metro area; all personal-air levels were below the lowest occupational exposure limits (OELs not established for ethyl acrylate or p-isopropyltoluene).
The industry / Measured in people or real products
All cleaning products tested in this study (laundry detergent, fabric softener, dust/floor/glass cleaners, and a smoke remover) contained detectable VOCs; alkanes (mainly n-tetradecane, 87 µg/mL in the laundry detergent) and terpenes (mainly limonene, up to 64 µg/mL in the smoke-remover spray) were the dominant classes, while chlorine bleach (not itself tested for VOCs but used liberally) was linked to the chloroform and carbon tetrachloride found in laundry-room air.
Moderate evidence: Only 7 products from one hotel were tested; formulations vary by brand and hotel.
The industry / Government agency
New Zealand's 2026 cosmetics amendment updated its IFRA compliance reference from the 39th to the 50th amendment of the IFRA Standards published by the International Fragrance Association.
Moderate evidence.
Caveats
Confirms what a prior capture of this same instrument could only report as an unverified secondhand claim from background research; this ingest verified it by reading Schedule 3's definition directly.
Source: Cosmetic Products Group Standard 2020 (NZ, HSR002552, consolidated and current to 1 Jan 2026) Link to this fact
The industry / Other evidence
A Colipa (EU cosmetics trade association)-commissioned industry study of 80,000 households and 14,413 individual consumers in five European countries measured how much hair styling product, hand cream, liquid foundation, mouthwash, and shower gel Europeans actually use per day, and those figures (P90: 4.00, 2.16, 0.51, 21.62, and 18.67 g/day respectively) now feed directly into the EU's official cosmetic-ingredient safety assessments (SCCS Notes of Guidance Table 3A).
Moderate evidence.
Caveats
Industry-funded and industry-run (Colipa, with authors from L'Oreal, Henkel, Unilever, Procter & Gamble, Chanel and the commercial modeling contractor Creme); the paper's own Conflict of Interest statement says there are no conflicts of interest despite only one of eight authors being academic.
Source: Hall 2011, Food and Chemical Toxicology Industry-funded Link to this fact
The industry / Other evidence
For mouthwash and shower gel, the more often a person uses the product the less they use per application (a statistically significant inverse correlation: Spearman rho 0.36 for mouthwash and 0.23 for shower gel, both p<0.0001); no such correlation was found for hair styling, hand cream, or liquid foundation.
Moderate evidence: Industry-funded (Colipa); this is the study's own stated headline finding, not independently replicated elsewhere in this evidence base yet.
Source: Hall 2011, Food and Chemical Toxicology Industry-funded Link to this fact
The industry / Other evidence
Comparing new to ~15-year-old EU reference values, the two biggest changes among all 12 cosmetic product types this Colipa project has now studied are deodorant/antiperspirant non-spray (roughly tripling, 0.5 to 1.5 g/day) and shower gel (nearly doubling, 10 to 18.7 g/day), which the study's own industry authors attribute to changing personal-hygiene habits rather than a measurement-methods change.
Moderate evidence.
Caveats
Industry-funded (Colipa); the attribution to changed habits, rather than to the newer, larger and more rigorous measurement method itself, is the authors' own interpretation and is not independently tested in the paper.
Source: Hall 2011, Food and Chemical Toxicology Industry-funded Link to this fact
The industry / Other evidence
A 2011 industry follow-up study that restates the 2007 deodorant-spray daily-use figure (6.10 g/day) still could not say how much of that spray actually lands on skin — the same 'quantity leaving the can, not landing on skin, is under investigation' caveat as the original 2007 study, unresolved four years later.
Moderate evidence: Industry-funded (Colipa); deodorant spray is not one of this 2011 paper's own five studied products, so this is a restated figure, not a new measurement.
Source: Hall 2011, Food and Chemical Toxicology Industry-funded Link to this fact
The industry / Measured in people or real products
A French government-funded, weighed-container survey of 1,078 people found that a single application of hair-styling spray (pump) by adult women has a mean of 1.06 g and a 95th-percentile amount of 2.99 g (n=40) — the long-disputed 'Ficheux' number that an industry safety review had cited for years without this wiki being able to check the underlying table.
Moderate evidence: N=40 is a thin sample for a 95th-percentile estimate; this is a per-application amount only, not a per-day total.
Source: Ficheux et al. 2016 (amount data), Food and Chemical Toxicology Link to this fact
Information, not medical advice. See also: myths we won’t tell you.