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 the US, everyday chemical products (paints, inks, glues, cleaners, personal care products, and pesticides) now release about twice as much air-polluting vapor as cars and trucks: 7.6 vs 3.5 million metric tons in 2012.
Strong evidence: All chemical products, not fragrance specifically; coatings/inks/adhesives are 58%.
Fragrance is everywhere / Measured in people or real products
Scientists can identify which everyday products are polluting a city's outdoor air just by measuring a handful of specific chemical fingerprints: a silicone compound (D5-siloxane) for personal-care products and citrus/pine-scent chemicals (monoterpenes, mostly limonene) for fragranced products, confirmed by mobile-lab measurements across New York City, Pittsburgh, Chicago, and Denver.
Strong evidence: Outdoor air only; four US cities, no LA data; tracer status is based on population-density correlation and inventory apportionment, not a direct source test.
Source: Gkatzelis 2021, Environmental Science & Technology Link to this fact
Fragrance is everywhere / Government agency
There are no longer any pristine, unpolluted places on Earth: endocrine-disrupting chemicals such as PFOS have been measured in marine-mammal tissue from the Arctic to remote Southern Hemisphere waters, far from any point source, carried by long-range air and ocean transport and biomagnified through food webs.
Strong evidence: Illustrated with wildlife biomonitoring data (marine mammals), not a direct measurement of fragrance or consumer-product chemicals specifically.
Source: WHO/UNEP 2012 Link to this fact
Fragrance is everywhere / Measured in people or real products
Perfume, air fresheners, and dryer sheets carried the highest levels of fragrance chemicals and the phthalate DEP; the pooled perfume sample was 1.4% DEP by weight.
Moderate evidence.
Caveats
Single pooled composite per category (Dodson 2012). The perfume DEP level is now independently supported by two other labs: FDA's Hubinger & Havery 2006 measured 0.55-3.9% DEP in individual fragrance products, and Health Canada's Koniecki 2011 (n=252, the largest of the three) measured DEP up to 2.6% in 70% of 30 fragrance products — three independent labs across two countries now bracket Dodson's 1.4% figure for perfume specifically. The air-freshener and dryer-sheet parts still rest on Dodson alone (Koniecki tested only cosmetic/personal-care products, no air fresheners or dryer sheets), so the combined claim stays moderate.
Source: Dodson 2012, Environmental Health Perspectives Link to this fact
Fragrance is everywhere / Measured in people or real products
Women who had used perfume in the previous day had nearly 3 times as much of a phthalate breakdown product (from diethyl phthalate, a chemical used to carry fragrance) in their urine as women who hadn't.
Moderate evidence: Single spot urine, 337 mostly white educated women; replicated by Braun 2014.
Source: Parlett 2013, Journal of Exposure Science and Environmental Epidemiology Link to this fact
Fragrance is everywhere / Measured in people or real products
The more personal care products a woman used, the higher her levels of diethyl phthalate; deodorant (2.8x), nail polish (2.1x) and hair spray (1.8x) users also had higher levels.
Moderate evidence: Cross-sectional association; one urine sample.
Source: Parlett 2013, Journal of Exposure Science and Environmental Epidemiology Link to this fact
Fragrance is everywhere / Measured in people or real products
The more personal care products a pregnant woman used in a day, the higher her urine levels of phthalates and parabens, rising step by step.
Moderate evidence: Association with self-reported use.
Source: Braun 2014, Journal of Exposure Science and Environmental Epidemiology Link to this fact
Fragrance is everywhere / Review of other studies
In the Los Angeles air basin in 2005, consumer products such as hair spray, cleaners, and perfumes were the second-largest human-made source of organic gases by weight (118.7 metric tons a day), behind only passenger cars, according to California's air regulator.
Moderate evidence.
Caveats
Regulatory inventory, 2005 snapshot; includes non-fragranced products and solvents. Direction confirmed by measurement in a second city: NYC 2018 VCP VOC ~1.5x fossil fuels by mass, tracer-verified (Coggon 2021).
Source: Chen & Luo 2012, Atmospheric Environment Link to this fact
Fragrance is everywhere / Self-reported survey
In a New Jersey university community, adults had used an average of about 14 personal care products in the previous day or two.
Moderate evidence: 593 highly educated, 86% female university-affiliated adults, 2019; not nationally representative.
Source: Barrett 2025, Journal of Exposure Science & Environmental Epidemiology Link to this fact
Fragrance is everywhere / Measured in people or real products
All five scented personal-care products tested, including a hand lotion and a roll-on deodorant, released terpene fragrance chemicals that react with ozone in indoor air.
Moderate evidence: 5 Swiss grocery-store products; lotion/roll-on emissions measured from a Kimwipe for 1 h, not skin.
Source: Wu 2024, Environmental Science & Technology Letters Link to this fact
Fragrance is everywhere / Review of other studies
PTFE, the non-stick coating better known as Teflon, is used in foundations, mascara, and lipsticks as a filler and slip agent, at up to 13% of leave-on products according to the industry-funded Cosmetic Ingredient Review.
Moderate evidence: Use level is a maximum reported by industry, not a typical level; industry-author review in a new non-indexed journal.
Source: Jomaa 2024, Journal of the Netherlands Society of Toxicology (JNST) Industry-funded Link to this fact
Fragrance is everywhere / Measured in people or real products
Plug-in and hanging car air fresheners mainly release fragrance terpenes (limonene, pinene, dihydromyrcenol) and fruity-smelling esters, the same terpenes found across larger product surveys.
Moderate evidence.
Caveats
7 products; presence only. Lamorena & Lee 2008 (KAIST chamber, GC-MS/FT-IR) independently confirms terpene-dominant emissions (α-pinene, β-pinene, p-cymene, limonene) from a car air freshener, but that product is an oil-based liquid type, not plug-in or hanging, so it corroborates the general 'car fresheners emit terpenes' pattern without directly extending evidence for the plug-in/hanging sub-types this claim specifies.
Source: Pino-Delgado 2021; Steinemann 2011, Journal of Student Research Link to this fact
Fragrance is everywhere / Measured in people or real products
In winter Manhattan air the dominant terpene was limonene, the citrus scent chemical used in cleaners and personal care, while nearby forests gave off pine-type terpenes: scented products are a measurable source of city air pollution in New York.
Moderate evidence.
Caveats
One city (NYC 2018); isomer pattern by GC-MS; fragranced products explain ~220 +/- 170 of 520-860 mg/person/day anthropogenic monoterpenes, the rest possibly cooking/building materials.
Source: Coggon 2021 Link to this fact
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
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
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 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
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 / 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
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 / 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
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 / 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
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 / Self-reported survey
In two US national telephone surveys (2002-03 and 2005-06, about 1,057 adults each), about 3 in 10 adults (30.5% on average) said being next to someone wearing a scented product such as perfume or aftershave is irritating.
Moderate evidence.
Caveats
Self-reported irritation, not a clinical outcome; two surveys by the same authors; the question offered 'irritating or appealing' and only the irritating share is reported. Landline-era phone samples; no response rate given.
Source: Caress & Steinemann 2009, Journal of Environmental Health Link to this fact
Fragrance is everywhere / Other evidence
Apart from MEP, other urinary phthalate metabolites (including DEHP, DnBP and DiBP metabolites) were not meaningfully predicted by personal care product use in men, which fits DEP being the main phthalate in these products and food being a major source of others.
Moderate evidence: Null results from a single cohort of mostly white, educated men; DEHP food source is the authors' interpretation, not measured.
Source: Nassan 2017, Environmental Health Perspectives Link to this fact
Fragrance is everywhere / Other evidence
In 108 women in northern Mexico, the more personal care products a woman had used in the past two days, the higher the level of monoethyl phthalate (the breakdown product of the fragrance carrier diethyl phthalate) in her urine.
Moderate evidence.
Caveats
Small single sample, one spot urine, 48-hour recall, no brand or fragrance-content data; supports the product-count pattern seen in US cohorts but cannot separate DEP from other co-used chemicals.
Source: Romero-Franco 2011, Environment International Link to this fact
Fragrance is everywhere / Review of other studies
UV filters were the highest personal-care signal in Antarctic station wastewater: BP-1 up to about 14,000 ng/L, 4-MBC up to about 11,700 ng/L, which the authors put at 5 to 340 times the wastewater range reported elsewhere.
Moderate evidence: Few stations and sampling events; comparison ranges come from two secondary reviews; authors' explanation (heavy sunscreen use, poor removal) is not tested.
Source: Balakrishna 2023 (review), Environmental Research Link to this fact
Fragrance is everywhere / Other evidence
Fragrance exposure was nearly universal among surveyed UAE women: 91.5% used fragrance daily, 90.0% used fragranced personal care products weekly, and only 0.7% reported no personal weekly exposure.
Moderate evidence: Self-report from a convenience sample of women; consistent with population surveys in Sweden (98.5% weekly own use) and Germany (96.9%).
Source: AlBlooshi 2026, Frontiers in Toxicology Link to this fact
Fragrance is everywhere / Self-reported survey
Among Atlanta-area adults who reported chemical hypersensitivity, symptom onset was reported before age 20 in about a third of cases (32.4%), suggesting hypersensitivity is not exclusively an adult-onset condition.
Weak evidence.
Caveats
Retrospective self-report of childhood/adolescent onset in adults; no pediatric clinical verification; age-of-onset table has an internal mismatch with the running text for the older age brackets (see the page's Notes).
Source: Caress & Steinemann 2003 (EHP), Environmental Health Perspectives Link to this fact
Fragrance is everywhere / Other evidence
Shopping malls can diffuse a scent blend through their common areas, installed by a professional scent-marketing agency, so every visitor is exposed without any way to opt out; the mall studied used orange, grapefruit, bergamot, cinnamon, cardamom, ginger, and pimento 'and other additives'.
Weak evidence: A single research mall; no concentration or full composition was reported, and the paper makes no health or allergen claim.
Source: Teller 2012, Journal of Marketing Management Link to this fact
Fragrance is everywhere / Other evidence
In the industry's illustrative model of 36,446 US and European adults, the 95th-percentile person received about 7.55 g/day of product on the skin and in the mouth from 19 personal-care product types, with mouthwash, mass-market body lotion, and deodorant roll-on the largest contributors.
Weak evidence: Model output from 2007-2008 diary data, industry-funded; Fig. 3 shares are read from a chart.
Source: Safford et al. 2015, Regulatory Toxicology and Pharmacology Industry-funded Link to this fact
Fragrance is everywhere / Other evidence
After spraying a car air freshener, benzene and several other aromatic VOCs measured in the cabin went down by an average of about 40% for benzene (except in recirculation mode) while limonene went up, so the product masks rather than removes the car's own chemicals.
Weak evidence: The sprays contained no benzene; the drop was transient, came with no unsprayed control, and the authors' masking/displacement explanation was not tested.
Source: Lee 2024, Science of The Total Environment Link to this fact
Fragrance is everywhere / Other evidence
CTV reported a 2014 survey finding about 2.4 per cent of Canadians (more than 770,000) have been diagnosed by a health-care provider with MCS.
Weak evidence: CTV does not name the survey; primary source not checked here. Do not repeat as established until the primary is found.
Source: CTV News, April 2022 (via Smoke-Free Housing BC; redacted copy), CTV News (news article) Link to this fact
Information, not medical advice. See also: myths we won’t tell you.