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
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
A lab analysis of 59 soaps, surface cleaners, laundry and dish-washing products from four European countries found the citrus-scent chemical limonene in 78% of them, linalool in 61%, and citronellol in 47%; all three are fragrance chemicals linked to skin allergy.
Moderate evidence: Products c. 2000, EU only; parent terpenes measured, not the allergenic oxidized forms; Unilever co-author.
Source: Rastogi 2001, Contact Dermatitis Industry-funded 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 / Review of other studies
In California's 1997 inventory, air fresheners were the single largest category of cleaning-product chemical emissions: 7.5 metric tons a day, just ahead of general-purpose cleaners.
Moderate evidence: 1997 sales-based inventory; later SoCAB inventory had air fresheners <2.5 t/d.
Source: Nazaroff & Weschler 2004, Atmospheric Environment Link to this fact
Fragrance is everywhere / Review of other studies
Of 83 chemicals the EPA had flagged as priorities for safety review (TSCA Work Plan), 65 (over 80%) were known to be in consumer products.
Moderate evidence: Not fragrance-specific.
Source: Goldsmith 2014, Food and Chemical Toxicology Link to this fact
Fragrance is everywhere / Measured in people or real products
In a test of 59 best-selling Korean household products, the citrus-scent chemical limonene was the chemical most often given off: it came from 44% of products, including bleach, dish soap, laundry detergent, disinfectant, and even a liquid pesticide.
Moderate evidence: Heated headspace, library-match ID, presence not exposure.
Source: Kwon 2007, Journal of Hazardous Materials Link to this fact
Fragrance is everywhere / Review of other studies
Even after accounting for how readily each chemical forms smog, consumer products ranked third among all emission sources in the Los Angeles basin in 2005.
Moderate evidence.
Caveats
Model-based ozone reactivity; one episode. In NYC 2018, VCPs were modeled as comparable to fossil fuels for ozone (+11 vs +8 ppb at the downwind peak; box model 40:60) (Coggon 2021), so the 2005 LA ranking may understate them.
Source: Chen & Luo 2012, Atmospheric Environment Link to this fact
Fragrance is everywhere / Measured in people or real products
Household products have been recognized as a major source of indoor chemical pollution since at least the 1980s; this EPA survey was one of the first to measure it.
Moderate evidence: Product content, not exposure.
Source: Sack 1992, Atmospheric Environment. Part A. General Topics Link to this fact
Fragrance is everywhere / Measured in people or real products
Unlike traffic chemicals, scent chemicals were just as high in northern as in southern Europe (median 11.4 vs 12.0 ug/m3), pointing to everyday product use across the continent.
Moderate evidence: Grouped terpenes, no significance tests.
Source: Geiss 2011, Atmospheric Environment Link to this fact
Fragrance is everywhere / Animal study
The vapor from a single cologne contained at least twenty identifiable chemicals – limonene, linalool, linalyl acetate, alpha- and beta-pinene, terpinolene, citronellol, anethole, coumarin, diethyl phthalate among them – none of which appear on the label.
Moderate evidence: Qualitative GC/MS of one test atmosphere, recoveries unknown, isomers possibly unresolved; one unnamed product.
Source: Anderson & Anderson 1998, Archives of Environmental Health 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
A 1991 US EPA survey of 31 fragrance products already found limonene, linalool, alpha-pinene, benzyl acetate, benzyl alcohol, camphor, and acetone among the most common chemicals, the same compounds found in fragranced products tested in the 2010s.
Moderate evidence: Known only second-hand (Kendall 1995 list; Steinemann 2011 quotes its prevalences); the EPA report itself is not in our evidence base.
Source: DONTSPRAYCALIFORNIA 2008 (DOJ ADA docket) 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
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
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
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
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 / 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 / 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 / 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 / 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
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
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
The 2011 gum table lists flavor chemicals that are also fragrance materials or allergens at the following maximum levels in chewing gum: trans-anethole 6,680 ppm, menthone 6,000 ppm, cinnamon 1,000 ppm, ethyl salicylate 2,000 ppm, pulegone 350 ppm, hydroxycitronellal 5 ppm.
Moderate evidence: Anticipated industry use levels, not measured content of products; the paper gives no labeling, skin or inhalation information.
Source: FEMA GRAS 25 (2011), Food Technology Industry-funded Link to this fact
Fragrance is everywhere / Other evidence
The links between product use and urinary MEP and parabens were generally stronger when the product was used within 6 hours of the urine sample than within 24 hours, consistent with the short half-lives (6 to 24 hours) of these chemicals.
Moderate evidence: Timing from self-report; no data on time since last void; many 6 h estimates are from small numbers of users.
Source: Nassan 2017, Environmental Health Perspectives Link to this fact
Fragrance is everywhere / Other evidence
Cigarette smoke is one of the most chemically characterized consumer mixtures: the tobacco industry's catalog lists more than 5,200 identified tobacco components and about 4,800 in mainstream smoke, and its authors say many more remain unidentified.
Moderate evidence: Counts are the R.J. Reynolds authors' own catalog and are internally inconsistent (4200, 5200, 5229, 8400).
Source: Rodgman & Perfetti 2013 Industry-funded Link to this fact
Fragrance is everywhere / Review of other studies
Fragrance chemicals used in sunscreens, soaps and perfumes (amyl, hexyl and benzyl salicylate and three trade-name aroma chemicals) were measured in wastewater and coastal seawater at an Antarctic research station at low ng/L levels, about 2 to 54 ng/L.
Moderate evidence: One source study and one station; no toxicity, removal or risk data for these compounds; no synthetic musks measured.
Source: Balakrishna 2023 (review), Environmental Research Link to this fact
Information, not medical advice. See also: myths we won’t tell you.