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.
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 US national biomonitoring, MEP, the breakdown product of the fragrance solvent DEP, was the most abundant phthalate in people's urine (average 181 ug/g creatinine).
Moderate evidence: NHANES data cited by a review; cite CDC primary; secondary citation of older NHANES data, cite the CDC report directly.
Source: Crinnion 2010, Alternative Medicine Review 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
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
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
Information, not medical advice. See also: myths we won’t tell you.