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.
What you can do / Measured in people or real products
Perfume was the strongest single predictor of diethyl phthalate exposure, so skipping perfume and fragranced personal care products is the most obvious way to lower it.
Moderate evidence: Association only; not tested as an intervention.
Source: Parlett 2013, Journal of Exposure Science and Environmental Epidemiology Link to this fact
What you can do / Measured in people or real products
Using fewer scented personal care products is likely to lower phthalate and paraben levels, because levels tracked the number of products used.
Moderate evidence: Association; not tested as an intervention here (see HERMOSA).
Source: Braun 2014, Journal of Exposure Science and Environmental Epidemiology Link to this fact
What you can do / Measured in people or real products
When 100 teenage girls swapped their usual personal care products for ones labeled free of phthalates, parabens, triclosan, and oxybenzone for just 3 days, levels of these chemicals in their urine fell by 27-45%.
Moderate evidence: No control arm, 100 Latina girls in one town, 3 days, summer.
Source: Harley 2016, Environmental Health Perspectives Link to this fact
What you can do / Measured in people or real products
The phthalate most linked to fragrance (diethyl phthalate) fell by 27% in 3 days when girls avoided products listing fragrance unless labeled phthalate-free.
Moderate evidence: Multi-product swap; fragrance effect not isolated; other DEP sources remain.
Source: Harley 2016, Environmental Health Perspectives Link to this fact
What you can do / Measured in people or real products
Because diethyl phthalate (DEP) was found in essentially all fragranced cosmetic products FDA tested (5 of 5 in 2006, 11 of 11 in 2010) but is never named on the label when added via 'fragrance,' choosing unscented or fragrance-free products is a more reliable way to avoid it than reading a fragranced product's ingredient list.
Moderate evidence: Based on FDA's own two product-content surveys, not a study of consumer avoidance behavior or of what ingredients replace DEP in reformulated products.
Source: Hubinger 2010, Journal of Cosmetic Science Link to this fact
What you can do / Government agency
Because no federal rule requires air fresheners to disclose their full ingredients, a consumer cannot rely on an 'all-natural' or 'unscented' label to rule out the presence of phthalates or other undisclosed fragrance constituents.
Moderate evidence.
Caveats
Applies to the 2007 dataset and to the current absence of a federal labeling mandate reported elsewhere in our evidence base (FDA, EPA Safer Choice pages); does not mean every unlabeled air freshener contains phthalates today.
Source: EPA 2007 Link to this fact
Information, not medical advice. See also: myths we won’t tell you.