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
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 / 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 / Self-reported survey
99.1% of US adults said they are exposed to fragranced products at least once a week, from their own use, other people's, or both.
Moderate evidence: Self-reported exposure; weak dose proxy; adults 18-65.
Source: Steinemann 2016, Air Quality, Atmosphere & Health 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 tonnes 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 / Self-reported survey
99.3% of UK adults are exposed to fragranced products every week, and 89% through other people's products that they did not choose.
Moderate evidence: Self-reported exposure.
Source: Steinemann 2018, Air Quality, Atmosphere & Health 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 / 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
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 tonnes 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 / 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 / Review of other studies
Perfumes and colognes alone released about 2.5 tonnes of organic gases a day into Los Angeles air in 2005, not counting fragrance in cleaners, air fresheners or hair spray.
Moderate evidence: Inventory estimate for one CARB category.
Source: Chen & Luo 2012, Atmospheric Environment Link to this fact
Fragrance is everywhere / Measured in people or real products
In an EPA survey of 1,159 US household products from the late 1980s (mostly paints, automotive products, lubricants and cleaners), 81% contained at least one of 31 common solvents at more than 0.1% of the product's weight, often at tens of per cent.
Moderate evidence: Historical (1987 purchases), solvent-biased sample, not fragranced products; composition not air levels.
Source: Sack 1992, Atmospheric Environment. Part A. General Topics 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 / Measured in people or real products
In a lab experiment, women still learned to react differently to two women's body odors when both wore the same perfume: perfume did not stop people telling individuals apart by smell.
Moderate evidence.
Caveats
46 women, 4 donors, custom low-dose perfume, conditioning as an indirect measure; no perfume x odor interaction tested. Now corroborated on the 'not abolished' floor claim by a much larger, direct primary test: Allen, Havlíček & Roberts 2015 (n=427, triangle test) found body-odor discrimination stayed above chance in all fragrance conditions (all p<0.001), though it fell significantly with fragrance and fell to chance for one specific subgroup (female donor odor + an unfamiliar assigned fragrance, 0.30-0.36 vs 0.33 chance) — so treat this as 'fragrance dampens but does not generally abolish discrimination', not as 'perfume has no effect'.
Fragrance is everywhere / Review of other studies
Musk ketone, a synthetic musk used mainly in cosmetics, was found in the body fat of every German tested in the 1990s and in breast milk at up to 240 µg per kg of milk fat.
Moderate evidence.
Caveats
Secondary report of German surveys (391 Bavarian milk samples, mean 40 µg/kg fat, plus a smaller n=5 cohort at 11 µg/kg fat); 1990s data. Rimkus & Wolf 1996 (the primary source of that n=5 cohort) directly confirms musk ketone detection in all 19 of their own German fat/milk samples (1993/1995), but their own milk values (5-30 µg/kg fat, mean 11) are far below the oft-quoted 240 µg/kg maximum from the separate, larger Bavarian survey – do not imply 240 is a typical value.
Source: Schmeiser 2001, International Journal of Hygiene and Environmental Health Link to this fact
Fragrance is everywhere / Measured in people or real products
An older nitro musk (musk ketone), after European industry had moved away from nitro musks, was still in 85% of US mothers' milk in 2004.
Moderate evidence: N=39, Massachusetts only.
Source: Reiner 2007, Environmental Science & Technology 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 / Review of other studies
Fragrance is not only in perfume: dermatologists list it in makeup, shampoo, sunscreen, toothpaste, mouthwash, wipes, dish soap, detergent, air fresheners, cleaners, plastics, rubber, glue, paint and waxes, and one Belgian survey found fragrance in 10% of topical medicines (66 different fragrance substances).
Moderate evidence: Qualitative list (de Groot 2020); the 10% is Nardelli 2009, Belgium.
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 / Measured in people or real products
All 31 UK shampoos, shower gels, conditioners, moisturizers and foundations with reported emission rates gave off fragrance terpenes (measured together as limonene); shampoos and shower gels released the most.
Moderate evidence.
Caveats
Lab headspace of products bought at one UK supermarket; SIFT-MS cannot separate monoterpenes, so 'limonene' is the sum of all of them; brands not named. Same lab's second, separate set of 16 UK day moisturizers (Yeoman 2022) also all emitted monoterpenes (0.08–0.41 µg/s/g), green and regular alike.
Fragrance is everywhere / Review of other studies
About 60% of the fragrance used in homes goes down the drain into rivers and lakes, and wastewater treatment removes little of it; polycyclic musks such as galaxolide turn up in rivers, lake air, mussels and human milk.
Moderate evidence.
Caveats
The 60% figure is from older industry/secondary sources (Bickers 2003, Bridges 2002). The human-milk sub-claim is now supported by three independent primary studies spanning three countries: Rimkus & Wolf 1996 (Germany, n=5, 1993/1995), Reiner 2007 (US, n=39, 2004) and Lignell 2008 (Sweden, n=101, 1996-2003); cite these primaries for milk levels, not this review.
Source: Khalid & Abdollahi 2021, Iranian Journal of Pharmaceutical Research 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 / 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
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 / Animal study
The sunscreen ingredient 4-MBC built up in the rats' body fat: at the lowest dose that produced effects, fat levels reached 449 ng/g, the same range already measured in roach and perch from Swiss lakes (44-166 ng/g lipid).
Moderate evidence: Rat adipose measured by GC-MS, n = 3-9; the fish comparison is to a cited 2004 Swiss survey, not measured here; no human tissue or breast-milk levels existed at the time.
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
About two in three children's sunscreens (87 of 134) and toothpastes (40 of 61) in a Danish registry listed fragrance or a named fragrance allergen.
Moderate evidence: Label data, registry sample; Brazilian children's sunscreens were 34.5% (Uber 2024), so rates are market-specific.
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
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
A silicone ingredient in everyday deodorants, lotions and hair products (D5) shows up in city outdoor air on a clear morning schedule tracking when people shower and dress for work, peaking around 6-7 AM and fading over the following several hours.
Moderate evidence.
Caveats
Diurnal emission-rate profile derived for one mid-sized US city (Boulder, CO, winter 2015/2017); Toronto ground-site data (2009) show a similarly timed morning peak in concentration, but the emission-rate model itself is Boulder-only.
Source: Coggon 2018, Environmental Science & Technology 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 / Measured in people or real products
In a study of 427 people smelling real body-odor samples, individuals stayed identifiable by smell even when wearing a deodorant, but any deodorant (their own or an assigned one) still made people significantly worse at telling them apart than smelling the unfragranced body odor alone.
Moderate evidence.
Caveats
Direct triangle-test design (large for this subfield); deodorants only, not perfumes; public-venue convenience sample; one subgroup (female donor odor + assigned fragrance) fell to chance level.
Source: Allen, Havlíček & Roberts 2015, Frontiers in Psychology Link to this fact
Fragrance is everywhere / Measured in people or real products
People were better at telling two individuals apart when both wore their own habitual deodorant than when both wore an unfamiliar, experimenter-assigned deodorant, consistent with fragrance choice tracking a person's own body chemistry rather than being arbitrary.
Moderate evidence.
Caveats
Own-vs-assigned effect is modest (Exp(B)=1.375, p=0.03); cannot rule out a familiarity confound (using a product you already use vs. a brand-new one) separate from body-chemistry matching.
Source: Allen, Havlíček & Roberts 2015, Frontiers in Psychology 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
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
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 / 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 / Measured in people or real products
Tumble drying real household laundry released 256-342 milligrams of textile microfiber per kilogram of fabric dried, whether the dryer vented outdoors or condensed the moisture indoors, a similar order of magnitude to what washing machines release.
Moderate evidence: One UK lab, one detergent, one condenser model and one vented model, n=8 real loads per dryer type; measures plain cotton/polyester fiber, not fragrance or VOCs.
Source: Cummins 2023, PLOS ONE Industry-funded Link to this fact
Information, not medical advice. See also: myths we won’t tell you.