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 / 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.