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.
Children and pregnancy / Self-reported survey
In a US survey, boys and girls who used makeup or body products used fragrance products (perfume, cologne, body spray) at the same rate, about 31%.
Weak evidence.
Caveats
Scent-purpose products only; cleansers excluded, so not a fragrance-exposure prevalence. Indirect support for sex parity: in Melo 2020 (Brazil, 182/276 perfume users, 126 girls) at least 56/150 boys (≥37%) used perfume, so perfume is not a girls-only product; but the Brazilian level (66% of all children) is 3x the US level (≈21%), so the ~31% figure must not be generalized.
Source: Medley 2023 Link to this fact
Children and pregnancy / Self-reported survey
Children's lipstick, nail polish, and eyeshadow use was about the same in a Brazilian hospital survey and a US parent survey (roughly 19-22%, 22% and 11-13%), but perfume use was three times higher in Brazil (66% vs about 21%).
Weak evidence.
Caveats
Our cross-study arithmetic (Medley per-user rates re-based to all 312 children); different definitions ('perfume' vs 'fragrance products primarily for children'), ages (<=14 vs <=12) and sampling.
Source: Melo 2020, Revista Paulista de Pediatria Link to this fact
Children and pregnancy / Other evidence
In this cohort MEP, the urinary marker of the fragrance phthalate DEP, did not predict clinical-range behavior problems prenatally or postnatally (all 95% CIs include 1); it showed only uncorrected linear associations with ADHD-problems and pervasive-developmental-problems T-scores (coefficients 0.12-0.13), so the study gives no basis for a perfume-and-toddler-behavior claim.
Weak evidence: MEP is a product-use marker that cannot be separated from the fragrance mixture it travels with; one spot urine; the T-score signals are not corrected for 300 tests.
Source: Huang 2024, Toxics Link to this fact
Fragrance is everywhere / Review of other studies
A 2022 review of 37 studies found that phthalates, parabens, aldehydes, and aluminum salts are the contaminants most often reported in perfumes, colognes, and related scented products.
Weak evidence: Non-quantitative review with factual slips; cite primary studies for numbers.
Source: Kazemi 2022, Journal of Environmental Health Science and Engineering Link to this fact
Fragrance is everywhere / Measured in people or real products
The same perfume does not come off the skin the same way every day: in women not on the pill, a fixed dose of vanilla on the forearm was rated about 3 times stronger on cycle day 22 than during menstruation.
Weak evidence: 18 women (9 per group), 25 male raters, no hormone confirmation, no unperfumed control, no statistics printed, storage time unreported.
Source: Chróst 2021, Journal of Cosmetic Dermatology Link to this fact
Fragrance is everywhere / Review of other studies
Deodorants alone are estimated to deliver roughly 1,000 metric tons of fragrance per year to the German population, based on standard daily-dose, dermal-retention, and perfume-content assumptions.
Weak evidence: A calculated estimate from published dose and market-size figures, not a measured total; depends on assumed 1% dermal retention and 3-5% perfume content.
Source: Klaschka 2012, International Journal of Hygiene and Environmental Health Link to this fact
Fragrance is everywhere / Review of other studies
The review lists perfumes, hair sprays, soaps and nail varnishes as products that contain phthalates, but names no specific phthalate for those products and no musk, UV filter, paraben or terpene.
Weak evidence: One generic sentence; it supports no fragrance-specific neurotoxicity claim.
Source: Jocsak 2026, Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience Link to this fact
Fragrance is everywhere / Other evidence
In a 30-person Shanghai lab study, a floral-musk perfume blend from Shiseido (jasmine, musk, muguet, rose, bergamot and others) was linked to faster reaction times on a go/nogo button task after a 15-minute simulated drive (about 445 ms vs 484 ms with no scent).
Weak evidence.
Caveats
Small crossover, young adults, nobody drove (watched a video), participants could smell the scent so it was not blinded, odorless rather than placebo-odor control, no air concentration measured, scent supplier employed the first author, and stats treat paired data as independent.
Health effects / Review of other studies
A 2022 review concluded that links between contaminants in perfumes and cancer, breathing problems, and hormone disruption are 'probable' but still need research to prove.
Weak evidence: Evidence mostly from phthalate/paraben studies not perfume exposure.
Source: Kazemi 2022, Journal of Environmental Health Science and Engineering Link to this fact
Health effects / Lab study (cells or chemistry)
Many perfumes contain strongly antibacterial compounds: activity against Gram-negative bacteria appeared at 50 billionths of a liter, and a single spray is about 2,000 times that amount.
Weak evidence: Plate assay with a marine bacterium; effect on the skin microbiome inferred by the authors, not tested.
Source: Morlock & Heil 2025, Journal of Chromatography A Link to this fact
Health effects / Measured in people or real products
In the same test, patients rated breathlessness and cough higher after perfume at the eyes (1.5 vs 0.4 and 0.9 vs 0.3 on a 0-3 scale), yet lung function, oxygen saturation, and breathing rate did not change at all.
Weak evidence: Single-blind (scorers apparently not blinded), 3 of many symptoms analyzed, n=11; the airway symptoms did not replicate double-blind (Elberling 2006: 6/11 perfume vs 5/11 placebo).
Health effects / Lab study (cells or chemistry)
A small 2026 follow-up study found mutagenic and cell-killing compounds in 8 perfumes, consistent with an earlier 42-perfume finding from the same German lab.
Weak evidence.
Caveats
Same lab and platform as the earlier study, not independent; only 8 unnamed perfumes, unclear overlap with the 42; simulated liver metabolism was built for this paper but explicitly not tested on the perfumes; no antibacterial or hormone-related endpoints were run.
Source: Schmidtmann 2026, Analytical Chemistry Link to this fact
Health effects / Review of other studies
Benzyl salicylate, BHT, and butylphenyl methylpropional, all found in the tested perfumes, have been shown in other cited research to interfere with estrogenic signaling pathways and may therefore increase breast cancer risk.
Weak evidence: No doses or a quantified risk estimate are given; this is a mechanistic association from cited literature, not a measured increase in breast cancer risk from perfume use.
Source: Tegengif 2022 Link to this fact
Health effects / Animal study
In rats, daily skin application of six commercial perfumes (three original, three counterfeit) for 28 days significantly increased mast cell counts in the liver and in several lung compartments (perivascular, peribronchial, pleural) compared to untreated controls, with no allergic or inflammatory tissue damage seen on routine histology.
Weak evidence.
Caveats
Single animal study (n=12/group Wistar rats), not replicated; effects were inconsistent across the two special stains used and not every perfume produced a statistically distinguished result in every tissue; perfumes were not chemically characterized.
Source: Hananeh 2021, Open Veterinary Journal Link to this fact
Health effects / Animal study
Neither original nor counterfeit perfume increased mast cell numbers in rat skin (the site of direct application) or the heart after 28 days of daily use, the systemic organs (liver, lungs) responded, not the local application site.
Weak evidence.
Caveats
Counterintuitive given topical exposure; the study did not investigate a mechanism (e.g., systemic absorption vs. distant mast cell recruitment) for why the application site itself was unaffected.
Source: Hananeh 2021, Open Veterinary Journal Link to this fact
Health effects / Animal study
The counterfeit perfume F3 produced the largest single effect in this rat study (liver mast cells rose about 13-fold over control, from about 25 to about 319 cells/mm2 by toluidine blue stain), but the other two counterfeit perfumes tested (F1, F2) did not clearly exceed their genuine counterparts on most measures.
Weak evidence.
Caveats
Only 3 counterfeit/genuine pairs tested, purchased from local markets with no independent authentication or chemical fingerprinting of counterfeit status; not a general fake-vs-genuine comparison.
Source: Hananeh 2021, Open Veterinary Journal Link to this fact
Health effects / Other evidence
In this clinic sample, perfume/odor was a trigger at similar rates in men and women (Table 1, p=0.903) even though the paper's text says women had more perfume/odor triggers; the table and text disagree.
Weak evidence: Only 143 to 145 men; the paper's own text and table conflict, so neither direction is firm.
Source: Kelman 2007, Cephalalgia, Cephalalgia Link to this fact
Health effects / Other evidence
In a small Swedish clinic sample of 60 women with migraine, 63% (38/60) named odors as a migraine trigger, and 87% of those (33/38) named perfume, followed by car exhaust (45%) and cigarette smoke (42%).
Weak evidence.
Caveats
Recruited specifically to find odor-triggered migraine and told the study was about olfaction, so prevalence is an upper bound (worst case 38/95 = 40%); self-report, no controls, no exposure measurement; does not show perfume causes migraine.
Source: Sjöstrand 2010, Curr Pain Headache Rep, Current Pain and Headache Reports Link to this fact
Health effects / Other evidence
Most everyday odorants, including those in perfumes, stimulate both the smell nerves and the trigeminal ('nasal pain') nerves, and the study's authors propose that in migraine with aura the smell component is poorly integrated while trigeminal processing is exaggerated.
Weak evidence: A hypothesis, not a tested result; no fragrance product or fragrance chemical was used and no odor-triggered attacks were recorded.
Source: Mignot et al. 2023, J Headache Pain, The Journal of Headache and Pain Industry-funded Link to this fact
Health effects / Other evidence
In this mixture analysis the phthalate metabolite MEP, a marker of diethyl phthalate exposure, was a minor and sex-inconsistent contributor (positive weight 0.08 in boys, negative 0.17 in girls for working memory), so the study gives no support to a perfume-specific effect on child behavior.
Weak evidence: MEP also marks fragranced-product use; weights are unstable and the study did not test fragrance directly.
Source: Puvvula 2026, Environ Int, Environment International Link to this fact
Health effects / Other evidence
Among those teens, product use in the previous day (including cosmetics, creams and perfume or deodorant) did not statistically explain the higher phthalate and paraben levels in the ADHD group, although the ADHD group used more cosmetics and washes.
Weak evidence: 24-hour self-reported use; small n; supplementary mediation tables not available; does not show that products are not a source of exposure in general.
Source: Terzioğlu 2026, Psychiatry Investigation Link to this fact
Health effects / Other evidence
In the same Turkish study, perfume was the smell that bothered migraine patients most (about 31%, 40 of 128), while in tension-type headache patients food smells came first (10.5%) and perfume third (5.8%).
Weak evidence: Small retrospective chart-based sample; one odor per patient apparently recorded; 'food' not broken down; says nothing about causing attacks.
Health effects / Other evidence
In a rat study, 30 days of breathing the vapor of one undiluted commercial perfume (5 mL on cotton in a closed box, 1 h/day) raised markers of oxidative stress (serum MDA 48.7 vs 32.3 nmol/L, lung MDA about 1.8-fold) and lowered antioxidant defenses in serum and lung versus untreated and olive-oil rats.
Weak evidence.
Caveats
Animal only; five male rats per group; one perfume; airborne concentration, box volume and ethanol content never measured; no empty-box or ethanol-vapor control, so confinement stress and solvent are not excluded; no exact p-values; heart and brain oxidative markers did not change.
Source: Al-Sowayan 2026, Frontiers in Pharmacology Link to this fact
Health effects / Other evidence
In the same rat study, perfume-exposed animals had higher blood pressure (130 vs 112 mmHg), heart rate (376 vs 352 bpm), cardiac troponin T (3.41 vs 2.06 ng/mL) and creatinine (0.99 vs 0.60 mg/dL) and lung and heart tissue changes on slides.
Weak evidence: Animal only, n = 5; single troponin and creatinine values with large SE; no empty-box or ethanol control; histology unscored; dose unknown relative to human use.
Source: Al-Sowayan 2026, Frontiers in Pharmacology Link to this fact
Health effects / Other evidence
The perfume rat study found no change in serum brain-injury markers (GFAP, UCH-L1) and no significant change in brain KLF4 expression; the brain claim rests on cortical gliosis on slides alone.
Weak evidence: The abstract says Klf4 was downregulated, but the results call it a non-significant trend; five rats per group; histology qualitative.
Source: Al-Sowayan 2026, Frontiers in Pharmacology Link to this fact
Hidden ingredients / Other evidence
A 2015 student lab analysis of 12 popular US perfumes and body sprays found 14-33 separate organic chemicals in each product (130 in all), while US law lets the label say just "fragrance".
Weak evidence: Identities are unconfirmed library matches and were never published; counts depend on the detection threshold. Pair with Steinemann 2011 rather than citing alone.
Source: Lee 2015, Young Scientist Journal (Vanderbilt University) Link to this fact
Hidden ingredients / Self-reported survey
In this Swedish sample the diethyl phthalate metabolite MEP was not higher with fragrance use in mothers or children; it was higher with sunscreen (mothers) and eye make-up (children, only 6 users), in contrast to US studies where perfume use was the strongest MEP predictor.
Weak evidence.
Caveats
Frequency-of-use question rather than 24-hour recall, very few weekly fragrance users (5 children), borderline CIs, Swedish MEP far below US levels; a null in a small sample, not evidence that perfume is free of DEP.
Source: Larsson 2014, Environment International Link to this fact
Hidden ingredients / Other evidence
GC-MS of the tested perfume listed 18 library-matched volatiles by peak-area percent, including linalool, methyl ionones, linalyl anthranilate, Ambrox and macrocyclic musk-type compounds (wiki reading of library names), with the largest peak 26.9% of area.
Weak evidence.
Caveats
Peak area is not concentration; several formulas and library scores in the table look wrong (one match score of 198); ethanol and solvent not reported; identification is by library match only.
Source: Al-Sowayan 2026, Frontiers in Pharmacology Link to this fact
Indoor air / Other evidence
Industry chemists note that indoor air tests for secondhand smoke also pick up cooking, cleaners, furniture polish, perfumes, hair sprays, deodorants and building materials, and one conference-room scan found non-tobacco peaks larger than the tobacco-smoke peaks.
Weak evidence: Industry authors citing an industry report; shows measurement confounding, not that ETS is harmless.
Source: Rodgman & Perfetti 2013 Industry-funded Link to this fact
Indoor air / Other evidence
Personal-use scented products (perfumes, colognes, hair treatments) release their ozone-reactive chemicals close to the breathing zone, so inhaled doses of the reaction products can be larger than room-average models predict.
Weak evidence: A single supporting chamber citation, stated as a qualitative point; no dose given here.
Source: Weschler 2006, Environmental Health Perspectives Link to this fact
Laws and loopholes / Measured in people or real products
Musk ambrette, banned in the EU for years, was still detected in the blood of 2 of 100 young Austrians tested, and testing the specific lotion and perfume one of them used did not find musk ambrette in the product itself, so the source of the banned chemical could not be pinned down.
Weak evidence.
Caveats
N=2; the tested products were negative for musk ambrette, so contamination, an unlisted supply-chain source, or a different untested product cannot be distinguished; no source identified.
Source: Hutter 2009, Science of the Total Environment Link to this fact
Skin allergy / Review of other studies
Standard fragrance-allergy patch screening (fragrance mix I plus balsam of Peru) is estimated to identify only 60 to 70 percent of people with true fragrance allergy, due to the evolving ingredient mix used by the perfume industry.
Weak evidence: Secondhand figure relayed from the authors' ref. 11 (a NACDG/Scheman source), not independently verified or re-derived in this paper.
Source: Zirwas & Moennich 2008, The Journal of Clinical and Aesthetic Dermatology Link to this fact
Skin allergy / Self-reported survey
A previous rash from perfumed cosmetics was significantly associated with a positive patch test to the product perfumes (p = 0.001), suggesting the reactions were clinically relevant.
Weak evidence: Self-reported rash history; association test only, clinic patients.
Source: Johansen 1997, Contact Dermatitis Link to this fact
Skin allergy / Other evidence
36.4% of surveyed UAE women reported an adverse reaction to cosmetics in the past 2 years, mainly skin redness (20.6%), pimples (18.4%) and itching (16.9%); skincare (21.7%) and makeup (14.1%) were blamed far more often than perfume (5.2%).
Weak evidence.
Caveats
Open-link snowball sample of 461 women, mostly young and university-educated; self-report, no exposure measurement; not weighted, so not a UAE prevalence. Mixes fragrance-related and non-fragrance reactions (pimples, hair loss, pigmentation); attribution is the respondent's own.
Source: AlBlooshi 2026, Frontiers in Toxicology Link to this fact
What you can do / Lab study (cells or chemistry)
Only 6 of 42 perfumes tested were comparatively low in hazardous compounds across ten lab tests, which suggests lower-hazard perfumes can be made.
Weak evidence: Products not named, so consumers cannot identify the cleaner ones; in vitro only.
Source: Morlock & Heil 2025, Journal of Chromatography A Link to this fact
What you can do / Self-reported survey
Perfume is most often sprayed on the neck and throat, then the arms — close to the nose and mouth — so people concerned about fragrance inhalation might consider applying it lower on the body or on clothing instead.
Weak evidence: Based on where 326-340 already-regular perfume users in one US industry survey said they applied product, not on any measurement of how application site changes inhaled dose.
Source: Loretz 2006, Food and Chemical Toxicology Industry-funded Link to this fact
What you can do / Self-reported survey
Migraineurs who notice perfume, paint/varnish, gasoline, or bleach smells before their attacks may want to keep a trigger diary, since these were the most common self-reported odor triggers in one clinic sample.
Weak evidence.
Caveats
Rests on a single non-random clinic sample (n=200, one Brazilian city, 2011); a personal pattern should be confirmed prospectively, not assumed from one study, and may reflect premonitory-phase symptom misattribution rather than a true external trigger.
What you can do / Self-reported survey
Migraineurs who notice their attacks are triggered by specific odors (most commonly perfume, cleaning products, cigarette smoke, or vehicle exhaust in this sample) may reasonably consider reducing exposure to those specific triggers as a low-cost self-management step.
Weak evidence: Based on self-reported association in one clinical sample, not a controlled-avoidance or provocation trial; benefit of avoidance was not tested.
Source: Fornazieri 2016, Headache: The Journal of Head and Face Pain Link to this fact
What you can do / Measured in people or real products
In 21 patients whose hydroperoxide allergy was judged certainly relevant, the products blamed were mostly rinse-off products such as soap and shampoo (15 of 21), then leave-on cosmetics and creams (9 of 21), plus detergents, deodorants and perfumes.
Weak evidence.
Caveats
Small subgroup from one clinic; product type is the patient's and dermatologist's identification of products containing limonene or linalool on the label, not confirmed hydroperoxide content.
Source: Dittmar & Schuttelaar 2019, Contact Dermatitis Link to this fact
What you can do / Other evidence
In a lab model, perfume ingredients rubbed from one cotton swatch onto a clean one in as little as 10 seconds, and were still transferring when the perfume had dried on the first fabric for 48 hours.
Weak evidence.
Caveats
Six pure compounds at about 50 times below typical perfume strength, cotton to cotton, crockmeter rubbing under a 9 N load, n = 3; one 48 h sample; forensic bench study, not a health or exposure study.
What you can do / Other evidence
Women who used anti-aging facial cream in a Mexican study had about 2.5 times the median monoethyl phthalate of nonusers (178 vs 71 ug/g creatinine); perfume users showed a similar-sized but statistically uncertain difference.
Weak evidence: Only 11 and 19 users, unadjusted rank-sum tests with about 80 product-metabolite comparisons, so a chance finding is plausible; perfume's own MEP difference was not significant.
Source: Romero-Franco 2011, Environment International Link to this fact
What you can do / Other evidence
In the perfume rat study, oral vitamin E (40 mg/kg/day) lessened many of the changes (blood pressure, heart rate, serum MDA, CYP1A1/CYP1A2 induction) without normalizing creatinine, troponin or PO2.
Weak evidence.
Caveats
Rat oral dose, five animals per group, no human test; the printed serum MDA for the vitamin E group is identical to the control value, suggesting a transcription error; statistical letters show partial effects only.
Source: Al-Sowayan 2026, Frontiers in Pharmacology Link to this fact
Information, not medical advice. See also: myths we won’t tell you.