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 / 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
Pine-scent chemicals were also common in Korean household products: alpha-pinene from 19% and beta-myrcene from 12%.
Weak evidence: Headspace presence only; high detection threshold.
Source: Kwon 2007, Journal of Hazardous Materials Link to this fact
Fragrance is everywhere / Hypothesis
Immigrant women in the US most often work as house cleaners and make up 71% of manicurists; an expert job-exposure tool rates both jobs as probably exposed to fragrance chemicals, and house cleaning also to cleaning-product ingredients such as alkylphenols and antimicrobials.
Weak evidence: Exposure ratings from job descriptions (WORC), not measurements.
Source: Knox 2026, Journal of Exposure Science & Environmental Epidemiology 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 / Measured in people or real products
In a mannequin-head test of 16 UK day face moisturizers, the authors report that one application (0.45 g) delivered on average about 16 times more limonene-type terpenes than 24 hours of typical UK home air, and, for the 7 products whose ethanol reached the nose, about 340 times more ethanol.
Weak evidence.
Caveats
Primary: Yeoman 2022 (Indoor Air 32:e12948), Table 6. The abstract's 'up to' is wrong: ×16 and ×339 are means over products with a nonzero dose (14/16, 7/16); maxima ×37 and ×804; over all 16 the medians are ×9 and ×0. Absolute doses are small (≤1.2 mg limonene; below UK PHE limits). The paper's own breathing-zone traces (Fig. 2, limonene ≤0.16 mg/m³) imply doses ~15–500× lower than its tables (evidence base arithmetic), so the ratios are unverified. No people; unheated head, lab at 5 ACH; 'limonene' = all monoterpenes.
Source: Yeoman 2022 via Rádis-Baptista 2023, Journal of Xenobiotics Link to this fact
Fragrance is everywhere / Review of other studies
An NGO analysis (Plastic Soup Foundation, 2022) reported that 87% of products from major European cosmetic brands contained microplastic ingredients.
Weak evidence: NGO figure, unreferenced in the review, definition not stated; major European brands only.
Fragrance is everywhere / Measured in people or real products
In the same 33 breastfeeding women, urinary MEP (the metabolite of DEP, the fragrance phthalate) was on average about 57 times higher in women who "often" used nail polish than in women who never did (2,874 vs. 50.5 micrograms per liter).
Weak evidence.
Caveats
Small pilot study (n=33); frequency-group sizes not reported; perfume/cologne use was not asked about, so fragrance products cannot be separated from nail polish as a source; the difference was significant only on untransformed means, and the authors themselves suggest nail-polish users may also use more perfume and other DEP-containing products.
Source: Hines 2009, Environmental Health Perspectives Link to this fact
Information, not medical advice. See also: myths we won’t tell you.