Perfume is the obvious place to find fragrance. The industry also puts it in tampons, medicines, kids’ makeup, and toys. Here’s where researchers found it, and what the labels didn’t say.
Evidence key Strong Moderate Weak How we grade
Fragrance turns up in products people don't think of as scented: household cleaners and detergents, tampons and panty liners, medicines, medical devices, toys, and candles. Moderate evidence. Sukakul 2024 Industry-funded
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. Rodriguez 2024
Tampons, pads, and panty liners
Fragrance on products worn against intimate skin, with nothing on the box. In a Belgian test of 10 scented tampons, panty liners, and pads, 8 of the 24 fragrance allergens that EU cosmetics must name were found; all 4 tampons and 1 liner held at least one above 10 µg/g, the level at which a cosmetic would have to list it, and none named any allergen on the pack. Moderate evidence. Desmedt 2020
The fragrance allergens found most in scented tampons were α-isomethyl ionone (in every tampon, 12.6-19.1 µg/g) and hexyl cinnamal, not the familiar citrus and lavender terpenes. Moderate evidence. Desmedt 2020
In the EU, tampons and pads are not cosmetics: as of 2020 only general product-safety law applied, so manufacturers could add fragrance allergens without restriction or labeling, signaling scent only with words like "fresh". Strong evidence. Desmedt 2020
US federal rules don’t require these products to list their ingredients. Testing also turned up trace chemicals the study didn’t link to fragrance. Trace benzene was found in 83% of 79 US feminine hygiene products and 1,4-dioxane in 50%, yet these products are regulated as medical devices with no federal ingredient-disclosure requirement. Moderate evidence. Lin 2020 Estimated cancer risks were below one in a million for most feminine hygiene product types; washes (3.3 in a million) and sprays/powders (2.1 in a million) were just above that level under worst-case assumptions. Moderate evidence. Lin 2020
“Organic” and “natural” labels didn’t mean fewer volatile chemicals either. In a test of 79 US feminine hygiene products, labels such as organic, natural, or for sensitive skin did not predict lower levels of volatile chemicals. Moderate evidence. Lin 2020
Using feminine powder in the past month was linked to 36% higher blood ethylbenzene in a nationally representative NHANES sample of reproductive-aged women. Moderate evidence. Ding 2020
Choose unscented tampons, liners, and pads, and read "fresh" on the pack as "fragranced": the allergens inside will not be listed. Moderate evidence. Desmedt 2020
Medicines and the creams your doctor prescribes
About 1 in 10 (370 of 3,820) topical medicines in a Belgian survey were labeled as containing a fragrance ingredient, and there is no EU or Belgian legislation restricting fragrance in topical medicines. Strong evidence. Pastor-Nieto 2021 (Nardelli 2009)
No EU or Belgian law requires fragrance ingredients in topical medicines to be named on the label, or restricts which fragrance chemicals they may contain — unlike cosmetics, where the EU has required disclosure of major fragrance allergens since 2005. Strong evidence. Nardelli 2009
Benzyl alcohol, a fragrance allergen, is also a preservative in common prescription creams and injections, including steroid, antifungal (clotrimazole) and antibiotic (mupirocin) creams, so fragrance-allergic patients can meet it in their medicines. Moderate evidence. Jacob & Barron 2007
In the 1990s, it was even in diaper-rash ointment. Balsam of Peru, a strong skin sensitizer that the fragrance industry's own standards body (IFRA) had recommended banning, was an ingredient of popular US diaper-rash ointments in the 1990s, applied under occlusion to inflamed infant skin. Moderate evidence. Scheinman 1999
If you have known fragrance allergy, ask your pharmacist or read the full leaflet (not just the outer box) for topical medicines, and request fragrance-free formulations for wound care, NSAID gels, and antiseptics where alternatives exist; if a topical medicine causes a rash, ask for patch testing with the actual product and its individual ingredients, not just the standard fragrance mix. Moderate evidence. Nardelli 2009
Kids’ products and toys
About half of children's cosmetics in a Danish registry (634 of 1,179, 53.8%) listed perfume or a named fragrance allergen, and a US survey of 533 baby/child personal care products found a closely similar share (255/533, 47.8%; Bonchak 2018); in Danish baby-care products the commonest named allergens were linalool, limonene, and benzyl alcohol (the US primary does not report limonene or linalool by name). Strong evidence. Sukakul 2024 Industry-funded
Three in four children's cosmetics (295 of 398, 74.1%) on sale in a Brazilian city listed "parfum/fragrance" on the label, including 90% of children's shampoos and 79% of baby wet wipes. Moderate evidence. Uber 2024
Then there’s perfume made for children, and a toy that lets them mix their own. In a 1999 European lab test, all 7 children's hydro-alcoholic fragrance products (eau de toilette, eau de parfum, roll-on deodorant) contained the allergen geraniol, and a children's toy perfume-blending kit's "lilac essence" contained cinnamic alcohol at 3.7% — about 4.6x (the paper's abstract states "by a factor of 5") the industry's own 0.8% safety guideline. Moderate evidence. Rastogi 1999
The two commonest fragrance allergens on Danish children's cosmetics, limonene (22% of fragranced products) and linalool (18%), are not in the standard European patch test series; they become strong allergens when they oxidize in air. Moderate evidence. Botvid 2023
16.5% of children and adolescents patch tested in 9 population studies had a contact allergy, and in Swedish 16-year-olds fragrance (2.1%) was the second most common allergen after nickel. Strong evidence. Alinaghi 2018
In one Brazilian survey, it started young. A quarter of Brazilian children in a hospital survey (71 of 276) already wore make-up, starting at a median age of 4, usually because the child asked for it (75% of users). Moderate evidence. Melo 2020
Nearly half (49%) of US families in a survey bought children's makeup from large online retailers, and US labeling law (the Fair Packaging and Labeling Act) requires ingredient lists on the package, not on the website. Moderate evidence. Medley 2023
Teens and body spray
In an office-sized test room with some ozone in the air, a single ordinary spray of perfume, body spray, or hair spray, or a dab of hand lotion, set off a burst of new ultrafine particles within minutes, reaching 34,000–200,000 particles per cubic centimeter, more than in many city streets. Moderate evidence. Wu 2024
In a random sample of Swedish teenagers aged 13-19, about 1 in 6 (15.6%) said they were bothered by strong odors such as perfume, cleaning agents, or flower scents, most often affecting the nose. Moderate evidence. Andersson 2008
In one small study, swapping products lowered levels within days. 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. Harley 2016
Nail polish, hair spray, and the salon
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. Hubinger & Havery 2006
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. Parlett 2013
One industry safety review didn’t ask what nail-salon workers breathe. The cosmetics industry's own safety panel judged PGME 'safe' only for nail products and calculated only skin absorption; it did not estimate how much users or nail-salon workers breathe in, and relied on the smell to limit inhalation. Strong evidence. CIR 2008 Industry-funded
For fragrance-allergic people, dermatologists recommend removing diffusers, scented candles, room deodorizers, incense, and wax melts, switching household cleaners, wipes, and laundry products to fragrance-free, and bringing your own shampoo to the salon and your own oil to massages. Moderate evidence. Rodriguez 2024
Why you can’t just read the label
Neither the US Food and Drug Administration nor the Consumer Product Safety Commission requires individual fragrance ingredients to be listed on product labels or Material Safety Data Sheets. Moderate evidence. Kessler 2011 (EHP Forum)
Even EWG’s database has gaps. About a third of the personal care products people actually used were not in EWG's Skin Deep database at all, including 39% of perfumes and nearly all intimate-care products, so their hazards could not be rated. Moderate evidence. Barrett 2025
What you can do
- Treat “fresh” and “scented” on a pad, liner, or tampon box as a warning, and buy the unscented version.
- If you’re allergic to fragrance, ask your pharmacist for fragrance-free creams, gels, and ointments where they exist, and read the full leaflet, not just the box.
- Skip perfume, body spray, and play makeup for kids. They don’t need any of it.
- Bring your own fragrance-free shampoo to the salon, especially if you react to fragrance.
- Check ingredient lists with our label decoder and EWG Skin Deep, and read up on “unscented” versus “fragrance-free”.
More on hidden ingredients: the fragrance loophole and why “natural” isn’t allergen-free.