“Musk” sounds soft. It sounds like a warm sweater or the last note on a wrist. The synthetic chemicals sold under that word have been found in blood, breast milk, body fat, and rivers. Here’s what researchers measured, which musks were pulled after animal tests, and what still hasn’t been tested.
Evidence key Strong Moderate Weak How we grade
In the blood of almost everyone tested
Start with healthy young adults in one city.
In blood tests of 100 healthy young adults in Vienna, the synthetic musk galaxolide was found in 91% of samples and musk xylene in 79%; only 7 of the 100 people had no synthetic musks in their blood at all. Strong evidence. Hutter 2009
Levels of two of them tracked how often people used body lotion and perfume. That is the part you can act on.
How often someone used body lotion and perfume was directly linked to how much of the synthetic musks galaxolide and tonalide were in their blood, giving direct human evidence that switching to musk-free lotions and perfumes could lower blood levels of these fragrance chemicals. Moderate evidence. Hutter 2009
In breast milk and body fat
This is not new. Researchers were already finding it in the 1990s.
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. Rimkus & Wolf 1996
A decade later, in another country, the same result.
Synthetic musk fragrance chemicals were found in the breast milk of every one of 39 Massachusetts mothers tested in 2004; the most common, galaxolide (HHCB), was in 97% of them. Strong evidence. Reiner 2007
They reach babies before birth, too.
Musk fragrance levels in a newborn's own umbilical cord blood were higher than in the mother's blood, showing these scent chemicals cross the placenta before birth and can accumulate more in the fetus than in the mother. Moderate evidence. Zhang 2015
In 20 Korean mothers, the synthetic musk fragrance chemical galaxolide (HHCB) was found in 70% of umbilical cord blood samples, often at levels higher than in the mother's own blood, pointing to the placenta, not just breast milk, as a route by which fragrance musks reach a baby. Moderate evidence. Kang 2010
In a Swedish group of mothers, perfume went with higher galaxolide, and scented laundry detergent went with higher tonalide.
In 101 Swedish first-time mothers tested over seven years, women who used perfume once a week or more had significantly higher levels of the musk chemical galaxolide (HHCB) in their breast milk than women who used it less often. Moderate evidence. Lignell 2008
Mothers who used perfumed laundry detergent had significantly higher levels of the musk chemical tonalide (AHTN) in their breast milk than mothers who used unscented detergent. Moderate evidence. Lignell 2008
These studies measured musk levels, not harm to babies, and they didn’t compare breastfeeding with formula. Dropping perfume and scented detergent is a reasonable way to cut exposure, though no study here tested it.
So how do they get there?
Synthetic musks reach mothers and babies mainly through the skin (cosmetics and clothes washed in scented detergent), not through food. Moderate evidence. Schmeiser 2001
The musks that were pulled
Some musks sat in everyday soaps and colognes for years before anyone took them out.
AETT, a musk fragrance once common in soaps, deodorants, and cosmetics, caused progressive nerve-fiber demyelination and irreversible pigment build-up in the brains of rats fed the compound for 12-20 weeks; the fragrance industry voluntarily withdrew it from cosmetics in 1978 on the strength of its own data. Moderate evidence. Spencer 1979 Industry-funded
Musk ambrette, once a widely used musk fixative in fragrances (over 100,000 lb/year in the US since the 1920s), caused nerve-fiber demyelination and degeneration in a large industry-funded rat study of 220 animals, with hindlimb weakness ranging from isolated cases at moderate doses to complete weakness at the highest dose tested. Strong evidence. Spencer 1984 Industry-funded
Look at how the authors, including two scientists from the fragrance industry’s research institute, described their own result.
The study's own authors, including two Research Institute for Fragrance Materials scientists, stated that the doses causing clear nerve damage in rats were 50 to 250 times their own estimate of maximum human fragrance exposure to musk ambrette, and that the lower-dose, longer-term study needed to assess real human risk was never done. Moderate evidence. Spencer 1984 Industry-funded
Musk ambrette is no longer used in fragrances; it was withdrawn from all skin-contact products in the 1980s, following both this neurotoxicity finding and separate reports of photoallergic skin reactions in real-world cologne use. Moderate evidence. Spencer 1984; Ford 1994 Industry-funded
A third musk went the same way.
A musk fragrance chemical called ATTN (Versalide) disappeared entirely from human tissue in this 1996 study because industry had already stopped making it in 1980, after animal testing showed it damaged nerves – a real-world example of a musk being phased out after a toxicity finding. Moderate evidence. Rimkus & Wolf 1996
None of this shows that today’s musks do the same thing. It shows how the last round went: the problem turned up after the chemicals were already in people’s products.
What later measurements in people found
When industry stopped using one musk, the level in breast milk fell. A related musk it kept using didn’t fall.
After German industry stopped using musk xylene in 1993, its level in breast milk fell about 70% in four years, but the related musk ketone, which was not phased out, did not fall. Moderate evidence. Schmeiser 2001
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. Reiner 2007
Even a banned musk showed up, and the trail went cold.
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. Hutter 2009
Lab signals, not answers
These are cell and lab findings. They don’t show harm in people, and they don’t rule it out either.
Testing 62 individually purchased fragrance-related ingredients found in the deodorants, 8 were estrogenic in the same cell assay – including the musk HHCB/galaxolide and benzyl salicylate – at potencies the study describes as comparable to parabens, a preservative class with well-documented weak estrogenic activity. Moderate evidence. Lange et al. 2014
Musk ketone does not damage DNA by itself, but in rat liver enzymes and human liver cells it made known carcinogens like benzo[a]pyrene more mutagenic. Weak evidence. Schmeiser 2001
An earlier FDA-lab study found that musk xylol, a synthetic musk fragrance ingredient, did move out of a 24-hour skin reservoir and into the bloodstream over time, unlike the self-tanner and hair-dye chemicals in the 2004 follow-up study. Weak evidence. Hood 1996, cited in Yourick 2004
Down the drain
A lot of what goes on your skin and into your wash leaves through the plumbing.
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. Khalid & Abdollahi 2021
What labels leave out
You can’t avoid a musk you can’t see on the label. Two older sources show why.
New Zealand's cosmetics Schedule 5 names the EU's classic 26 fragrance allergens individually, by CAS number, with the same 0.001% (leave-on) / 0.01% (rinse-off) disclosure thresholds the EU uses — but a New Zealand-specific override note then explicitly permits every one of those named substances (plus benzyl alcohol and two restricted musks) to be declared on the label only generically, as "fragrance" or "parfum," instead of by name. Strong evidence. Cosmetic Products Group Standard 2020 (NZ, HSR002552, consolidated to 2025)
Laboratory testing commissioned by US campaigners found 38 chemicals not listed on the label across 17 popular fragrances, 14 per product on average, including hormone-disrupting synthetic musks. Moderate evidence. Sealey 2016 (citing Sarantis 2010, Not So Sexy)
What you can do
The evidence points mainly to skin contact, from cosmetics and from clothes washed in scented detergent, though that route is inferred, not tested.
Fragrance-free cosmetics and laundry products cut the main routes by which synthetic musks enter the body: skin contact and washed clothing. Moderate evidence. Schmeiser 2001
If you are pregnant or nursing, here is what the Swedish results suggest. It is an inference, not a tested step.
Because galaxolide (HHCB) levels in milk tracked perfume use and tonalide (AHTN) levels tracked scented-laundry-detergent use specifically, choosing fragrance-free perfume and fragrance-free laundry detergent during pregnancy and breastfeeding are each independently plausible ways to lower the corresponding musk chemical passed to a nursing infant. Moderate evidence. Lignell 2008
- Switch to fragrance-free laundry detergent, and skip fabric softener and dryer sheets.
- Choose fragrance-free body lotion. If you are pregnant or nursing, cut back on perfume too.
- Look up musk ketone and musk xylene in our ingredient guide, and check labels with the label decoder and EWG Skin Deep.
- More on fragrance in the body: perfume in your blood and fragrance and babies. More on where it goes next: down the drain.
Every claim above shows its evidence grade and names its source. See all the musk facts and the claims we won’t make. Information, not medical advice.
