Some of what’s in lotion, perfume, and deodorant doesn’t stay on top of your skin. Here’s what researchers have measured, how the industry estimates your dose, and how much of that estimate rests on small surveys and default numbers.
Evidence key Strong Moderate Weak How we grade
What you put on can show up in your body
Women who had used perfume in the previous day had nearly 3 times as much of a phthalate breakdown product (from diethyl phthalate, a chemical used to carry fragrance) in their urine as women who hadn't. Moderate evidence. Parlett 2013
In a study of 164 pregnant women in New York City, the phthalate metabolites MEP and MnBP were detected in 100% of urine samples. Moderate evidence. Just 2010 (or equivalent NYC pregnant-women cohort)
In pregnant women, the more products used in a day, the higher the levels. The more personal care products a pregnant woman used in a day, the higher her urine levels of phthalates and parabens, rising step by step. Moderate evidence. Braun 2014
Musk levels in blood and milk seem to track current personal-care product use rather than lifetime storage: Hutter 2009 found that how often people used perfume and body lotion significantly predicted their blood levels of the polycyclic musks (galaxolide, tonalide) in 100 adults, so choosing fragrance-free personal care and laundry products during pregnancy and breastfeeding is a plausible way to lower a mother's musk levels and, in turn, transfer to the baby. Moderate evidence. Reiner 2007
These are exposure markers, not proof of harm. For musks in blood and breast milk, see perfume in your blood.
Some ingredients get through
Salicylate fragrance chemicals pass through skin and are converted in the body to salicylic acid, the compound aspirin becomes: for methyl salicylate (wintergreen), human studies found roughly 12-30% of an applied dose absorbed. Moderate evidence. RIFM Expert Panel / Belsito 2007 Industry-funded
In a lab test, covering the skin raised absorption. Covering the skin after applying linalool (occlusion, as under a bandage or clothing) always increased how much was absorbed, by 2 to 6 times depending on the solvent used. Moderate evidence. Brain et al. 2022 (An-eX/RIFM) Industry-funded
In another lab test, some of what got into skin from lotion stayed there. With body lotion left on skin for 24 hours, up to about 15% of applied DEA penetrated the skin, and 3 consecutive days of lotion use built DEA up in skin to nearly 30% of the applied dose, but systemic absorption into the receptor fluid still stayed under 1% each day. Moderate evidence. Kraeling 2004
The industry’s own model puts skin products first
The industry's own model finds fragrance exposure from household-care and air-care products is far lower than from cosmetics and personal-care products, and almost entirely by inhalation rather than skin contact (household 95th percentile 0.2 ug/kg/day, air care 5 ug/kg/day, versus cosmetics/personal care about 50 ug/kg/day, nearly all dermal). Moderate evidence. Lee 2024 (RIFM/Creme Global) Industry-funded
Because leave-on skin products with large use amounts (body lotion, fine fragrance) drove the highest modeled fragrance-ingredient exposure in this industry model — not air-care products, which had the highest in-product concentrations but low exposure due to no skin contact — a reasonable consumer heuristic is that layering multiple fragranced skin products likely matters more for aggregate systemic fragrance exposure than using a scented candle or air freshener. Weak evidence. Safford 2017 Industry-funded
How your dose gets estimated
When there’s no measured data, EU regulators start from a default. The EU's cosmetics safety regulator (SCCS) assumes 50% of a cosmetic ingredient is absorbed through skin when no measured dermal absorption data exist, and requires at least a 100-fold safety margin between an animal no-effect dose and estimated human exposure before an ingredient is judged safe. Strong evidence. SCCS 2021 (SCCS/1628/21)
For the 7 chemicals in this dataset with published human in vivo comparison data (hydrocortisone, testosterone, ibuprofen, benzoic acid, caffeine, DNCB, and nitrobenzene — none of them fragrance ingredients), measured skin penetration ranged from about 3% to 63% of the applied dose, a more than 20-fold spread that straddles the industry's flat 50% dermal-absorption default from well below to just above it. Moderate evidence. Hewitt 2020 Industry-funded
The dataset meant to replace that default was paid for and written by the industry. Cosmetics Europe (the European cosmetics industry trade association) funded a standardized, OECD-compliant lab study measuring 24-hour skin penetration of 56 cosmetic-relevant chemicals, authored by scientists employed by L'Oreal, Unilever, Pierre Fabre, Procter & Gamble, BASF, Coty, and Beiersdorf, with the explicit goal of replacing a flat 50% default assumption about how much of an applied chemical passes through skin with chemical-specific measured data. Moderate evidence. Hewitt 2020 Industry-funded
In this standardized dataset, several volatile test chemicals lost most of their applied dose to evaporation from the skin surface rather than to skin absorption — naphthalene's mass balance was only 27% of the applied dose and 4-tolunitrile's only 20% — but the study measures only dermal delivery (skin plus receptor fluid) and never quantifies or discusses the airborne exposure that this evaporation implies for someone wearing a product containing these chemicals. Moderate evidence. Hewitt 2020 Industry-funded
The fragrance industry runs its own exposure model. Its authors call its starting assumptions conservative. This industry exposure model's default assumptions are stated by its own authors to be conservative: 100% of a fragranced product applied to skin is assumed absorbed, and 100% of the contents of a spray product (body spray, eau de parfum, eau de toilette) is assumed to land on the skin, with none modeled as inhaled or lost to the air. Moderate evidence. Comiskey 2015 (RIFM/Creme Global) Industry-funded
Look at what goes into it, though. The fragrance industry's amount-per-use inputs for lipstick, body lotion, and face cream in its own aggregate exposure model come from a study where subjects used an unfamiliar substitute product for two weeks, not their own regular brand, and where the probability of daily use fell from about 99% on day 1 to 74-79% by day 14, fastest among the women who disliked the assigned product. Moderate evidence. Loretz 2005 Industry-funded Some of the amount-per-use values feeding this industry exposure model come from very small studies — 10 Dutch adults for bar-soap-in-the-shower amounts, and a single non-distributional value for scented-candle amount per day — rather than large, representative samples. Moderate evidence. Comiskey 2017 (RIFM/Creme Global) Industry-funded
And by its own numbers, plenty of ingredients don’t clear the bar. The fragrance industry's own most detailed exposure model to date estimates that about three-quarters of roughly 3,000 fragrance ingredients fall below a conservative safety threshold (TTC) for long-term systemic exposure, and 99% fall below it for inhalation — but by the same industry analysis, about a quarter of ingredients (777) are above their own systemic threshold and about half are above the skin-sensitization threshold (DST). Moderate evidence. Lee 2024 (RIFM/Creme Global) Industry-funded
Gaps in three safety files
For this fragrance ingredient there was no data at all on absorption, repeat-dose toxicity, developmental effects, genetic damage, or cancer – the whole safety file is skin testing, and 8 of its 11 studies are unpublished company reports that outsiders cannot check. Strong evidence. Lalko 2007 (RIFM) Industry-funded
A 2022 skin-absorption study of linalool, funded by the fragrance industry's own safety institute (RIFM) and run by RIFM's long-term contract lab, tested only fresh linalool and did not report the test material's oxidation state or test air-oxidized linalool, the form clinical studies link to skin allergy. Moderate evidence. Brain et al. 2022 (An-eX/RIFM) Industry-funded
The cosmetics industry's own expert safety panel states plainly, in its own report, that no data exist — published or industry-submitted — on whether PTFE (Teflon) is absorbed through the skin or how the body distributes, metabolizes, or excretes it. Strong evidence. CIR 2018 Industry-funded
Sunscreen: a safety review that left out the sunscreen use
The cosmetics industry's 2021 safety review of benzophenone-3 (oxybenzone) explicitly covers only its use as a light stabilizer/product-protectant at up to 0.5% concentration — not its use as an active sunscreen ingredient at up to 6%, which is regulated separately by the FDA under 21 CFR 352 and was not included in this safety review's concentration-of-use survey. Strong evidence. CIR 2021 Benzophenones Industry-funded
The cosmetics industry's own 2021 safety report on benzophenone-3 cites FDA's 2019 proposed sunscreen rule stating there is insufficient data to determine benzophenone-3 is 'generally recognized as safe and effective' as a sunscreen active ingredient, specifically naming 'the potential for endocrine activity' as a reason further developmental and reproductive toxicity data are needed. Strong evidence. CIR 2021 Benzophenones Industry-funded
In one Danish registry, most kids’ sunscreens listed fragrance. About two in three children's sunscreens (87 of 134) and toothpastes (40 of 61) in a Danish registry listed fragrance or a named fragrance allergen. Moderate evidence. Botvid 2023
None of this is a reason to skip sun protection. It’s a reason to look for a fragrance-free one, and to ask why the paperwork has gaps.
In one small study, switching products lowered levels
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
If you use antiperspirant, keep it off freshly shaved or broken skin. Regulatory bodies (France's Afssaps, Norway's VKM) advise against applying antiperspirant to broken or freshly shaved skin because aluminum skin penetration rises substantially when the skin barrier is compromised. Moderate evidence. Martini 2020
What to do
- Start with what stays on all day: body lotion, perfume, and deodorant. In the industry’s own model, leave-on skin products drove the most exposure, so switch those to fragrance-free first.
- Use fewer products. Every one you drop is one less thing on your skin.
- Check labels with our label decoder and look products up in EWG Skin Deep.
- Find swaps in the fragrance-free shopping guide, and read who says fragrance is safe before you trust the word “safe” on a bottle.
Every claim above shows its evidence grade and names its source. See all the facts and the claims we won’t make. Information, not medical advice.