When a perfume, a detergent, or an air freshener is called “safe,” it’s fair to ask who decided that. For fragrance ingredients, the standards come from bodies the industry created and pays for. Here’s how that system works, in the industry’s own words, and what it leaves out.
Evidence key Strong Moderate Weak How we grade
The industry funds its own safety checks
The fragrance industry's safety system is self-run: by its own 2003 description, companies fund the Research Institute for Fragrance Materials through dues, its expert panel reviews ingredient safety, and conclusions go to the industry's trade body IFRA, which sets voluntary standards for those same companies. No regulator appears in the loop. Strong evidence. Bickers 2003 (RIFM Expert Panel) Industry-funded
The US fragrance and cosmetics industry's principal safety-review and standard-setting bodies (IFRA, RIFM/REXPAN, the Personal Care Products Council, the Cosmetic Ingredient Review, the Voluntary Cosmetics Regulation Program) are industry-created and industry-funded, and their safety findings are not legally binding on member companies. Moderate evidence. Reebs 2011
Fragrance safety in the EU currently relies on industry self-regulation, managed by the International Fragrance Association (IFRA) and its research arm, the Research Institute for Fragrance Materials (RIFM); this report says it is unclear how much EU member states independently monitor compliance. Moderate evidence. Tegengif 2022
One of its own scientists saw the upside. In 1994 a scientist at the fragrance industry's own research institute wrote that no country required fragrance ingredients to be approved, safety-tested for consumer use, or listed on product labels, and called this "of great benefit to the industry". Strong evidence. Ford 1994 (RIFM) Industry-funded
The industry's own safety panel wrote that a single fragrance can contain 50-300 ingredients, that formulas are 'carefully guarded', and that the industry 'is often perceived as rather less than forthcoming by consumers and their physicians'. Strong evidence. Bickers 2003 (RIFM Expert Panel) Industry-funded
The allergy limits weren’t built for people who are already allergic
If you’re already allergic to fragrance, read this part twice. The industry's fragrance safety-limit system (QRA/IFRA Standards) is explicitly designed to prevent new fragrance allergies from developing, not to protect people who are already allergic from reacting to a compliant product. Strong evidence. Api 2020 (RIFM/IFRA) Industry-funded
In people already allergic to cinnamal, a deodorant with just 0.01% of it triggered a reaction in 1 of 9, and 0.032% in 4 of 9; the industry limit is 0.05%, and it was set to prevent new allergies, not reactions in people already sensitized. Strong evidence. RIFM Expert Panel 2005 (citing Bruze 2003) Industry-funded
Independent dermatologists have asked for much lower limits on two of these chemicals in deodorants. The independent dermatologists who ran this study concluded deodorants should contain cinnamal at less than 0.01% to protect people already sensitized, a stricter limit than the fragrance industry's later 0.05% IFRA standard. Strong evidence. Bruze et al. 2003 The independent dermatologists who ran this study concluded deodorants should contain isoeugenol at less than 0.0063% to protect people already sensitized, about 3x stricter than IFRA's current 0.02% ceiling for consumer products. Strong evidence. Bruze et al. 2005
The fragrance industry's own risk-assessment methodology (QRA1, then QRA2) has set enforceable safety limits for fragrance materials since 2008, but by its own authors' admission has never been tested against real-world clinical outcomes. Strong evidence. Api 2020 (RIFM/IFRA) Industry-funded
The EU’s own regulator has questioned the method too. The 2020 update to the industry's fragrance safety-assessment methodology exists because an independent EU regulatory body (the SCCS), not the industry itself, found the original 2008 version's exposure assumptions and safety factors inadequately justified. Strong evidence. Api 2020 (RIFM/IFRA) Industry-funded As of 2021, the EU's cosmetics regulator states directly that it is not yet possible to use the fragrance industry's QRA2 methodology to set a concentration below which a fragrance chemical is unlikely to cause allergy in new users. Strong evidence. SCCS 2021 (SCCS/1628/21)
Its own reviews flag allergens
Reviewing all available human, animal, and lab-dish evidence on 106 well-studied fragrance chemicals, the fragrance industry's own research institute found that 90 of them (85%) are capable of causing allergic skin sensitization at some dose — 6 strong, 23 moderate, 41 weak, and 26 very weak sensitizers — and only 10 had no evidence of sensitization at all. Moderate evidence. Na et al. 2022 Industry-funded
All but one author of this fragrance-industry potency review were full-time, fully paid employees of the Research Institute for Fragrance Materials (RIFM) at the time of the work, and the remaining author was paid by RIFM for the time spent preparing the paper — a fully industry-funded and industry-staffed study that sets the potency categories RIFM and IFRA use to justify their own safety limits. Strong evidence. Na et al. 2022 Industry-funded
Even the fragrance industry's own safety institute classes the cinnamon-scent chemicals cinnamal and cinnamyl alcohol as human skin sensitizers: in its volunteer tests, 29 of 451 people became allergic to cinnamal at 1% or more. Strong evidence. RIFM Expert Panel 2005 Industry-funded
The fragrance industry's own safety review of the rose ketone cis-beta-damascone records that 10 of 50 human volunteers became sensitized when it was patch tested at 5%, and that the test had to be stopped early because of the number of skin reactions. Strong evidence. Lalko 2007 (RIFM) Industry-funded
Breathing it in was left out until recently
The industry's standard safety package for a fragrance ingredient in 1994 covered acute poisoning and skin effects (irritation, allergy, sun reactions); breathing it in was not tested, because the industry judged inhalation 'not a route of toxicological concern'. Moderate evidence. Ford 1994 (RIFM) Industry-funded
By the industry's own figures, about 60% of fragrance goes into soaps, fabric softeners, cleaners, and detergents, yet its 2003 method for estimating people's exposure counted only 10 personal-care products applied to skin, and breathing fragrance in was not part of the calculation. Strong evidence. Bickers 2003 (RIFM Expert Panel) Industry-funded
Even after this 2017 update, the fragrance industry's own aggregate exposure model still explicitly excluded household cleaning and laundry products — the product category the industry's own 2003 safety-process paper says accounts for about 60% of fragrance volume — and named their inclusion as future work. Moderate evidence. Comiskey 2017 (RIFM/Creme Global) Industry-funded
As of 2024, the fragrance industry's aggregate exposure model finally covers household-care, air-care, and oral-care products and the inhalation route for its full ~3,000-ingredient inventory — a scope earlier industry safety dossiers from 1994, 2003, and 2007 explicitly left out or dismissed by a single-ingredient calculation. Moderate evidence. Lee 2024 (RIFM/Creme Global) Industry-funded
The cosmetics industry’s own panel left a similar gap for three ingredients. In 1997 the cosmetics industry's own safety panel (CIR) formally asked for inhalation-toxicity data on benzyl alcohol, benzoic acid, and sodium benzoate, received none, and still published a 2001 "safe" conclusion that explicitly excludes any product where inhalation is a route of exposure (colognes, hairsprays, deodorants, aerosol fixatives). Strong evidence. Nair 2001 (CIR Expert Panel) Industry-funded
Some verdicts rest on unpublished evidence
Much of the evidence behind the fragrance industry's 'safe as used' verdict on salicylates is unpublished: about 65 of the cited studies are internal RIFM reports, several submitted by fragrance companies, and no modern cancer bioassay exists for any of the 17 chemicals. Strong evidence. RIFM Expert Panel / Belsito 2007 Industry-funded
The Cosmetic Ingredient Review is funded by the cosmetics industry trade association, and the use data, exposure survey, and safety-margin calculation behind its 2008 PGME verdict were unpublished industry submissions. Strong evidence. CIR 2008 Industry-funded
Check who paid for the reassuring studies
Industry money doesn’t make a result wrong, but you should know who paid. This research was supported entirely by the Research Institute for Fragrance Materials, Inc. (RIFM), a fragrance-industry trade body funded by fragrance and consumer-product manufacturers; co-authors are staff of RIFM, Creme Global (RIFM's contract exposure-modeling partner), Unilever, Givaudan, Procter & Gamble and Firmenich. Strong evidence. Safford 2017 Industry-funded
All three named authors of this inhalation-TTC methodology paper were Unilever employees at Unilever's own research center (Colworth Science Park, UK), and the paper states 'The authors declare that there are no conflicts of interest' even though the work was industry research explicitly aimed at reducing inhalation-toxicology testing requirements on the authors' own company's aerosol consumer products under REACH and the EU Cosmetics Directive's 2013 animal-testing ban. Moderate evidence. Carthew, Clapp & Gutsell 2009 Industry-funded
This study — the largest and most-cited test of whether laundry detergents cause allergic contact dermatitis — was funded by Procter & Gamble, which also supplied both detergents tested and had previously conducted its own unpublished non-irritancy testing of the same test concentrations with one of the study's authors. Moderate evidence. Belsito et al. 2002 Industry-funded
SC Johnson funded and co-authored a study that tested what was apparently its own newly developed fragranced air-sanitizer product in asthmatics and found no adverse ocular, nasal, or lung effects. Moderate evidence. Opiekun 2003 Industry-funded
Trade groups answer independent findings
The fragrance industry trade group RIFM (Research Institute for Fragrance Materials) publicly disputed the dryer-vent study, arguing it did not rule out the dryers, ambient air, or towels as VOC sources and lacked enough methodological detail for independent replication. Moderate evidence. Kessler 2011 (EHP Forum)
The lavender and tea tree oil case reports in children drew the same kind of response. The tea tree oil industry's trade association (ATTIA) challenged the lavender/tea tree case reports in a medical journal, and the same association later helped fund a survey that called the oils safe for children. Strong evidence. Ramsey et al. 2020 (JCEM reply); Hawkins et al. 2021
A trade consortium of 11 French essential-oil companies funded and employed the authors of the journal letter disputing the lavender breast-growth case reports; together with the tea tree oil trade association's letter, the published rebuttals to those case reports came from industry. Strong evidence. Giroux & Orjubin 2020 (JCEM letter; Consortium Huiles Essentielles) Industry-funded
The study most often cited to call lavender and tea tree oils 'safe' for children was part-funded by the Australian Tea Tree Industry Association, the Tisserand Institute, and an aromatherapy association, while declaring no conflicts of interest. Strong evidence. Hawkins 2021 Industry-funded
Funding doesn’t prove that survey wrong, and none of this settles whether the oils caused the breast growth. It does tell you who was doing the arguing.
Candle makers have their own version of this story. It’s in our scented candles article.
Some ingredients were banned or restricted, eventually
By 1994 the fragrance industry itself had banned or restricted 82 fragrance materials, most because they cause skin allergy and a dozen because they cause skin reactions in sunlight. Strong evidence. Ford 1994 (RIFM) Industry-funded
Two fragrance musks, AETT and musk ambrette, damaged the nervous system of rats in industry-sponsored studies and were withdrawn; musk ambrette was also barred from skin products because it caused allergic reactions in sunlight. Moderate evidence. Ford 1994 (RIFM) Industry-funded
Musk ambrette had been in use for a long time before that. 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
What to do
- Don’t treat “safe as used” or “IFRA compliant” as proof that a product is safe for you. Check the label yourself with the label decoder or EWG Skin Deep.
- If you’re already allergic to fragrance, choose fragrance-free. The industry’s allergy limits weren’t designed to protect you.
- When a headline says a scented product is safe, look for who funded the study. Every fact on our facts page shows its grade and its source.
- Push for fragrance-free policies and real ingredient disclosure. Start with Take action, and read how labeling law lets fragrance hide in the fragrance loophole.