Focus

That Word “Fragrance” on the Label Is Hiding Up to 3,619 Chemicals. Phthalates Are in Most of Them.

The Federal Fair Packaging and Labeling Act requires companies to list ingredients on their products. There is one explicit exemption: fragrance. It is not an oversight. It is the law.

You spray it on before you leave the house. You have done it so many times it is automatic. The bottle is beautiful. The name is French. The scent is the last thing you put on before you walk out the door, and it travels with you all day, absorbed through your skin and breathed into your lungs with every application. You have no idea what is in it. Neither does the person who sold it to you. The label does not say, because the label is not required to say. The single word “fragrance” is a legally protected trade secret that can contain up to 3,619 different chemicals. In the United States, companies have no obligation to disclose which ones are in your specific bottle. The EU goes further: it requires individual labelling of 80 specific fragrance allergens above certain concentrations and has banned three phthalates from cosmetics outright. But the base rule in Europe is still “parfum” on the label. Full formula disclosure is not required anywhere. The difference between the US and the EU is the distance between almost nothing and somewhat more. Neither tells you what you are actually wearing.

The EWG tested 17 name-brand fragrances and found an average of 14 secret chemicals per product, chemicals present in the bottle but not on the label. Roughly half of what you spray on your body every day is invisible to you by design. The FDA has acknowledged it does not have the legal authority to require disclosure of fragrance ingredients in cosmetics. The law that created the exemption was passed in 1973. It has not been substantively updated since.

What phthalates are doing in there

Phthalates are added to fragrances as carriers and fixatives. They make the scent last longer, bind it to the skin, and help it disperse evenly when sprayed. They are effective at this. They are also endocrine disruptors: chemicals that interfere with the hormonal signaling system that regulates metabolism, reproductive function, fetal development, and the communication between the gut and the brain.

More than 75 percent of fragranced products contain phthalates. Because they are classified as fragrance ingredients, they are exempt from label disclosure in the United States. Diethyl phthalate, one of the most common, has been detected in the blood of 97 percent of Americans tested. It has been linked in human epidemiological studies to sperm damage. Research on prenatal exposure has documented effects on male reproductive development in boys exposed in the womb. The EU banned three specific phthalates from cosmetics. The US has no equivalent federal restriction on phthalates in fragrance products.

The double exposure problem

Perfume is unique in the personal care category because it delivers chemicals through two routes simultaneously. When you spray it, the chemicals are absorbed through the skin and inhaled directly into the lungs at the same moment. No regulatory safety assessment currently evaluates this combined exposure pathway. The assessments that exist evaluate skin contact alone or inhalation alone. The actual use pattern, both at once, every day, has not been assessed.

Research published in Springer Nature confirmed that so-called green and organic fragranced products emit carcinogenic volatile organic compounds at rates not significantly different from conventional products. Fewer than 3 percent of VOCs detected in those products were disclosed on labels. Buying a fragrance marketed as natural or clean does not close the exposure pathway unless the brand discloses full ingredient lists and specifically confirms the absence of synthetic fragrance chemicals.

What you can actually do

The word “fragrance-free” on a label means no scent ingredients were added and is the more reliable designation. “Unscented” frequently means masking agents were added to cover the smell of other ingredients. It is a marketing term, not a chemical one. The distinction matters.

For fragrances specifically, look for brands that publish their full ingredient lists, not just “fragrance,” and that explicitly state phthalate-free formulation. If a brand cannot tell you what is in the bottle, that is the information. The EWG’s Skin Deep database at ewg.org/skindeep rates fragrance products for chemical concerns including phthalates and is searchable by product name.

The fragrance loophole has been in place for fifty years. The industry that benefits from it has been self-regulating through the International Fragrance Association for that entire period. As of 2023, that self-regulation has resulted in 86 banned chemicals out of 3,619 permitted ones. The perfume you are wearing was designed to smell good. What it was not designed to do is tell you what is making it last.