GoodGuide Fragrance and Perfume Ratings

Unless you’re dripping scent or spend most days trying the free samples in department store fragrance sections, you probably don’t use enough perfume or cologne to make the chemical ingredients in it a serious health concern. But since many of them show up in other personal care products, even that added dose of perfume once a week on Friday night could be adding to a more regular exposure to a chemical with health or environmental concerns. First among those, naturally, is the ingredient “fragrance”. The specific blend of chemical ingredients used to make fragrance is considered a trade secret, but the generic term can often conceal the presence of chemicals like phthalates, which are toxic to human immune, nervous, and respiratory systems, as well as environmental hazards (phthalates are banned for use in cosmetics in the European Union). And even if there aren’t phthalates in the fragrance, many chemical scents cause allergies in people. As an easy way to avoid those health concerns, you can use our ingredient ratings to look for perfumes that use natural botanical extracts instead of fragrance. (more)

You’ll also occasionally find other chemicals of concern in perfumes or colognes, including oxybenzone, an environmental toxin that opens up your skin to allow other products to better penetrate it, and eugenol, an immune system toxicant. Many perfume fragrances are tested on animals, but it’s easy (and becoming more common) to find frances and perfumes that are not tested on animals—you can find them here by browsing our social data for products that are PETA or Leaping Bunny certified.