What “fragrance-free”
actually means.

There is a particular kind of frustration in reading a label carefully, buying the product, and reacting to it anyway. Usually the label was technically accurate. It just was not answering the question you were asking.

"Fragrance-free" is not a defined term. In the United States the FDA does not define it, does not approve it, and does not require a company to prove it before printing it. In practice most brands use it to mean "we did not add a fragrance compound for the purpose of making it smell nice." That leaves a lot of room. A product can contain essential oils, plant extracts or a masking agent and still carry the claim, because none of those were added as perfume.

"Unscented" often means the opposite of what you think. Raw ingredients smell of something, and not always something pleasant. Unscented frequently means a masking fragrance was added specifically to cancel that smell out. So an unscented product can contain more fragrance material than a scented one.

"Naturally scented" tells you nothing about tolerance. Natural and gentle are not the same word. Lavender, tea tree, citrus oils and peppermint are among the more common causes of contact allergy in cosmetics, and limonene and linalool — both of which occur naturally in a long list of plant oils — are on the EU list of fragrance allergens that must be declared. Natural origin is a sourcing fact, not a safety claim.

How to actually read it. Ignore the front of the pack and read the ingredient list. In the US, ingredients appear in descending order of weight down to one percent, after which the order means nothing. The word "fragrance" or "parfum" is a legal catch-all that can stand in for dozens of undisclosed components. And the botanical Latin names are where the scent usually hides: Lavandula angustifolia is lavender, Melaleuca alternifolia is tea tree, Citrus aurantium is neroli.

If you know you react to something, the Latin name is what you search for. If you do not know what you react to, a dermatologist can patch test you for the standard fragrance series, which is a far better use of money than working through the shelf one product at a time.

What we say, and why. Glo Girl is not fragrance-free, and we have stopped saying that it is. The balm contains lavender and tea tree essential oils. There is no synthetic fragrance added, which is a real difference and worth stating — but what you can smell when you open the tin is those two oils, and calling that fragrance-free would be using a loophole rather than telling you something true.

Every ingredient is printed on the tin and listed on the ingredients page, Latin names included. If you react to botanicals, patch test on your inner arm and give it twenty-four hours before you use it anywhere else.

← Back to the journal