After writing about Environmental Working Group’s “fragrance-free” campaign, I started looking through my perfumes and lotions and stuff.

Pretty much everything contains an ingredient called “fragrance,” which according to EWG is a no-no. There’s even “fragrance” in my paraben-free, over 70% organic Bamboo Flower lotion from Bonicca!

All my spray perfumes contain “fragrance,” including a couple I got from Nature’s Gate Organics — the first ever fragrant line on the market made with 100% certified organic alcohol.

So I asked Nature’s Gate WHY they have “fragrance” in their ingredients list, instead of actually listing the individual ingredients. The reason, according to Nature’s Gate, is the “proprietary nature” — meaning if the ingredients are listed, other companies can then easily copy the fragrance. This, however, is the same argument that the worst cosmetic companies use in order to mask their practices.

So to investigate further, I went to EWG’s own Skin Deep site, which rates cosmetic product on safety levels between 0 and 5; the lower the number, the safer. I plugged in all 3 ingredients for the Nature’s Gate Organics perfume — Certified organic alcohol, fragrance, and water. The score: 0.3, which is lower than some of the “fragrance-free” products specifically recommended by EWG in its campaign. WTF?

So I talked to Jane Houlihan, VP of Research at EWG, who said that the problem with fragrance is simply that “we just flat out don’t know what’s in it,” as the ingredient “fragrance” can include everything from very harmful phthalates to very innocuous ingredients.

Jane said that Skin Deep’s primary purpose is to let people know about KNOWN harmful ingredients in cosmetics. With perfumes, which doesn’t list all the ingredients contained in the “fragrance” ingredient, it’s difficult to determine whether or not the ingredients are dangerous. The safety of the fragrance ingredients are “all over the board,” Jane said.

Thus, the ingredient “fragrance” is given a rating of 0.5, which seems rather low, in my opinion — especially if that low rating makes products containing fragrances seem much safer than they may actually be. It’s very confusing to have EWG launch a fragrance-free campaign that recommends alternative products — which EWG’s own website labels as potentially MORE harmful than the products WITH fragrances.

So Jane said that EWG’s in the middle of the next annual update for Skin Deep, and that they’ll take my comments into consideration. We’ll see what happens.

Jane, for her part, doesn’t use ANY fragrance. “It just makes sense to stay clear of it,” she said. “We know there’s plenty of harmful stuff that’s used in fragrance.” And while going completely fragrance free might not be for everyone, Jane highly recommends that you “cut down on the number of products you use. All those chemicals can add up.”

For my part, I think I’ll at least finish out my Nature’s Gate Organics perfumes. While I still don’t know what all the ingredients are, Nature’s Gate assures me that their perfumes are 100% phthalate-free. Once I’m done with those bottles, I’ll reevaluate –

Update, 5/16/07: EWG launched its newly revamped Skin Deep site.

Update, 12/11/08: Poison perfume: Now less poisonous

Update, 4/16/09: Honore des Pres: Perfume sans patchouli or phthalates

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