How many fragrance allergens have to be named on a cosmetic label in the EU?

More than 80, up from 24. Regulation (EU) 2023/1545 widened the list, and the trigger is 0.001 percent in a leave-on product or 0.01 percent in a rinse-off. Products newly placed on the EU market from 31 July 2026 have to comply. Stock already on the market has until 31 July 2028.

Is Fragrance Bad for Skin? What the Evidence Actually Says (2026)

Q: Is fragrance bad for skin?

For most people, no. For a minority it genuinely is, and the front of the bottle will never tell you which one you are.

Q: Does fragrance-free mean the same thing as unscented?

No, and neither term has a legal definition. Fragrance-free generally means no fragrance material was added. Unscented often means the product was built to smell of nothing, sometimes by adding a masking fragrance to cover the smell of the rest of the formula. That masking agent is still fragrance material.

The rates nobody quotes

Fragrance is not poison and it is not neutral. It is an allergen, and allergens have numbers attached.

The EDEN Fragrance Study patch tested a random sample of the general population across five European countries. Published in the British Journal of Dermatology in 2015, it found contact allergy at around 2.6 percent for fragrance mix I, 1.9 percent for fragrance mix II and 0.7 percent for Balsam of Peru.

Then look at people who are already being patch tested because their skin is reacting. A 2024 systematic review in Contact Dermatitis put sensitisation in European dermatitis patients at 6.81 percent for fragrance mix I and 3.64 percent for fragrance mix II.

Read those two figures next to each other, because the gap between them is the whole story. Most people are not allergic to fragrance. Among people whose skin is already reacting to something, a real slice are.

A single universal "fragrance is bad" score gets it wrong twice. It alarms the majority who are fine, and it under-serves the minority who need to know which specific molecule.

"Parfum" is one word doing the work of fifty

Here is the part that makes fragrance different from every other ingredient on the list. An entire fragrance blend can legally appear as one line: fragrance, or parfum. The composition is a trade secret. A scented moisturiser can carry dozens of individual aroma chemicals behind that single word.

So when a review tells you a product is fragranced, that reviewer is reading the same one word you are. Outside the lab, nobody knows what is in it.

Europe just widened what has to be printed

Named allergens are the exception to the trade secret, and the exception just got much bigger. Regulation (EU) 2023/1545 raised the number of fragrance allergens that have to be named individually on the label from 24 to more than 80. The trigger is 0.001 percent in a leave-on product and 0.01 percent in a rinse-off. Products newly placed on the EU market from 31 July 2026 have to comply. Stock already on the market has until 31 July 2028.

Two things follow. Labels in Europe are about to get longer and much more specific. And for the next two years the same product can be on the same shelf in two different label versions, so an old box is not proof of an old formula.

If you know your trigger by name, this is the best thing to happen to your shopping in a decade. If you do not, the back of the bottle just got harder to skim.

"Fragrance-free" and "unscented" are not the same claim

Neither term has a legal definition, so neither one is a promise. Fragrance-free generally means no fragrance material was added. Unscented often means the product was built to smell of nothing, sometimes by adding a masking fragrance to cover the smell of the rest of the formula. That masking agent is still fragrance material.

If fragrance is a problem for you, "unscented" is not the word you are looking for. The ingredient list is.

So what do you do with this

There are three honest positions here. Pick the one that is actually yours instead of the one the internet handed you.

Fragrance has never bothered you. Then a fragrance flag is information, not a verdict. Plenty of formulas worth owning are scented, and removing a variable that was never causing anything just shrinks your options.
Your skin is reactive right now, or your barrier is having a bad month. Then fragrance is a variable worth taking out while you work out what is going on. Not because it is guilty, because it is easy to remove.
You already know your allergen by name. Then read the back of the bottle for that name, and the 2026 labelling change is squarely on your side.

None of that is a diagnosis, and this page is not one. If your skin is reacting and you do not know why, patch testing with a dermatologist is the thing that actually answers it. An app reads labels.

Sus reads the fragrance line for you

Sus finds fragrance on the ingredient list, shows you where it sits, and weighs it against your Skin ID instead of against skin in general. Tell it once that fragrance is a problem for you and every scan after that treats it as one. Tell it nothing and it will still show you where the parfum landed, which is more than the front of the bottle was ever going to do.

Download Sus on the App Store

Free for iPhone. Your first 3 scans are on us, no sign-up. Sus is a cosmetics tool for informational purposes. It does not diagnose or treat anything.