What are Fragrance Oils?

Dr. Mike Thair

Co-Founder & Managing Director

Indochine Natural Sdn Bhd

I have always found the term “Fragrant Oil” very misleading, and obviously this opens the doorway to misuse. In a nutshell, fragrant oils are combinations of synthetic ingredients designed to mimic the aroma of natural fragrances. The motivation here is that these synthetic fragrances are far cheaper to produce than the natural fragrances of essential oils, and do not suffer the supply limitations of natural substances due to seasonal variations and other harvest variations.

More and more these days, fragrant oils are being marketed to an unsuspecting public as “natural,” whereas in fact these are far from natural with 90% or more of the chemicals found in these oils being synthetic and derived from petroleum, including benzene derivatives, aldehydes and others. There is a growing body of evidence that many of these chemicals are responsible for allergic reactions and even more serious health disorders.

Surprisingly, despite the thousands of new synthetic fragrances being developed annually and placed into the marketplace, there is only minimal government regulation and monitoring of their safety. This is a huge task, as it is not just a case of testing each new chemical individually, but also in combination. Further complicating matters are trade secrets laws that effectively keep toxicity testing and ingredient identification from being disclosed, and the industry operates on a self-regulating basis. All that is required on product labeling is the word “Parfum,” with absolutely no indication of what chemicals actually makes up the fragrance.

What is even more surprising is that even ingredients or products certified as organic may contain certain synthetic masking scents to “mask” the smell of sometimes unpleasant smelling ingredients. These masking synthetic ingredients are not declared on labeling.

When shopping for natural body care or home products it is important to examine very carefully the list of product ingredients and product description. Products using synthetic fragrance oils should not be described as “all-natural,” however many manufacturers these days do cross this line. If labeled honestly, a product using synthetic fragrance oils will include the word “fragrance” or “parfum” in the ingredients list. Products using natural essential oils will list the ingredient in a format similar to the following, which uses the botanical (Latin) name of the fragrance source:

Pogostemon cablin (Patchouli) oil

Lavandula angustifolia (Lavender) oil