Fragrance in skincare products has a bad reputation. It seems like many consumers associate fragrance in skincare products like a major cause to trigger irritation and redness on the skin. Fragrance in skincare products has reportedly caused allergy reaction especially for people with dry skin or sensitive skin. So, the question is if fragrance is bad news for your skin, why would big brands formulate their products with fragrances?
Is Fragrance Bad for Skin?
Fragrance doesn’t benefit the skin in any way. It is added to enhance the user’s experience and enjoyment. However, it is unlikely that fragrance will affect your skin when your skin barrier is strong and healthy.
People with sensitive skin are prone to react to fragrance and triggered symptoms like redness, itchiness, and dry patches. Sensitive skin is usually thinner and has fewer protective layers. Therefore, it is easily triggered by external aggressor such as pollutants and fragrances. Secondly, fragrance is a general term on the ingredient list, it can be made up of 50-100 chemicals. Thus, it can be tricky to determine which chemical is used for the fragrance of the product. This is exactly the reason why fragrance can cause irritations on the skin.
What is Fragrance in Skincare Products?
First of all, fragrance in skincare products is an additional ingredient that added to the product to improve the scent of the products. Fragrance is not a necessary ingredient but it does somehow have an impact on whoever using it.
Some skin care products can still smell nice without additional fragrance because some ingredients like rose and tea tree oil have a natural scent. Therefore, in this case, the product can still smell decent without synthetic fragrance.
You can always check the ingredient list to see if a product contains fragrance or not. In most cases, it’s easy to spot. It’s usually near the end of the list with the word fragrance. However, keep in mind that fragrance might look like an ingredient, it is actually a blend of several ingredients.
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Why Fragrance?
There’s no doubt that putting fragrance on the skin might cause a negative impact. However, pleasant scents actually elevated the whole experience of using a product.
Skincare products are made of many ingredients and some of the ingredients do not have a pleasant scent. This is why skincare products are added with fragrance. In addition, some scents like lavender have a calming effect on consumers and make skincare routine more enjoyable.
Whether you aware of it or not, we as a consumer actually do care about the scent of a product. Who wants to put something on their face with a terrible scent? It might just ruin your mood all day. Whenever we try a new product on our hand, we always check the scent, make sure the scent is pleasant or at least bearable. Hence, fragrance in skincare products is one of the major factors when we choose a skincare product.
Types of Fragrance in Skincare Products
- synthetic fragrance
- natural fragrance
- essential oils
Synthetic Fragrance
Synthetic fragrance is mostly derived from petrochemicals. It contains chemicals like phthalates and benzene derivatives that might be harmful to the skin. (source) It is label as fragrance, perfume or parfum on the ingredient list. But don’t let this fool you. Fragrance as an ingredient sometimes contains various components to create the perfect scent. Chemists can blend the fragrance with 20 different ingredients and add to your skincare products.
Natural Fragrance
Natural fragrance is extracted from natural ingredients such as rose and citrus. There are several ways to extract these molecules from the plant. For example, distillation, fermentation or cold pressing. It is more expensive as an ingredient compared to synthetic fragrance but safer compared to synthetic fragrance. Unfortunately, it might still trigger people with sensitive skin. It is commonly listed as a natural fragrance, citral or limonene on the ingredient list.
Essential Oil
Essential oils are extracted from flowers, seeds, and leaves. It is possible that essential oil can bring benefits to your skin. If you’d like to start using one, make sure you do enough research and use the right one for your skin concern. These oils are concentrated and might harm your skin if you didn’t use it correctly. Ingredients like lavandula angustifolia and citrus oil are the label for essential oil on the ingredient list.
Who Should Avoid Fragrance in Skincare Products?
- sensitive skin
- damaged skin barrier
If your skin is normal and healthy, you shouldn’t be over-worried about fragrance in the products. Fragrance only added to the products to enhance the overall experience. So, chemists formulated the products by adding a minimum amount of fragrance to it. However, if you have sensitive skin or damaged skin barrier, it’s better to use products without fragrance. Unscented products are less likely to trigger skin allergies, eczema, and irritations.
Final Verdict
Although fragrance in skincare products generally does not cause irritation to most skin types, it doesn’t benefit the skin either. But we will agree that products without fragrance are safer to use on the skin. If you do not mind the scent, we’d say go for unscented skincare products.
