Top Perfumes Contain Hazardous Secret Chemicals, Report Finds

Failing to name the chemicals in a fragrance is legal under the Federal Fair Packaging and Labeling Act of 1973. Though that law requires companies to list cosmetics ingredients on product labels, it explicitly exempts requiring breaking out the specific components of a perfume or cologne. Instead, when a consumer reads the ingredients of those products, she finds only the generic category of “fragrances.”

“By taking advantage of this loophole, the cosmetics industry has kept the public in the dark about the ingredients in fragrances, even those that present potential health risks,” Houlihan says.