Me watching ya& #39;ll debate fragrance in products, waiting for the right time to tell you that even "fragrance-free" products have fragrance in them.
The truth of the matter is, 98% of you, if you were to smell natural formulas as is would gag. A good amount of bigger brands add fragrance to take the edge off that they& #39;re not telling you about, and are not legally required to disclose.
There are workarounds, from the percentages, to the aldehydes being added to raw materials pre-blend to skirt the regulations. There may not be enough added fragrance to trigger irritation...but it& #39;s in there.
Because it& #39;s not immediately perceptible, no one thinks anything of it, and we frequently assume that it IS in fact fragrance free, because it smells like nothing.

That& #39;s a reversed engineered result, esp in the naturals space.
Even with the brands that are disclosing that they& #39;re adding fragrance, fragrance profiles can often be considered intellectual property (ie trade secrets) so they& #39;re not required to disclose what& #39;s in it beyond saying "fragrance" on the label.
The other way they get around it is in the minutiae of what& #39;s defined as fragrance. Because in some cases it& #39;s not several chemicals compounded to create a "fragrance" manufacturers don& #39;t consider it as such, so there& #39;s nothing to disclose.
For example, if I add an aromatic aldehyde to watermelon extract to bring out more of that watermelon "smell", I& #39;ve technically not added fragrance. Just an ingredient to enhance the natural fragrance profile of that safe, previously disclosed ingredient.
Alot of this is a result of conditioning (esp in America).

We all know what "clean" smells like right?

No, we don& #39;t. We just know what a century of marketing and fragrance labs have been telling us it smells like and our brains are hardwired to that now.
There& #39;s maybe 12 companies that make 90% of the world& #39;s fragrances. Most of them also make flavors too. There& #39;s a direct link between what we smell and what we taste in products, and it& #39;s the same folks making all of it.

Personal care, food, cleaning products...all engineered.
As a brand owner, I have my own values around this. Personally, for anything you leave on your face, I truly try to avoid adding any fragrance to.

It doesn& #39;t always work out that way in terms of formulating for various reasons, but it& #39;s a top priority.
It& #39;s often a struggle, and sometimes I will need to add a *likkle* bit of fragrance to smooth things out, but I have thresholds of percentages that I stick to for the least amount of impact.

I& #39;m also an indie brand without an R&D team, so there& #39;s that.
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