Contents of Sensitizing Fragrance Materials in Natural Ingredient Based Cosmetics

Abstract

Perfumes are one of the major causes of allergic contact dermatitis (Adam and Maibach 1985; De Groot 1987; Larsen et al. 1992). Over 3000 fragrance materials are used to compound various types of perfumes, which may themselves contain from 10 to 300 chemicals. The fragrance materials may be natural products, i. e., essential oils, they may be nature identical chemicals, for example, synthetic linlool, which is also found in many essential oils, or they may be non-natural (synthetic) substances, for example, α-hexylcinnamic aldehyde. A large number of perfume allergy cases can be diagnosed by patch testing with the fragrance mix composed of geraniol, hydroxycitronellal, cinnamic aldehyde, cinnamic alcohol, eugenol, isoeugenol, α-amylcinnamic aldehyde and oak moss absolute. All of these substances except hydroxycitronellal may be present in essential oils used for compounding perfumes. These fragrance mix constituents, with the exception of oak moss absolute, are now chemically synthesized and used in the formulation of various perfumes. Johansen et al. (1996a) demonstrated that rather low levels of fragrance mix substances present in cosmetics used by patients with perfume allergy were associated with allergic contact dermatitis in the sensitized patients.