The EU fragrance allergen list, explained

What the regulation is for

We work from documents and have not tested any products. The official text of Commission Regulation (EU) 2023/1545, retrieved 2026-11-14, is titled as amending Regulation (EC) No 1223/2009 “as regards labelling of fragrance allergens in cosmetic products.” Its recitals give the reasoning in two layers. Restricting allergens is described as primary prevention, aimed at protecting the whole population from acquiring fragrance allergies. But the text says “sensitised persons may develop symptoms when they are exposed to lower concentrations of an allergen than the maximum permitted levels.” So, as “a measure of secondary prevention,” it is “important to provide information on the presence of individual fragrance allergens in cosmetic products so that sensitised persons can avoid contact with the substance to which they are allergic.”

The same recitals say contact allergy is “life-long” and that the share of the EU population allergic to fragrance allergens “can be estimated to 1-9 %.” That is the regulation’s own estimate, and we do not add to it.

What Article 19 requires, per the text

The regulation summarises Article 19(1), point (g), of Regulation (EC) No 1223/2009. A cosmetic product is to be made available on the EU market only where a list of ingredients is on its packaging. Perfume and aromatic compositions and their raw materials are referred to by the terms “parfum” or “aroma” in that list, “complemented by substances the mention of which is required under the column ‘Other’ in Annex III.” The text then says that “currently, 24 fragrance allergens listed in entries 45 and 67 to 92 of Annex III” are to be mentioned in the list of ingredients, “individually labelled.”

In plain terms for a reader: “parfum” or “aroma” stands for the fragrance mixture as a whole, and certain named allergens are meant to appear next to it. A label with “parfum” and no named allergen may simply mean none of the listed ones are above the threshold. We cannot say more from these excerpts.

The SCCS opinion

The text says the Commission asked for an update of the list, and the Scientific Committee on Consumer Safety (SCCS) “adopted an opinion at its plenary meeting of 26-27 June 2012.” The footnote identifies it as SCCS/1459/11, opinion on fragrance allergens in cosmetic products. According to the regulation, the SCCS confirmed that the existing entries “are still relevant” and “identified 56 additional fragrance allergens, which have clearly caused allergies in humans and which have currently no requirement of individual labelling.”

Thresholds and dates the text states

Based on that opinion, the text concludes that there is “a potential risk to human health” from the additional allergens and that consumers should be told. It says individual labelling should apply “when their concentration exceeds 0,001 % in leave-on products and 0,01 % in rinse-off products.” (The official text writes decimals with a comma; 0,001 % is 0.001 percent.) It also says fragrance substances such as prehaptens and prohaptens, which “can be transformed to known contact allergens via air oxidation or bioactivation,” should be treated as equivalent to fragrance allergens.

On timing, the recitals say businesses should get a transition period “of 3 and 5 years, respectively,” the first for adapting formulations and containers and the second for withdrawing non-compliant products already on the market. Footnotes to the Annex then state that non-compliant products “may be placed on the Union market until 31 July 2026 and made available on the Union market until 31 July 2028.” One footnote adds a condition: products must still comply with the restrictions applicable on 15 August 2023. We did not capture which entries those footnotes attach to, nor the article that fixes when the regulation applies.

The text also says it renames some entries to match the Common Ingredients Glossary, groups similar substances into one entry, and adds isomers and CAS and EC numbers. In the excerpts, certain existing entries are replaced and others deleted. The excerpts do not list the substances.

The older “26” and a wider 2011 list

A European Commission lay summary on perfume allergies, retrieved 2026-11-14, says the SCCNFP, “in its 1999 opinion, identified 26 fragrance allergens for which information should be provided to consumers.” A second page from the same publication says “The 26 fragrance substances were introduced into annex III of the Cosmetics” Directive. So “EU 26” is a 1999 set picked for labelling, not a ban list and not a safety verdict. The 2023 text says 24 are currently labelled; we do not know how that figure relates to 26 and do not reconcile them.

DermNet’s fragrance allergy page says a European SCCS review of fragrances in 2011 “listed 82 substances that had been established as contact allergens including 54 synthetic chemicals and 28 natural extracts.” That is a separate document from the 2012 opinion above, and we make no claim about how they connect. It does show natural extracts alongside synthetic chemicals, which is why “natural” tells you the origin, not whether something is in the allergen discussion. See our guides on natural fragrance and essential oils.

What this means when you read a label

The ingredient list is where named allergens would appear. Our guide to allergen names on ingredient labels covers how they look, and our guides on reading an ingredient list for parfum and aroma and what “parfum” means cover the umbrella terms. The front of a pack is a weaker guide: DermNet says some products labelled “fragrance-free,” the so-called “unscented” ones, “could still include masking fragrances.” See also fragrance-free versus unscented.

The regulation concerns cosmetics sold in the EU. It does not tell you how a product sold elsewhere is labelled, and thresholds mean a substance below them need not be named.

The Annex III entries

The consolidated text of Regulation (EC) No 1223/2009 on cosmetic products as it stood on 17 December 2022 (EU Publications Office, retrieved 2026-11-14) carries these 23 entries in Annex III. For each, the retrieved text says the presence of the substance must be indicated in the list of ingredients when its concentration exceeds 0,001 % in leave-on products or 0,01 % in rinse-off products. Entries 72, 73 and 89 also carry an additional oral-products restriction wording that we did not reproduce. The last column is the entry number for the same name in the EU glossary of common ingredient names (Decision (EU) 2019/701), looked up on the same date.

Annex III ref.	Substance identification	Common ingredient name	CAS	EC	EU glossary entry (Decision 2019/701)
67	2-Benzylideneheptanal	Amyl cinnamal	122-40-7	204-541-5	1850
69	Cinnamyl alcohol	Cinnamyl alcohol	104-54-1	203-212-3	5540
70	3,7-Dimethyl-2,6-octadienal	Citral	5392-40-5	226-394-6	5630
71	Phenol, 2-methoxy-4-(2-propenyl)	Eugenol	97-53-0	202-589-1	9035
72	7-Hydroxycitronellal	Hydroxycitronellal	107-75-5	203-518-7	11481
73	Phenol, 2-methoxy-4-(1-propenyl)	Isoeugenol	97-54-1 / 5932-68-3	202-590-7 / 227-678-2	12025
74	2-Pentyl-3-phenylprop-2-en-1-ol	Amylcinnamyl alcohol	101-85-9	202-982-8	1868
75	Benzyl salicylate	Benzyl salicylate	118-58-1	204-262-9	2961
76	2-Propenal, 3-phenyl-	Cinnamal	104-55-2	203-213-9	5472
77	2H-1-Benzopyran-2-one	Coumarin	91-64-5	202-086-7	6460
78	2,6-Octadien-1-ol, 3,7-dimethyl-, (2E)-	Geraniol	106-24-1	203-377-1	9531
80	4-Methoxybenzyl alcohol	Anise alcohol	105-13-5	203-273-6	1979
81	2-Propenoic acid, 3-phenyl-, phenylmethyl ester	Benzyl cinnamate	103-41-3	203-109-3	2943
82	2,6,10-Dodecatrien-1-ol, 3,7,11-trimethyl-	Farnesol	4602-84-0	225-004-1	9120
84	1,6-Octadien-3-ol, 3,7-dimethyl-	Linalool	78-70-6	201-134-4	13416
85	Benzyl benzoate	Benzyl benzoate	120-51-4	204-402-9	2940
86	Citronellol / (±)-3,7-dimethyloct-6-en-1-ol	Citronellol	106-22-9 / 26489-01-0	203-375-0 / 247-737-6	5648
87	2-Benzylideneoctanal	Hexyl cinnamal	101-86-0	202-983-3	10538
88	d-Limonene (4R)-1-Methyl-4-(1-methylethenyl) cyclohexene	Limonene	5989-27-5	227-813-5	13404
89	Methyl Oct-2-ynoate; Methyl heptine carbonate	Methyl 2-Octynoate	111-12-6	203-836-6	14350
90	3-Methyl-4-(2,6,6-trimethyl-2-cyclohexen-1-yl)-3-buten-2-one	alpha-Isomethyl ionone	127-51-5	204-846-3	1478
91	Oak moss extract	Evernia prunastri extract	90028-68-5	289-861-3	9093
92	Treemoss extract	Evernia furfuracea extract	90028-67-4	289-860-8	9091

The older “26” counted three further substances. Their entries (68, 79 and 83) do not appear as substance rows in the text we retrieved, and benzyl alcohol, which belonged to the older 26, appears in the retrieved text at Annex V entry 45. We did not retrieve the amending acts, so we do not say how or why those entries changed. This table describes the 17 December 2022 consolidated text only; the later Regulation (EU) 2023/1545, discussed above, changes the list again. See also our guide to allergen names on ingredient labels.

Our watch list

This section is our own site rule, not a statement from the EU or any regulator. When we check a product’s published ingredient list, we look for fragrance, parfum, aroma, perfume, essential oils and fragrance chemicals. Our watch list of named fragrance substances is applied to that list, and a product naming one of them does not pass our fragrance-free check. The watch list is ours. It is not a copy of any EU list, and we do not claim it matches one.

A plain line about fragrance

Fragrance is not inherently harmful, and this site is not against it. The narrower point is that people who react to certain fragrance substances need labels that say what is there. Questions about your own reactions belong with a clinician or an allergy or dermatology society, not with a website.