The fragrance allergens on your label, one by one

Turn over a scented lotion made this year and you may find a new tail on the ingredient list: “parfum, limonene, linalool, citral, geraniol”. Those extra words aren’t filler. They are fragrance allergens that Canadian rules now require companies to name, and each one is on the list for a reason. Here’s who they are.

Where the list comes from

Canada didn’t write its own list. Health Canada’s labelling guide explains that the Cosmetic Regulations incorporate by reference the fragrance allergens listed in Annex III of the European Union’s cosmetics regulation, “as amended from time to time”. When Europe updates its list, Canada’s follows.

The European list is built on the work of the EU’s Scientific Committee on Consumer Safety (SCCS), an independent expert panel. In a 2012 opinion, it reviewed the medical literature and classified 82 substances as established contact allergens in humans: 54 single chemicals and 28 natural extracts. To earn that label, a substance needed solid evidence, such as clinical studies from at least two different centres showing people had become allergic to it.

In July 2023, the EU expanded its labelling list from 24 to 81 entries, and Canada adopted it on a staged timeline:

• Since April 12, 2026, the original 24 must be named on new and existing products.
• Since August 1, 2026, new products must name the expanded list.
• Existing products have until August 1, 2028.

The trigger is the same for all of them: more than 0.001% in a leave-on product such as a moisturizer, or more than 0.01% in a rinse-off product such as a shampoo.

Why name them at all?

A contact allergen is a substance that can teach your immune system to react to it, so that later contact causes allergic contact dermatitis, an itchy, red rash where the product touched you. Once you’re allergic, the only real fix is avoiding the substance.

That’s impossible if it hides under “parfum”. The SCCS put it plainly: listing individual fragrance allergens is an important tool that lets people with an identified allergy reduce or avoid exposure, and it also helps doctors make an accurate diagnosis. The list exists for people who already know what they react to.

It is not a list of dangerous ingredients. Most people use products containing these molecules without trouble. The names matter most once a patch test (small amounts of suspected allergens taped to your back for a couple of days) has pointed to one.

The first 24, by family

The original list reads like a chemistry exam, but it sorts neatly into a few groups.

Citrus and flower molecules

Limonene, linalool, citral, geraniol, citronellol and farnesol are the fresh, lemony and rosy notes. The SCCS singles out limonene and linalool as prehaptens, meaning they are fairly weak on their own but form stronger sensitizers when air oxidizes them. Geraniol and citral are flagged too.

Spice notes

Eugenol (clove), isoeugenol, cinnamal and cinnamyl alcohol (cinnamon) give warm, spicy scents. The SCCS describes several of these as prohaptens, substances your skin’s own enzymes can convert into a stronger allergen.

Sweet, powdery and synthetic notes

Coumarin, anise alcohol, benzyl alcohol, benzyl benzoate, benzyl cinnamate, benzyl salicylate, hexyl cinnamal, amyl cinnamal, amylcinnamyl alcohol, hydroxycitronellal, alpha-isomethyl ionone and methyl 2-octynoate fill out the list. Many are workhorses of modern perfumery.

Two mosses

Evernia prunastri (oakmoss) extract and Evernia furfuracea (treemoss) extract come from lichens. The SCCS concluded that two of their components, atranol and chloroatranol, should not be present in cosmetics at all because of their exceptionally high potential to cause allergy.

The expanded list: 81 entries

The new list keeps all 24 and adds two kinds of names.

The first is more single molecules, some familiar from the kitchen or the medicine cabinet: menthol, vanillin, camphor, carvone, anethole, benzaldehyde, methyl salicylate, pinene, terpineol, sclareol and santalol, plus acetate forms such as linalyl acetate and geranyl acetate.

The second is whole essential oils and extracts, often grouped under one label name. Health Canada’s appendix includes lavender (“Lavandula Oil/Extract”), rose (“Rose Flower Oil/Extract”), jasmine, ylang-ylang, clove, lemongrass, bergamot, lemon peel, orange flower and peel, peppermint, spearmint, eucalyptus, sandalwood, patchouli, cedarwood, geranium, pine, balsam of Peru and turpentine.

For anyone who assumed “natural” meant “not on the allergen list”, this is the big change. Plant oils are now named as allergens in their own right.

How grouped names work on a label

Some entries bundle several related substances. “Rose Ketones”, for example, covers a family of damascone molecules, and “Citral” covers its two forms, geranial and neral. Health Canada says the group name must appear when the combined amount of everything in the group passes the threshold.

The guide’s example: a leave-on product with a little rose flower oil and a little rose flower extract. Neither passes 0.001% alone, but together they do, so the label must say “Rose Flower Oil/Extract”.

Two other rules close gaps. Allergens must be named regardless of their function in the product, so a listed substance added for a reason other than scent still appears. And they must be named even when they arrive inside a botanical extract.

Which ones cause the most reactions?

That depends on who is tested, and the numbers vary a lot between clinics. One useful snapshot comes from a 2022 study in Amsterdam of 323 adults with suspected fragrance allergy who were patch tested with the labelled fragrance substances. Half turned out to be allergic to at least one fragrance.

Among the individual labelled substances, citral, treemoss and oakmoss gave the most positive reactions. The oxidized forms of linalool and limonene reacted far more often than the fresh forms, and testing with those oxidized forms found 62 fragrance-allergic patients that the standard fragrance screening missed. These were people already suspected of fragrance allergy, so the percentages don’t apply to the general public.

Using the list in real life

• If a patch test named a specific substance, write it down exactly as its INCI name (the standard ingredient name used on labels) appears, for example “hydroxycitronellal” or “Evernia prunastri extract”, and look for it on labels.
• Remember that a product sold before August 2026 may only show the first 24 names until 2028.
• Named allergens appear right after the main ingredients and before “parfum”, following the order Health Canada’s guide sets out.
• If you’d rather skip the reading, browse our fragrance-free products.

If a rash keeps coming back where you apply a product, see your doctor or pharmacist, and ask whether patch testing makes sense. The label can only help once you know which name to look for.

The thing to remember is that these names aren’t a warning that a product is unsafe. They’re a lookup table: 24 names today, 81 entries soon, each chosen because doctors documented real allergies to it, and each now printed where you can find it.