IFRA Standards - a summary - Page 2

I’m not sure if you’ve had a look at my site, but I remember writing about my Equisetum fragrance (a classic masculine aromatic Fougère) that it has ‘maximum permitted levels of oakmoss’, which it does. When I designed it originally it was for a commission (in the end the client chose something else, so I was free to market Equisetum) and the original design had a lot more oakmoss - about 10 times as much in fact - for the retail product I had to replace most of it with a synthetic substitute.

The point of this ramble is that I’ve been wondering about putting a note on the site to say that you can have the original, non-compliant, formulation if you specifically request it. My thinking being that a specific request like that would constitute consent to exposure to more than the usual amount of the potential allergen and so protect me from lawsuits. I’m not sure whether there is really that much market for it though - other than a few Basenotes aficionados that is.

Its a good project and Im broadly in agreement with its premise - had it been run by an organisation open to people who also use synthetics Id have been inclined to join in the project. Perhaps I should start a new organisation: The Unnatural Perfumers anyone?

Yes thats it exactly. Equally if you were making a 250gram shower gel, you could have a total of 0.25grams of oakmoss in it (the restriction for category 9 being the same, in this case, as for category 4 at 0.1%)

I rather like the sound of fairy dust perfume, but dont tell IFRA - its dangerous stuff you know

Sorry it’s taken so long to get back to this, but I’ve added another batch of entries this morning. These all come from the list of Prohibited standards:

I’ve added Acetyl isovaleryl; Allyl heptine carbonate; Allyl isothiocyanate; Amylcyclopentenone; Anisylidene acetone and Asarone

Of these Asarone is of particular note because it is one of those where there is what amounts to a specification standard, hidden in the Prohibition standard - you do begin to wonder if IFRA do this sort of thing in the hope of catching out an unsuspecting perfumer - anyway the essence of it is this:


To reflect this I’ve marked Asarone as being subject to a specification standard, even though there isn’t a separate standard and I’ve also asterisked it as being present in natural oils in the hope that will be enough to clue in anyone consulting the list in future that there is something special to look up.

There are quite a lot of prohibition standards still to go and several of them have specification aspects.

The world shall hear from me again!

You did ask that question before in another thread and the answer is yes, that is correct.

For the benefit of those not old enough to remember


comes from Fu Manchu, which I used to watch on Saturday morning cinema, when I was very young and decimalisation had not yet happened in Britain: the whole morning at the cinema cost sixpence as I remember and it was all B movies . . .

In light of the recent attempts by Basenotes to imitate a yoyo, Ive decided to repeat the key information here in my own blog, which Im planning on doing with a number of the questions I find myself answering on here most often. Thats partly so that people (including me) can get at the information easily even when Basenotes is having a server moment but also because Ive been caught out a few too many times having typed in a long, complicated reply, only to find the site is gone or so slow that Ive lost the work before it posts.

In case you were worried though, I have no plans to stop responding here when its possible to do so. Ive felt decidedly bereft during the long, dark periods of Basenotes absence lately!

My blog is obviously affiliated with my commercial website, but it is quite separate from it and as its hosted by Google should be pretty robust. Its also unlikely ever to have anything approaching the traffic that Basenotes has to handle. Fingers crossed Im not tempting fate . . .

I meant to respond to this sooner, but lost track.

IFRA was established in 1973 and issued its first Code of Practice in that year. The organisation that does the testing on materials, the Research Institute for Fragrance Materials (RIFM) is older, having been established in 1966. The organisation which actually makes the decisions on what restrictions should be placed is REXPAN (RIFM Expert Panel) and IFRA implement their recommendations through the Standards that are the main subject of this thread.

The Code of Practice is now in its 46th amendment and covers 174 substances.

Ive just updated the OP to include Linalool - a rather important omission from the Specification Standards - the requirement on this one is complex, this is what it says:


Ive added the emphasis.

I'm afraid there isn't anywhere were you can look that up as such because the amount of any natural material that can be used in a fragrance and remain compliant, depends on the amount of restricted components it contains.

So for example if you use clove bud oil that contains 90% eugenol, then you need to calculate the amount of eugenol you are adding when you add that oil, combine that with any other sources of eugenol in your formula (such as nutmeg oil for example) and ensure that the total eugenol from all sources combined does not exceed 0.5%.

You can help yourself to identify which materials may require these calculations by looking at the Safety in use tab on The Good Scents Company pages (I've linked to the one for Clove bud oil as an example), there you will see that clove bud oil contains all these restricted materials:

benzaldehyde Max. Found: <0.10 % and Reason: Sensitization
benzyl alcohol Max. Found: <0.80 % and Reason: Sensitization
eugenol Max. Found: <92.00 % and Reason: Sensitization
iso eugenol Max. Found: <1.10 % and Reason: Sensitization
farnesol Max. Found: <2.00 % and Reason: Sensitization
methyl eugenol Max. Found: trace to <0.10 % and Reason: Potential carcinogenic activity in animals

So you have to do that calculation for each of those materials to ensure you are compliant, not forgetting that in each case there may be other materials in your formula that also contain some of these same materials, thus reducing the amount of clove bud that you can use.

No, that's not what it means. A material is only prohibited when there is an IFRA Prohibition Standard that says so (though beware of materials that contain a prohibited substance).

The list of materials included in fragrances comes from a survey of manufacturers (their own members only) that IFRA conducts periodically. It is published for information and used to guide their research into the effects of ingredients. The inclusion or exclusion of something from that list does not imply any approval or restriction on its use.

Yes, provided that it does not contain anything prohibited: you should be fine with single molecules but check for mixtures and naturals.

The following list is a useful reference, I'm putting it here because it often comes up in the context of discussion about the IFRA rules, and indeed is often laid at their door: wrongly as it has nothing to do with them at all. It is the list of items required by the EU Cosmetics Directive to be listed on the label of any fragrance that contains more than 0.001% (the threshold is 0.01% of the finished product for wash-off products such as shower gel). This regulation was incorporated into UK law as part of the 2008 Cosmetics Regulations, Schedule 4 and as such has been in force for some years.

As a result of this requirement many brands required re-formulation of fragrances in order to avoid putting these things on the label - particularly those with long, difficult chemical names, which seem to lead certain groups of consumers to assume something is poisonous (obviously nonsense, but the power of fear is substantial). Anyway here is the full list of what is often referred to as 'the 26 ingredients'. Notice that the majority of these appear in nature as components of essential oils, absolutes and other extracts from plants. Also notice that no animal derived ingredients are included:

Amyl cinnamal (CAS No 122-40-7)

Benzyl alcohol (CAS No 100-51-6)

Cinnamyl alcohol (CAS No 104-54-1)

Citral (CAS No 5392-40-5)

Eugenol (CAS No 97-53-0)

Hydroxy-citronellal (CAS No 107-75-5)

Isoeugenol (CAS No 97-54-1)

Amyl cinnamyl alcohol (CAS No 101-85-9)

Benzyl salicylate (CAS No 118-58-1)

Cinnamal (CAS No 104-55-2)

Coumarin (CAS No 91-64-5)

Geraniol (CAS No 106-24-1)

Hydroxy-methylpentylcyclohexenecarboxaldehyde (CAS No 31906-04-4)

Anisyl alcohol (CAS No 105-13-5)

Benzyl cinnamate (CAS No 103-41-3)

Farnesol (CAS No 4602-84-0)

2-(4-tert-Butylbenzyl) propionaldehyde (CAS No 80-54-6)

Linalool (CAS No 78-70-6)

Benzyl benzoate (CAS No 120-51-4)

Citronellol (CAS No 106-22-9)

Hexylcinnam-aldehyde (CAS No 101-86-0)

d-Limonene (CAS No 5989-27-5)

Methyl heptin carbonate (CAS No 111-12-6)

3-Methyl-4-(2,6,6-tri-methyl-2-cyclohexen-1-yl)-3-buten-2-one (CAS No 127-51-5)

Oak moss extract (CAS No 90028-68-5)

Tree moss extract (CAS No 90028-67-4)

My blog now has a post covering The 26 Ingredients with the above information plus some extra details and a few more links.

That's what this thread is all about: you have to know what's in your oils and how much, what is restricted or prohibited and what the restrictions are and add it all up.

It's extremely complicated and unfortunately there is no easy answer.

On the other hand unless you are going to sell your mix of essential oils, you don't have to comply with the standards.

In principle there is no reason that you couldn't have your fragrance analysed for compliance (though it would be very expensive) but that isn't how it is normally done. The usual method is to learn the rules and ensure compliance yourself (if you are an indie like me) or use some software to work on your formula (if you are a little bit bigger) or if you work for one of the big houses there will be an entire Department ensuring compliance, not just with IFRA but with legal restrictions in all the territories in which you sell.

You don't have to be an IFRA member to sell fragrance and most independents are not. If you are a member compliance is compulsory, if you are not it isn't. Though in practice you couldn't get insurance for product liability if you didn't comply for retail products.

The barrier to entry is indeed quite high, some would argue set that way by IFRA quite deliberately to help protect the vested interests of it's (mostly big corporate) members, though there is also a compelling argument that IFRA is fighting a rearguard action against (mainly) EU legislators, who are in turn driven by reactionary interest groups with a poor understanding of the science involved.

Whatever you believe about the causes it's by no means impossible to get to grips with: start with the summary at the beginning of this thread.


Musk ambrette was a commonly used aroma chemical until the 70s but don't confuse it with the ambrette seeds (still commonly used by natural perfumers) or ambrettolide (the musk in ambrette seeds, more commonly used as a synthetic and one of the finest musks available to modern perfumers). Musk ambrette is not known in nature and was found to have both neurotoxic and photosensitising properties: hence the prohibition from the late 70s / early 80s onwards.

I'm sure that small an amount would be of no interest to IFRA at all: the risk is that someone has a reaction and sues - you are going to have trouble defending the case if you can't say that you complied with internationally recognised standards.

If you are giving it away to friends & family that's a very small risk however.

You are free to do that James, as long as you are not an IFRA member. However in practice that's difficult to sustain in the EU because of the need for safety assessments and in the US because you are likely to be sued and defending the case when you have not abided by the internationally recognised safety standards is going to be very difficult to say the least.

It isn't necessary, no. I'm not a member (because I want to retain the ability to produce a non-compliant blend for bespoke customers who request it, which I would have to give up as a member).

The advantage of membership is you get substantial advance notice of changes to the standards (so members are already working to the 47th amendment which hasn't yet been published).

The hard part is doing the calculations really.

It's been a long time since I updated this but I've just added notes on the Specification Standards for Limonene (present in citrus oils, mints and tea tree oils) and Musk Ketone (a nitro-musk that although not prohibited is now virtually unused in commercial perfumery).

- - - Updated - - -


I don't believe there is any specific prohibition on their doing so, however it is a little bit like reading someone else's book over their shoulder - the book owner generally feels they are being cheated!