Fragrances and Environmental Issues: A Case Example of Environmental Risk Assessments of Ingredients

Fragrances are made up of many individual ingredients, each of which may have a range of differing physical and chemical properties. Indeed, it is this range that provides the creative perfumer with the ability to impart desirable fragrance characteristics across a variety of consumer products and across the “lifespan” of the aroma following product use. This range of physico-chemical properties also gives each ingredient characteristic behaviour in the environment (fate). Finally, it will also influence the (eco)toxicological properties (effect) of the material. This provides the rationale why in environmental sciences the focus is not on fragrances but on the fragrance ingredients.