All About IFRA

Let's discuss IFRA (International Fragrance Association) and what that means for you...

From their website: The IFRA Standards form the basis for the globally accepted and recognized risk management system for the safe use of fragrance ingredients and are part of the IFRA Code of Practice. This is the self-regulating system of the industry, based on risk assessments carried out by an independent Expert Panel.

The Expert Panel is made up of renowned independent experts from the fields such as dermatology, toxicology, pathology and environmental sciences. Their role is to evaluate the data on a fragrance ingredient to see if it supports the current use level, to make sure that there is no risk for the consumer. In cases where the safety assessment does not support the current use, the Panel instructs IFRA to issue a Standard either restricting or banning a material.

We have IFRA on all fragrance oils and flavor oils on our website. Click on the product name and below the description you'll see a set of tabs. IFRA is one of those tabs. You can click on that to see the *max* levels allowed for specific applications.

What do the max levels mean? Let's use Almond Paradise as an example. The IFRA guidelines on this state that there are no restrictions for soaps, shampoos, lotions, etc. So does that mean you can use 100% in your product? No. That would mean your product consists of straight fragrance oil.

The IFRA states the *max* that can be used, not the recommended amount. It is the responsibility of the maker to do their research to see what the recommended usage rate of fragrance oil for their particular recipe is.

For soap, as a general rule of thumb you will use up to 5% of fragrance oil in Cold Process (CP) soap and up to 3% in Melt and Pour (M&P) soap.

So if you see a fragrance oil and the IFRA says 23% for soap, don't use 23%. IFRA is important when it comes to lower numbers. There are a few fragrance oils that have max usage rates that are less than the percentages shown above. In that case, you can only use the max shown for the oil.