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The 18 Best Clean Perfumes Worth Adding to Your Rotation
From bright floral scents to earthy, woody notes.
Read the back of any bottle in your medicine cabinet, and we're betting you'll find the catch-all term "fragrance" listed as one of the first ingredients—with the exception of some of the best clean perfumes. As companies have no legal obligation to disclose the exact combination of components included in their products (often considered proprietary information), it's easy for manufacturers to sneak in a number of undesirable—and potentially harmful—ingredients under the umbrella term. “Fragrance transparency is growing, and consumers are eager to know the stories behind the materials that make their fragrances unique," Donna Ramanauskas, senior perfumer at Agilex Fragrances previously told BAZAAR.com.
Of the possible 3,619 fragrance- and functional-based ingredients listed by the International Fragrance Association (IFRA) as of 2022, typical perfume and cologne mixtures can feature up to several hundred different chemicals, many of them synthetic. And, according to a 2018 study, these formulas can also emit the same amount of chemical vapors as petroleum emissions from cars. The vapors—also known as volatile organic compounds or VOCs—react with proteins in our body, which can result in physical immune responses like breathing issues, migraines, hormone disruption, skin irritation, and more, even potentially compounding into long-term health effects.
Shop Our Editors′ Favorite Clean Perfumes
To add a bit more simplicity to your go-to scent rotation (in a good way), we've pulled together a few of the best clean fragrances editors and shoppers love. Featuring top-rated, 100 percent natural picks to fragrance staples with ingredients you won't need a translator for, these coveted selects are making beauty safer and more enjoyable with their total formula transparency.
Olivia Fleming is the Features Director at HarpersBAZAAR.com, and Jenna Rosenstein is the Beauty Director at HarpersBAZAAR.com. Two years ago, Olivia and Jenna started casually sharing links with each other about clean beauty. What started out as a hobby (from disecting the lastest research to discovering the most innovative new products) quickly became an obession. But they soon realized that the business of clean beauty was as confusing as it was compelling, thanks to a lot of confliciting data and obscure marketing jargon. To separate science from science fiction, Jenna and Olivia spoke with leading beauty experts; pored over studies and data; and swiped, swatched, and spritzed hundreds of clean hair and skincare products to get to the root of what it really means to be clean and natural in the realm of beauty.
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