If your skin flushes, stings or tightens for reasons you cannot pin down, fragrance is the first thing worth ruling out. It is the most common cause of contact allergy in cosmetics, and it is also the ingredient most easily hidden behind a friendly word on the front of a box.
The two words are not synonyms
Fragrance-free means no fragrance materials have been added. Nothing is in there to make the product smell of anything.
Unscented means the product does not smell of much — which is sometimes achieved by adding a masking fragrance to cover the raw smell of the base. An unscented product can contain more fragrance chemistry than a lightly scented one.
Neither term is tightly regulated in the way an organic certification is. The ingredient list is the only place the answer is reliable.
How to read the list
Turn the box over and look for these, usually near the end:
- Parfum or Fragrance — the umbrella term. A single word that can legally cover dozens of undeclared compounds.
- Aroma — the same thing, used when the scent comes from flavour-grade materials.
- Linalool, Limonene, Geraniol, Citronellol, Citral, Eugenol, Coumarin — the EU requires these 26 allergens to be named separately once they pass a threshold. If you see them listed, there is fragrance in the product, whatever the front of the box says.
- Essential oils — lavender, ylang ylang, bergamot and citrus oils are fragrance. "Natural" describes where a molecule came from, not how your immune system reads it.
One useful habit: the allergen names almost always appear in the last few lines. If a list ends in a run of words ending in ‑ol and ‑al, that is the fragrance declaration.
Being straight about our own range
Two of our products are fragrance-free and two are not, and it would be easy to be vague about which.
- Luna, our overnight cream, is fragrance-free and dermatologically tested. It was built for reactive, redness-prone skin.
- Nora, the exosome and niacinamide serum, is also fragrance-free.
- Vera and Nellie contain fragrance from natural essential oils, and declare linalool, geraniol and citronellol on the label. If you react to those, patch test first — or start with Luna and Nora instead.
We would rather tell you that than have you find out on your face.
How to patch test properly
Most people do this wrong by doing it once. Apply a small amount to the same spot — inner forearm, or just in front of the ear — twice a day for five days. Fragrance allergy is usually a delayed reaction; a single application tells you almost nothing, because the response can take 48 to 72 hours to appear.
When fragrance is not the culprit
Fragrance gets blamed for a lot. Before you rebuild your whole shelf, rule out the other usual suspects: an exfoliating acid used too often, a retinoid introduced too fast, a cleanser stripping the barrier before anything else gets a chance, or simply too many new products started in the same week.
The way to find out is boring and effective. Strip back to a gentle cleanser, one fragrance-free moisturiser and sunscreen. Give it two weeks. Then add one product back every fortnight. It is slow, and it is the only method that actually identifies the offender.
If you are starting that reset now, a fragrance-free moisturiser is the piece to get right first — it is the layer your skin wears all night.