New Perfumer & Flavorist Article Demonstrates the Wide Safety Margins Between Real-World Fragrance Exposure and Toxicological Dose Levels
5.20.26
RIFM Senior Associate Scientist, Repeated Dose and Reproductive Toxicology, Arianna Bartlett, PhD, recently authored a feature article for Perfumer & Flavorist examining how toxicological findings should be interpreted in the context of realistic human exposure to fragrance materials.
The article, Dose, Exposure, and Daily Life: Putting Fragrance Toxicology in Context, highlights how toxicological studies use high-dose testing to identify potential hazards, while real-world consumer exposure to fragrance materials remains extremely low. Drawing on recently published research in Regulatory Toxicology and Pharmacology, the article compares toxicological dose levels with relatable real-life examples involving food consumption and fragrance use.
“Much of this work is about helping people understand the difference between hazard and risk,” said Bartlett. “Toxicological studies are intentionally designed to test very high dose levels under controlled conditions, but those conditions are far removed from how consumers actually use fragranced products in everyday life.”
The article also discusses the role of the Creme RIFM Aggregate Exposure Model, which integrates consumer habits and practices data across product categories and exposure routes to estimate realistic aggregate exposure to fragrance materials.
“This type of research is essential to improving scientific communication around fragrance safety,” said Anne Marie Api, PhD, Fellow ATS, President of RIFM. “By placing toxicological findings into a real-world exposure context, we are helping regulators, scientists, and consumers better understand the substantial margins of safety that exist for fragrance materials under normal conditions of use.”
The article further explores RIFM’s ongoing work to expand these exposure-based comparisons to additional fragrance materials and to incorporate biological relevance factors such as metabolism and absorption into safety interpretation.
Future work will expand hazard and exposure comparisons across a broader, chemically diverse set of fragrance materials through the incorporation of consumer-relevant exposure scenarios. These advancements will further strengthen the linkage between hazard data and realistic human exposure, supporting robust, human-relevant safety evaluations.