Why one word is allowed to do
Cosmetic ingredients are listed under the INCI system — every ingredient by its standard name, in descending order of quantity. For fragrance materials the rules make an exception: the entire scent composition may be gathered under the collective term “Parfum” (or “Fragrance”). The reason is historically understandable: a fragrance formula is a perfume house’s capital, and whoever had to declare it in full would be handing it to the competition.
What that means for you: whether three substances sit behind “Parfum” or three hundred, whether synthetic or natural — from the outside there is no way to tell.
What still has to appear on the pack by name
EU and UK cosmetics law does not leave you entirely in the dark. Certain fragrance materials that trigger contact allergies more often than average must be declared individually above set concentrations — which is why you read names like linalool, limonene, geraniol or citral on packaging. For a long time this applied to 26 substances; in the EU, an amendment to the regulation from 2023 expands that list considerably, to around 80 entries, with transition periods running into 2026 and 2028.
Worth putting into perspective: a declared allergen name is information for people with a known sensitivity — not a warning for everyone. If you are not allergic, you have no reason to fear linalool.
The uncomfortable truth for lovers of natural
And here it gets honest for friends of natural perfume: these allergens do not come only out of the chemistry set — for the most part they are exactly the molecules essential oils are naturally made of. Linalool shapes lavender and clary sage, limonene sits in every citrus peel and in palo santo wood too, geraniol in rose and geranium. “Natural” does not mean free of allergens, and a natural perfume carries these declarations just as a conventional one does.
The difference lies elsewhere: in the question of what ELSE is in the bottle — and how openly a maker talks about it.
How to spot a maker with nothing to hide
A good sign is when a brand says more than it must: which oils are used, where they come from, what the fragrance is set on. Wyld Notes, for instance, publishes the note pyramid for every fragrance and names the oils that, according to the brand, come from its own and partner farms — along with the statement that the fragrances are set on organic, undenatured sugarcane alcohol. Such details do not replace a full formula, but they are the opposite of the hide-and-seek that the one word “Parfum” would allow.
Our advice for reading labels: do not judge a brand by WHETHER “Parfum” is on the list — it almost always is. Judge it by how much it volunteers around it.