Fragrance is such a personal thing. It’s something that can make a huge impact. I’m sure you can remember specific smells from specific places, moods or times in your life. It invokes memories that can transport you into the past. It brings in memories of spring, of old notebooks, of grandma’s warm, eau de Parfum-laced enveloping hug. Is it any wonder that perfume is such a big deal? Where, though, can we find a good non toxic perfume?
As spring takes over, remember you don’t have to opt for conventional perfumes to get your favorite scent. Take a look at these 25 natural, non toxic perfume brands, and make a choice that’s better for your health and that of the planet! You can also combine that with a non toxic deodorant.
Note: This post was updated on 18 March 2023. It has also been edited from its original version to clarify the difference between ‘natural’ and ‘non-toxic.’
Long Lasting Non Toxic Perfume
We want to buy something that doesn’t just evaporate into nothingness within an hour, right? It needs to last a reasonably long period of time. The perfume ingredient that makes a scent last is called a fixative. These can be natural or synthetic, but we’re interested in natural, organic, non-toxic fixatives – such as frankincense, oud, benzoin, Peru balsam, vetiver and oakmoss. These substances delay scent loss though their molecular structure.
But they’re a bit expensive!
Still, it’s good to know what our options are, for when we do have the money;) These are the most long lasting non toxic perfumes available today:
1 // By Rosie Jane Leila Lou Eau de Parfum
Price: $70 (50ml)
recycled and recyclable Packaging | cruelty-free | vegan | climate neutral
By Rosie Jane’s Leila Lou Eau de Parfum has elements of fresh-cut grass and sweet pear, which hark back to Spring. It smells of jasmine, is made with natural oils, and is described as an everyday essential. Just spritz it all over on well-moisturized skin, and you’re good to go!
By Rosie Jane Leila Lou Review: “This fragrance has consistently gotten me so many compliments each time I wear it! Men ask me to write the name down so they can purchase for their wives. It’s literally the most beautiful feminine scent EVER and the lasting power is a 10/10. I will forever repurchase this.”
2 // A Perfume Organic Mejica
Price: $65
Vegan | PETA-certified | supports organic agriculture | HQ runs on green energy
One of perfumer Amanda Walker’s botanical blends, Mejica was created as a tribute to the vanilla orchid, and combines three vanillas, rare resins, and spices (cardamom, cinnamon).
A grand surprise? The seed-embedded perfume box can be planted to enjoy in your own garden!
3 // Fragrance du Bois
Price: $495
100% organic Vintage Oud oil | sustainable sourcing | CITES-certified
This gender-neutral formulation has a unique woody spicy perfume from its hand-picked cardamom. The vintage oud oil has been aged and matured for several years. The scent reminds you of the sea breeze and mountain air.
Best Non Toxic Perfume
Here’s a list of more brands that make lovely non toxic perfumes.
1 // Skylar
Price: $29-170
Hypoallergenic | vegan | cruelty-free | made in USA
Skylar is a sustainable perfume brand with nature-inspired scents. They use an organic sugar cane alcohol base, and the perfumes are non-toxic (they list all the ingredients on their website, so you can check them out).
You can recycle their perfume bottles, and the boxes are made from FSC-certified paper. Skylar donates a portion of its proceeds to a different charity each month.
2 // Carta
Price: $110
organic, vegan, cruelty-free
Carta Fragrances is a luxury brand, and founder Heather D’Angelo is committed to creating scents that are both environmentally and socially responsible. Carta uses only high-quality, natural ingredients that are sustainably sourced, and never includes harmful chemicals or synthetic fragrances in their products.
Carta fragrances are packaged in reusable and recyclable glass bottles, and their packaging materials are made from recycled and biodegradable materials. They ensure fair wages are paid to their employees. Carta offers bottle refilling and recycling services.
3 // Los Feliz Botanicals
Price: From $10
Handmade | small batch | ethical sourcing
Los Feliz Botanicals uses only non-toxic, plant-based ingredients in their fragrances. They source their ingredients from sustainable and ethically responsible suppliers. All of their fragrances are free from synthetic chemicals, artificial preservatives, and animal-derived ingredients, and are handmade in small batches.
Los Feliz Botanicals is also focused on sustainability, and uses recyclable and biodegradable packaging materials. Plus, for every bottle sold, LFB donates $1 to Charity: Water.
4 // For Strange Women
Price: $60
Ethical sourcing | vegan | cruelty-free
This Kansas-based perfume brand is big on Etsy, and it’s easy to see why. Every item is handmade with pure plant essences. They carefully source their ingredients with a preference for sustainably wild harvested and organic material, and do not use any synthetic ingredients.
Their selection of solid perfumes is brilliant!
5 // Vyrao
Price: From $55
Certified organic ingredients | vegan | no animal testing
Vyrao wants to master energy healing through perfumery. It has six fragrances, each of which is formulated by a master perfumer to trigger a positive emotion.
Vyrao perfumes come in recyclable glass bottles and FSC-certified recycled paper packaging.
6 // IME Natural Perfumes | toxin-free certified
7 // Lake & Skye | inspired by Kundalini yoga
8 // Love, Sylvie | made in USA
9 // Lurk | NPA-certified, USDA-organic
10 // MCMC Fragrances x Mociun | handmade
11 // One Seed | recyclable packaging
12 // Providence Perfume | 100% natural, 96% certified organic
Affordable Non Toxic Perfume
1 // Abbott
Price: From $29
PETA-certified vegan | cruelty-free | hypoallergenic | sustainable sourcing
Abbott has 8 unisex scents, each inspired by a nature destination (Sequoia, Crescent Beach, Big Sky, etc), and the corresponding memories they evoke. Abbott’s signature fragrances have been designed by two of the world’s leading perfumers, Antoine Lie and Steven Claisse.
Abbott’s perfumes come in recyclable glass bottles and boxes. Get their sampler set here.
2 // Dedcool
Price: From $30
Vegan | gender-neutral | handmade in small batches | carbon neutral
Dedcool makes its perfumes with an innovative process, where, instead of using water, they use a signature blend of 23 certified organic plant extracts (all of which are clean, biodegradable). Dedcool has 12 scents, which are simple enough to layer and combine for unique fragrances! They last for a long time, and are totally worth the price.
Dedcool is a member of 1% For The Planet.
Dedcool 01 “Taunt” Eau de Parfum Review: “The ultimate clean girl fragrance. For all my vanilla girlies who love soft and sweet scents, this one’s for you. Seriously love having this travel size in my purse for a quick little refresh throughout the day!”
3 // Henry Rose
Price: From $35
Leaping Bunny certified | sustainably sourced | hypoallergenic
Henry Rose is the first EWG verified and Cradle to Cradle certified collection of fine fragrances. They have a transparent ingredient listing policy, and have a wide range of carefully formulated fragrances.
The perfume bottles are made from 90% recycled glass, the caps are made from compostable soy, and the boxes are made from recycled corrugated paper.
Henry Rose Review: “I’m known to fall in love with a fragrance, then get tired of it within a few weeks. I’m almost a year into wearing this one and still in love! It’s warm, yet fresh, beautifully balanced. I often get headaches or experience my throat tightening up after wearing mainstream fragrances, and haven’t had that happen with any Henry Rose fragrances.”
4 // Leahlani Perfume Oil
Price: $32
Handmade | organic, locally, sustainably sourced ingredients | made in weekly batches
Leahlani is an organic skincare brand based in Hawaii. Enough said, right?? Their perfumes are made in small batches with organic, wildcrafted, locally sourced ingredients.
They offer two perfume oils: a floral and feminine Pua Lei and an exotic vanilla and coconut scented Mahana. Light and delicate, both perfume oils are ideal for everyday use.
Leahlani Perfume Oil Review: “This is the only perfume I will buy and wear!! The scents are beautiful and I know they are clean and safe!”
5 // Moodeaux
Price: From $32
Cruelty-free | recycling program | Black-owned
Moodeaux makes perfume oils that are clean, luxury fragrances and also offer skincare benefits. Their signature scent is the Worthy SuperCharged SkinScent, described as “a hug in a bottle,” containing over 30% fragrance oil. Instead of using alcohol, it is formulated to lock in moisture through its unique botanical ingredients (grape seed, fractionated coconut, apricot, etc).
Moodeaux’s products come in biodegradable mailers, and you can send your empty travel pens back to them.
Moodeaux Worthy SuperCharged SkinScent Review: “It smells SO sexy, sweet, and expensive lol!”
6 // Rahua
Price: $32
USDA-certified organic | vegan | handmade | carbon neutral | Amazonian Rainforest Preservation
Rahua’s perfume oils are made with organic, plant-derived ingredients, and are gender-neutral. Their Palo Santo oil perfume features a sweet, woodsy scent that has been designed to promote positive thinking and healing.
The perfume oil is made with symbiotic® ingredients: they are grown in undisturbed areas in the Amazon rainforest, harvested and prepared using indigenous knowledge by local people, and purchased at a fair price.
Rahua product packaging is recyclable, reusable and many are refillable.
Rahua Palo Santo oil perfume Review: “This perfume oil has a lovely scent. I like that it has gardenia with the palo santo. This gives the oil a fresh scent versus if it was just the super mellow palo santo solo. I have a palo santo perfume oil from another company and I prefer this oil instead because the scent is so nice.”
7 // Sana Jardin Paris
Price: From £28 (rollerball)
Leaping Bunny approved | vegan | cruelty-free
Sana Jardin’s luxury sustainable perfumes have mesmerizing scents, created by master perfumer Carlos Benaim. This is interesting: essential oils used by Sana Jardin are obtained from the distillation of flowers that have been discarded by the perfume industry. Great way to repurpose waste!
Sana Jardin also runs a circular business model, and empowers their female employees to become entrepreneurs themselves. They offer training to the women to develop and sell their own products from the waste by-products of perfume production. Talk about paying it forward!
The perfume bottles are all recyclable, with compostable caps. The boxes are made from upcycled coffee cups.
Sana Jardin Paris Review: “I have the complete suite of Sana Jardin perfumes but this is my second bottle of celestial patchouli – everywhere I go people comment on this beautiful scent and I simply adore it.”
Non Toxic Perfume Sephora
Zero in on safe, non-toxic perfumes at Sephora, which showcases a lot of unique brands, such as:
1 // PHLUR
Price: From $26
2 // Ellis Brooklyn
Price: From $32
3 // Clean Reserve
Price: From $22
4 // The 7 Virtues
Price: From $29
5 // Commodity
Price: From $25
Toxic Perfumes List
When switching to natural, non toxic personal care products, perfume usually gets forgotten. We pay loads of attention to our shampoos, shower gels, toothpaste, deodorant, and clean beauty products. But we forgot about perfumes. Are perfumes toxic?
Very much so. Perfumes can contain harmful toxins, including phthalates (a known endocrine disruptor), numerous allergy triggers, and more. According to the Environmental Working Group, the fragrance industry has about 3,100 stock chemical ingredients that most conventional perfume scents are derived from. The clever thing that perfume companies have done all along, is to keep their ingredients a secret. So you shouldn’t expect the ingredient list to contain ‘phthalates’ or ‘petroleum’ in it.
Our skin absorbs nearly 60% of what we put onto it. So the very presence of these toxins in conventional perfumes have caused headaches, skin allergy, and asthma, to name some of the ‘milder’ symptoms. These toxins enter our body not just through through the skin, but also through inhalation and oral consumption.
Because of all this, it’s a good idea to switch to natural, non-toxic fragrances and perfumes.
What are Natural Fragrances?
First, let’s see what the difference is between perfume and fragrance; I don’t want to use them interchangeably here anymore. ‘Fragrance’ is an overarching term to describe a scent or aroma. It refers to perfumes, eau de toilette, or even the scent of a flower, and other naturally occurring scents. So perfume is a subset of fragrance.
Natural fragrances are compositions of natural aromatic raw materials such as essential oils, isolates, distillates, extracts and volatile concentrates. This is different from synthetic fragrances, which contain materials derived from petroleum and toxic chemicals such as toluene, aldehydes and benzene derivatives. Most conventional perfumes are synthetic, which is why we ought to look into natural, non toxic perfumes, and shop in that part of the perfume aisle.
With the options available today, it’s not hard to find natural, non toxic perfumes that smell just as good as (if not better than!) conventional perfumes.
But, first, let’s clear up some details:
Natural versus Non toxic
‘Natural’ obviously refers to ‘from nature’, or naturally occurring. ‘Non-toxic’ means the item in question is not toxic, or does not contain ingredients that could be toxic to humans.
These two terms are not mutually exclusive.
Countless naturally occurring ingredients are extremely toxic, and are therefore not used in perfumes and fragrances. The IFRA is supposed to make sure of that.
What is the IFRA?
The IFRA – the International Fragrance Association – exists to represent the fragrance industry, and to promote the safe use of fragrances. They have standards that all complying perfumers should follow while making their perfumes.
What are IFRA standards?
The IFRA Standards ban, limit or set criteria for the use of certain ingredients, based on scientific evidence and consumer insights.
Are the IFRA standards sufficient?
Here’s an extract from the EWG’s report (PDF) on popular perfumes:
Makers of popular perfumes, colognes and body sprays market their scents with terms like “floral,” “exotic,” or “musky,” but they don’t disclose that many scents are actually a complex cocktail of natural essences and synthetic chemicals – often petrochemicals. Laboratory tests commissioned by the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics and analyzed by Environmental Working Group revealed 38 secret chemicals in 17 name brand fragrance products, topped by American Eagle Seventy Seven with 24, Chanel Coco with 18, and Britney Spears Curious and Giorgio Armani Acqua Di Gio with 17.
The average fragrance product tested contained 14 secret chemicals not listed on the label. Among them are chemicals associated with hormone disruption and allergic reactions, and many substances that have not been assessed for safety in personal care products.
Coming back to the natural versus non-toxic ingredients issue, this post specifically refers to perfumes made from non-toxic, naturally occurring ingredients. There are many ingredients in mainstream perfumes that are considered “safe,” but are actually toxic (from a human health perspective as well as environmental perspective). Examples include parabens, phthalates, musk ketone, etc.
The popular perfume brands listed in the blue text above adhere to the IFRA standards. And yet they also contain ingredients that are listed as toxic by the EWG. So, what you follow is up to you, of course, but if you are interested in perfumes with naturally occurring, non-toxic ingredients, then this post is for you!
How to Select a Non Toxic Perfume
We can’t easily know the exact ingredients in perfume formulations. There doesn’t seem to be any authority in charge of certifying perfumes as toxic or not, which means you have to do the job yourself. So, exercise sufficient caution while choosing a perfume for yourself.
- Don’t buy any product that does not fully disclose all its ingredients.
- When ingredients are listed, and you’re not sure what they mean, look them up on EWG’s Skin Deep database.
- Look for products that only use natural, organic ingredients. They will probably state it on the packaging.
- Go by trustworthy reviews online regarding the product ingredients and the company’s values regarding the use of toxins, concern for the environment, and position on animal abuse in laboratories.
Finally, remember to dispose of your perfume responsibly once you’re done with it!
THIS POST MAY CONTAIN AFFILIATE LINKS. PLEASE READ MY DISCLOSURE FOR MORE DETAILS.
This post was about non toxic perfume brands
Choosing a perfume is as personal as choosing what you wear. The scent of a particular perfume is also influenced by your natural body chemistry. Which is why the same perfume smells different on different people.
We hope this list of non toxic perfume brands will help you hone in on your favorite scent for this season!
If you liked this post, please share the love!<3
THIS POST CONTAINS AFFILIATE LINKS. PLEASE READ MY DISCLOSURE FOR MORE DETAILS.
NOTE: All brand photographs belong to the respective brands/businesses.
All reviews included in this post are verified reviews taken from the respective brand websites.
This article is very misinformed and misleading. Non-toxic and natural are absolutely not the same thing. IFRA exists to protect us from harmful molecules in perfume, most harmful molecules are in fact natural. Many natural ingredients are simply illegal due to their reaction with our skin. Being toxic is built into the nature of plants etc. so they can repel predators, insects etc. So please speak to an actual perfumer before you write articles that spread incorrect information about the chemistry of it. The reason synthetic ingredients we’re created from the start almost 100(!) years ago was actually because natural molecules were causing allergic reactions and rashes. Which is the exact opposite of what this article is implying.
Hi Ari,
My reply is quite late, but your comment needed to be addressed. Thank you for your comment. It has made me very aware of how careful I need to be while using various terms. Thanks to the thoughts prompted by your comment, I have edited and updated the post to make it clearer what exactly we’re talking about here.
Having said that, this post was not intended to be misinformed or misleading. Also, most people use perfumes, and have every right to know what is contained in them. But most people do not personally know any “actual perfumers.” I certainly don’t, and I don’t think that affects my interest in safe ingredients in any way. I may make mistakes, but my goal is to uncover what exactly is going into my body. I hope the edits to this post clarify any confusion.
Additionally, we know that there are toxic substances in nature, but I suggest you look into synthetic materials in perfumes that are IFRA-approved, but which are absolutely not safe for sustained use by us.
Thank you for adding to the conversation in a very useful way. We all learn more with such interactions. I appreciate you having stopped by:)