Contrary to popular belief, fragrance isn't necessarily irritating to your skin; it's the allergens in them that are.
Fragrances are complex. Though it may only take up one word on the ingredient list, it can be made up of dozens - and sometimes even hundreds - of ingredients. You read that right: hundreds. Long considered in the US to be a trade secret, companies were allowed to keep fragrance constituents confidential.
This left dermatologists and third-party organizations little choice but to recommend consumers with sensitive skin to avoid fragrance altogether. Without the ability to know what's in a fragrance, it's just better to avoid them. Over time, this led to the demonization of fragrance as being all bad. Or at least synthetic fragrance.
But it's more complex than that. The culprit of skin reactions to fragrance are almost always due to the allergens in them. This is common knowledge in other parts of the world, such as the EU (European Union). In fact, the general population there is aware of the presence of allergens in fragrance and even what some of them are. As part of the EU cosmetics and personal care regulations, brands are required to disclose the presence of any of the 26 allergens in their fragrances.
Why does that matter? You'd be surprised where the allergens pop up. In fact, natural fragrances and essential oils tend to contain a lot of allergens (it makes sense if you think about it: they are more natural like food is, which makes them more likely to contain naturally-occuring compounds that people might be allergic to). Naturally-derived fragrances and even synthetic fragrances can often be more clean than "natural" fragrances.
What does this all mean? It means that just because you may have a sensitivity to a fragrance allergen, you can still enjoy fragrance if you find ones that are allergen-free.
Unfortunately, the fragrance industry has long overlooked the needs of people with sensitive skin. At Havyn, we specifically formulate every fragrance to be clean AND allergen-free. So even those with sensitivities can enjoy fragrance.