Skincare Chemicals to Avoid: Fragrance

It has been a while since I did my last post on Skincare Chemicals to Avoid here, and thought it was time to expose another nasty chemical hiding in our everyday skincare routines. Today I will be discussing something (seemingly) without a scary chemical name, something that sounds so everyday and even lovely: Fragrance. 
Fragrance in our skincare is also referred to as parfum or perfume, again not sounding so scary. What is scary however, is that because of trade secret laws, the manufacturers are not required to disclose what exactly hides behind this 'fragrance' term. Fragrance is added to a product to give it a unique and pleasant aroma. However, it could be anything from essential oils (relatively harmless, but nevertheless can be skin irritants, and a person needs to know if a specific oil is present if they are allergic to it) to much nastier things that may have nothing to do with scent, such as preservatives and phthalates. In fact, manufacturers are allowed to cover over 200 chemicals behind 'fragrance'. It can be seen as a special dark box where manufacturers can hide potentially harmful and controversial ingredients, without having to disclose them.
The advice I myself follow is to avoid any product that simply states 'fragrance' or 'parfum' without disclosing what it consists of. This may be especially important for people with sensitive skin, there is a higher risk of something hiding behind the term that may be a skin irritant. Overall it seems that as consumers, we should be entitled to know exactly what goes in the product that we put on our skin that will get soaked into our system. So, no mystery fragrances for me please, no matter how lovely they may smell.