The fragrance working party is established as a contact body for fragrance industry, represented by the Research Institute for Fragrance Materials to obtain an informal response to scientific questions related to fragrance ingredients and contact allergic reactions. Further, the purpose is to exchange information about relevant subjects.
The ESCD fragrance working party has two scheduled meetings a year with industry representatives. The meeting agenda includes news from industry and news from dermatology.
Recent subjects include:
- Fragrance in topical pharmaceuticals is a problem in Belgium, but not in Denmark and Sweden. Goossens and coworkers have reported that about 10 % of topical pharmaceutical products in Belgium contain fragrance chemicals.
- Majantol (CAS number 103694-68-4) is used more than 10 tons per year in fragrance products. Majantol is reported as an allergen in Contact Dermatitis 2007; 57:48-50 by Axel Schnuch and co-workers. Majantol contains 2 chlorinated impurities which are strong sensitizers. A new manufacturing process has been developed and there is now a lower content of impurities. On the IFRA homepage is listed product categories where the compound can be used. A protocol for investigating the optimal patch test concentration of Majantol is planned.
- Oak moss is now manufactured in new quality with a maximum concentration of 100 PPM of atranol and 100 ppm of chloratranol. RIFM is no longer financially supporting studies on oak moss. However, oak moss allergy is still problematic – see article in Contact Dermatitis 2009; 60:91.
- HMPCC is = Lyral. Based on quantitative risk assessment IFRA has changed the limit of use from previously 1.5 % to 0.5%. Lyral allergy is a problem in Europe because of use in deodorants. It is not used as much in USA because antiperspirants are used more than deodorants. Obviously, it is problematic to incorporate Lyral in antiperspirant preparations. There are only 3 fragrance compounds which give a percentage of positive patients above 2%. It is oak moss, tree moss and Lyral. In the 44th amendment to the IFRA standard the limit of use of Lyral in deodorants and lip products is 0,02 % and for the rest of the product types 0,2 %.
- Eugenol, a pilot study is ongoing to establish the best patch test concentration. It should be around 2,7%. Based on the results from the study, further decisions may be made regarding a multi centre study.
- The large European Epidemiology study with Swedish, German, Italian and Portuguese participants is ongoing. A lot of training has been done in the participating departments to make sure that all use the same technique and reading routine.