The health risk imposed by many air care (or air freshener) products is substantial and indisputable.  However, regulatory policy in the United States has not yet caught up with the ballooning health risks associated with the use of air fresheners and other inedible fragranced products in the home.  Thus, air fresheners and other fragranced products continue to proliferate while their ingredients are mostly unregulated and their health impacts are sparsely understood.

Air Fresheners contain multiple types of ingredients, each designed to give the air freshener its unique functionality and presence in the home.   The fragrance is central to this functionality; additional ingredients such as preservatives ensure that the fragrance has an acceptable shelf life and still other ingredients make it possible for fragrance to be uniformly and efficiently distributed throughout spaces in the home, as desired.  

While no air freshener is fully understood nor do air fresheners have a single common ingredient that is clearly harmful, it is likely that many fragrances and therefore many air fresheners pose a health hazard over chronic and frequent use.   Our current spotlight is on Formaldehyde, a potential by-product of many fragrances found in air-fresheners as these fragrances are emitted into the air and react with compounds in air, such as ozone.  While formaldehyde is less and less used as a direct ingredient in air fresheners, it is often emitted when fragrance ingredients called terpenes react with ozone in air and generate formaldehyde.   Continuous or semi-continuous use of air fresheners can therefore generate  consistent levels of formaldehyde in the air over regular use. 

The generation of formaldehyde by fragranced products including air fresheners has been proven and published in the peer-reviewed literature, including Brett Singer et al. (2006) in “Indoor secondary pollutants from cleaning product and air freshener use in the presence of ozone” published in Atmospheric Environment, vol. 40, pp. 6696-6710.  Singer et al. prove that a typical air freshener can produce up to 11 parts per billion (ppb) of formaldehyde in the presence of ozone.  That amount adds to the typical levels of formaldehyde found in conventional homes (14 ppb) and manufactured homes (27 ppb) according to the natural resources defense council or NRDC (click here for more information).   Many regulatory agencies advocate set limits for inhaling formaldehyde over long or chronic periods including a 2 ppb reference exposure limit or REL (California environmental protection, OEHHA), an 8 ppb minimal risk level or MRL (Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, ATSDR) and a 16 ppb occupational safety level (National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health, NIOSH).  

Some other examples of potential bad actors in air fresheners are :  

1. •Fragrances:  Terpenes like alpha and beta pinene as well as limonene are known respiratory irritants at high concentrations.  Although present in nature, these terpenes are put into products at levels that are many, many times higher those levels found in nature.  
   

2. •Solvents/Denaturants:  Many different kinds of aldehydes are present in air fresheners, some as parts of the fragrance, and some (like benzaldehyde and acetaldehyde) as a means to keep the fragrance stable in the product itself. Aldehydes can contribute to cancer, increase asthma rates, and some are even neurotoxic.
   

3. •Benzene and other similar ingredients like it spread the air freshener fragrance far and wide, uniformly into the home.  Benzene is both a carcinogen and a neurotoxin.
   

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