Pet Safe / Pet Friendly Fragrance Oils
Posted by andrew sanderson on
Cute puppy pic for attention. This is our German Shepherd, Jet, as a pup.
We are a nation of animal lovers. Because of this, and because our furry friends can be a bit smelly at times, we see a lot of questions, asking if our fragrance oils or products made with our fragrance oils are pet safe or pet friendly
The short answer is that there is no industry standard of pet safe or pet friendly. As with humans, an animal can have an allergic reaction to components within a fragrance oil. Our advice for customers using fragranced products around pets is to introduce with caution and make sure that their pet has no adverse reaction to the fragranced product. Any animal or human can have a reaction to components in a fragrance oil (or any other product) and nothing is ever 100% risk free.
By checking the IFRA document for that fragrance oil you can determine if the finished product is likely to be safe to use around pets. If a fragrance oil can be used at a reasonable percentage for IFRA category 10B (animal sprays) then it is fair to say that the fragrance oil can be used in products around pets. Each section on the IFRA document tells you maximum concentration you can use the oil at to make that particular product. These values are sometimes higher than you would use, occasionally as high as 100% so this is not the working concentration you use in your product but the maximum permitted percentage, based on the fragrance oils components.
You should never use fragrance products around animals that have sensitive respiratory systems (birds and reptiles). Take advice from a vet when using fragrance products around exotic pets and don’t use near a fish tank or an animals cage.
As a guide the cheaper that oils are, the more likely they are to have other components in which cause headaches and skin irritation.
There is an interesting customer post in our facebook group where one of our customers had a dog with a severe skin condition even when it was on medication prescribed by the vet. When she started making her own products with our oils and stopped using other fragrance products, the dogs skin condition improved and the dog came off its medication. This illustrates the need to introduce fragranced products carefully and monitor your pets for any changes in behaviour ./ skin condition.
In summary, if your customers ask if your products are pet safe, ask questions about the pets that they have, look at the IFRA document for the concentrated fragrance oil and advise accordingly.