After 84 years of allowing U.S. cosmetics brands to keep fragrance compositions confidential, federal rules may finally be on the verge of requiring full disclosure for the first time since the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act took effect in 1938, according to reporting published this week by the-ethos.co.

The outlet frames the potential shift as a turning point for an exemption that has covered everything from fine perfume to scented shampoo. The clock the story ticks against is unambiguous: 84 years of legally permitted opacity, stretching from the FD&C Act's enactment in June 1938 to today.

What does the current exemption actually cover?

Under longstanding FDA interpretation, fragrance and flavor compositions are protected confidential business information. A back label reading only "Fragrance" or "Parfum" satisfies federal requirements, even when the formula underlying that one word may include dozens of individual chemicals — some of them recognized sensitizers.

Industry trade associations defend the carve-out as essential to proprietary blending. Perfume houses, the argument runs, cannot compete if every component is printed on the box.

Clinicians and patient advocates push the other way. Without ingredient-level disclosure, patch testing for fragrance allergens often becomes educated guesswork, and consumers with diagnosed sensitivities have no reliable way to avoid triggers.

Why has the carve-out lasted 84 years?

The 1938 statute predates the modern personal care aisle. The scale of today's fragrance use — across skin care, hair care, deodorant, body lotion, household cleaning, and air care — looks nothing like 1938, when scented consumer goods largely meant perfume, cologne, and a handful of hand soaps.

The exemption has outlasted the rise of synthetic aroma chemicals, the maturation of skin sensitization science, multiple congressional hearings on cosmetic safety, and — internationally — the adoption of strict disclosure rules elsewhere. The European Union's Cosmetics Regulation has mandated that 26 individual fragrance allergens be listed on cosmetic labels since 2005, putting names like limonene, linalool, and geraniol directly in front of consumers.

Multinational brands routinely disclose those allergens on EU labels while keeping them off the same product's U.S. version, a dual-formulation reality that has become one of the loudest arguments for change.

What would disclosure actually look like?

The-ethos.co's report signals that change is "about to" happen but stops short of naming a vehicle — no draft bill, no Federal Register notice, no agency timeline. That gap is itself the story for trade readers.

If the U.S. follows the EU model, three workstreams land simultaneously:

• Label copy reformulation. Back panels would list fragrance components above set concentration thresholds, replacing the single-word "Fragrance" entry.
• Supplier disclosure pressure. Fragrance houses would share full composition with brand customers, not only internal R&D. This is the supply-chain pinch point.
• Allergen dossiers. Brand safety files would track known sensitizers at the component level rather than treating "fragrance" as a single block.

Fragrance houses based in Grasse, New York, and Singapore have spent decades building IP around undisclosed formulas. Any U.S. disclosure mandate would force renegotiation of those contracts and could pressure upstream perfumers to standardize disclosure templates across markets.

What comes next?

Until a concrete rulemaking appears in the Federal Register or a bill receives a committee number, the 84-year exemption stays on the books. The next data points to watch: an FDA advance notice of proposed rulemaking, a congressional hearing notice, or a formal sponsor announcement for cosmetic labeling reform.

CosmeticsDesign and Global Cosmetic Industry will track which agency or chamber leads the effort, and whether the disclosure threshold mirrors the EU's 26-allergen list or moves further. For now, the question is no longer whether the 1938 carve-out survives indefinitely, but how quickly the industry's longest-running trade secret reaches a back label.