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Air and fabric
All Containers›Shop by use case›Air and fabric›The VOC limit›Fragrance counts toward itShop all air and fabric →
The VOC limit

Fragrance counts toward it

By Dwight Davis, Founder

On this page9
Fragrance materials are volatile. That is how smelling works.

The awkward arithmetic

A fragrance works by evaporating and reaching a nose. Many fragrance materials are therefore volatile organic compounds, and they count toward the content the regulation limits.

So the budget is shared

Whatever the limit is, the carrier and the fragrance spend from the same allowance. A heavier fragrance load leaves less room for alcohol, and a higher alcohol content leaves less room for fragrance.

Which pushes toward water plus solubiliser

If the fragrance has to be a meaningful percentage for the product to work at all, the carrier is where the saving has to come from.

Ask the fragrance house for the VOC content

They will know it, it is a routine question in this category, and it is far better than calculating from a safety data sheet. Ask before you commit to a scent rather than after.

Natural does not mean low

Essential oils are volatile organic compounds. A product formulated from naturals for marketing reasons can have a higher VOC content than one built on a synthetic blend.

And the regulation has a fragrance provision

59.203 contemplates fragrance being incorporated up to a combined level of 2 weight-percent in certain circumstances. Whether that provision reaches your product is a question to put to the text rather than to assume from the existence of the clause.

Design the product around the number

Decide the limit first, allocate the fragrance load you need for the product to work, and build the carrier from what is left. Doing it the other way round produces a product that smells right and cannot be sold.

Get the number in writing before you fall in love with a scent

Choosing a fragrance and then discovering its VOC contribution rules out the carrier you wanted is the common sequence, and reversing it costs nothing but a question asked earlier.

References

40 CFR 59.203, national volatile organic compound emission standards for consumer products. The manufacturer or importer "shall ensure that the VOC content levels in table 1 of this subpart... are not exceeded for any consumer product manufactured or imported on or after December 10, 1998". Air freshener is a named category in that table and the limits are expressed as weight-percent. law.cornell.edu
Reported air freshener VOC limits, from search results rather than from Table 1 itself: single-phase aerosol 70 weight-percent, double-phase aerosol 30, liquid and pump spray 18, solid and gel 3. Table 1 would not serve to us from law.cornell.edu, ecfr.gov or the govinfo PDF, so these four figures are unconfirmed against the current text and are flagged wherever they are used.
Written from 40 CFR 59.203 and 59.205, and from the catalog as it stood on 18 October 2026. The VOC limits quoted for air fresheners come from search results rather than from Table 1 itself, which would not serve to us, and every page that uses them says so. Confirm them against the current table before setting a formula.