Unilever will provide its customers in the US with access to detailed information on fragrance ingredients used in its personal care products. Actually, current Federal labelling rules for cosmetics do not require brands to disclose the substances they use to perfume their products and all these ingredients are labelled together as “Fragrance/Parfum”.

Unilever will disclose the list of fragrance ingredients used in its personal care products through the SmartLabel initiative. Photo: © Tyler Olson / shutterstock.com

The company said it would progressively expand its current product ingredient lists available through the SmartLabel app to include the fragrance ingredients in a product’s formulation above 0.01% (100 parts per million). SmartLabel is a digital tool used by a growing number of food and consumer goods companies in the U.S. (1,800 products are currently participating) to give consumers instantaneous access to product information beyond what is on the product’s label. Consumers just have to scan the product barcode to instantly open that product’s SmartLabel page on their mobile device. Unilever aims to complete the SmartLabel updates by the end of 2018.

The group is also launching a new webpage on UnileverUSA.com to provide additional product information, including its approach to developing safe products, explanations of ingredient types, answers to common questions, and access to SmartLabel.

Eventually, product labelling itself will also be expanding. Actually, several of Unilever’s U.S. personal care products are already labelled to meet the European Union’s current fragrance allergen labelling regulation and Unilever intends to expand this to its full U.S. personal care portfolio.

We believe this initiative will help consumers know more about the products they use every day and build further trust for their favourite Unilever personal care brands,” said Tamara Rogers, EVP Personal Care, Unilever United States.