Allergens in cleansers: 468 products analyzed
Cleansers are rinse-off — the exposure is brief, but they touch your face every day and surfactant irritants stack on top of fragrance allergens.
Based on 4,442 products with parsed ingredient labels in the AllerNote catalog, as of 2026-07-16.
What stands out
Rinse-off products get a regulatory pass (the EU labelling threshold is 10× higher than leave-on: 0.01% vs 0.001%), and formulators use that headroom: scented cleansers are common. Brief contact lowers, but does not remove, the risk for sensitized users — especially with hot water and twice-daily use.
The category's other story is surfactants. Sodium/ammonium laureth sulfate and cocamidopropyl betaine — the latter a common patch-test positive — appear throughout the category, and they compromise the skin barrier in exactly the way that lets fragrance allergens in.
The allergens to know in this category
| Allergen | Type | Products |
|---|---|---|
| Fragrance Mix | fragrance | 231 |
| Fragrance Mix II | fragrance | 220 |
| Fragrance Mix I | fragrance | 220 |
| Cocamidopropyl Betaine | surfactant | 135 |
| Decyl Glucoside | surfactant | 100 |
| Propylene Glycol | solvent | 92 |
| Sodium Laureth Sulfate | surfactant | 79 |
| Linalool | fragrance | 52 |
| Acrylates | nail_product | 44 |
| Limonene | fragrance | 40 |
The EU labelling change hits this category too
21.6% of cleansers contain at least one fragrance allergen that Regulation (EU) 2023/1545 makes individually declarable from July 31, 2026. Full analysis in the EU fragrance-allergen report.
Presence on a label ≠ risk for you: concentrations aren't disclosed and most people react to specific allergens only. Methodology on the research hub.