On a label, "fragrance" can hide dozens of ingredients, and "unscented" is not the same as "fragrance-free." What the words really mean, and why it matters most around a newborn.
In short: On a skincare label, "fragrance" can legally stand for dozens of undisclosed ingredients, and "unscented" often means fragrance was added just to mask other smells, a different thing from "fragrance-free." Around a newborn, the safest choice is a genuinely fragrance-free product like First Touch, which carries no added scent at all, not even essential oils.
"It says fragrance-free on the front. So why is the word 'fragrance' right there in the ingredients?"
Have you ever asked yourself that? It is confusing, and rightfully so.
Let me tell you what that one word is really doing.
That word, "fragrance" (or "parfum"), is allowed to stand for the whole scent of a product. The law lets a company put all of its scent ingredients under that one word, because the recipe counts as a trade secret. So one little word can be hiding dozens of ingredients you will never get to see.
Everything else on the label has to be named. Scent is the one thing they get to keep to themselves.
And here is where it gets murky. Some ingredients carry a scent as a side effect, even though they were added to do a real job, to soften or to preserve. That scent can still be folded under the same word, "fragrance." So when you see it on a label, it is hard to tell which you are looking at: a perfume built on purpose, or the natural smell of something added for another reason. The word covers both, and that is exactly what makes it so easy to hide behind.
This is the one that catches most of us. "Unscented" and "fragrance-free" sound like the same thing. They mean two different things.
"Fragrance-free" means no fragrance was added. "Unscented" usually means the opposite: fragrance was added, just enough to cover up the smell of everything else, so it ends up smelling like nothing. So a product can smell like nothing and still be full of fragrance.
Nobody really polices either word, so the ingredient list is the only thing that tells you the truth. If you see "fragrance" or "parfum" on it, there is fragrance in the bottle, whatever the front says.
Fragrance is the number one cause of skin allergies from skincare, and the top trigger for kids too. Most of the time, on normal skin, that risk just sits in the background. These first weeks are different.
When your hormones dropped, your skin changed. It is thinner now, drier, quicker to react than it used to be. And your baby's skin and nose are brand new, taking everything in for the first time, right in the few inches where you hold them. That is where scent collects. Your skin and your baby's are in the same tender window, each in its own way.
And there is one route most people forget: the mouth. Babies meet the world mouth-first. Those little hands go to the mouth over and over, because that is how they learn, and when they are teething they gnaw on their own fingers and on yours. So whatever sits on your skin or theirs finds its way in, one way or another. For a baby, a skincare ingredient is something they breathe, something the skin takes in, and something they will almost certainly taste.
It is also why your baby is busy learning your smell. How your baby comes to know you by scent is one of the oldest survival systems we have and a whole story on its own. The short version: right now, the best smell in the room is just you.
There is a second thing, and it is harder to spot. A lot of synthetic fragrance is carried in chemicals called phthalates, which help the scent last longer on your skin. The common one is diethyl phthalate, or DEP. Some phthalates are what scientists call endocrine disruptors, which is a fancy way of saying they can mess with your hormones.
Here is the part worth saying plainly. The amount in any one product is small, that part is true. But fragrance ingredients have never been tested on babies, and the effect of meeting them day after day, from one product after another, has barely been studied at all. And most of us do not use one product a day. We use many, and they add up. So the small amount in a single bottle tells you very little about what a baby actually meets in a week. I would rather be honest with you than reassuring: we do not really know, and around someone that new, that is reason enough to keep things simple.
When you turn a bottle over, here are the ones I would skip, especially while you are pregnant, nursing, or using it anywhere near the baby.
The pattern is simple. The stuff you most want to avoid is the stuff a label is allowed to stay quiet about. So the easiest rule is this: choose skincare that tells you everything it is made of. And a quick test for any one ingredient: if you can read it and recognize it, it belongs. If you have to google the name or sound it out, leave it on the shelf, especially anything going on your baby.
For years, lavender took the blame for a harm it likely never caused. A few studies suggested lavender oil might disrupt hormones in young boys, and the headlines ran with it. The product blamed most often was a purple scented water that many families, especially across Latino cultures, love to use on their babies.
I once sat in a lecture by Robert Tisserand, the authority on essential oil safety. He had gone back to those studies and looked at what was actually in the products. His finding: the studies blamed lavender, but no one had ever analyzed the products to confirm lavender was even in them. When he had them tested himself, there was no real lavender oil in them at all. The scent was synthetic.
As he put it, for real lavender oil to move a baby's hormones, they would have to drink liters of it. Synthetic fragrance is a different story, and a far less studied one. Used every day, from one product after another, nobody really knows where it leads. That is the part worth sitting with.
Essential oils still ask for care, though. There is real science to using them well, and only some are gentle enough for the brand-new nervous system of a newborn. Strong scent can sensitize skin that new, and an allergic reaction in a baby is a frightening thing to watch. The simplest truth sits under all of it: in these first weeks, your scent and your partner's are all your baby needs. And heavy fragrance is more than a new mother's nervous system wants to carry, too.
There is one more thing about natural scent, even the gentle, well-chosen kind. It is at its best fresh. The things that make essential oils smell good, like the limonene in citrus or the linalool in lavender, slowly break down in the air, and once they do, they are more likely to bother sensitive skin. A natural product can lose its gentleness just from sitting on a shelf too long.
This is something we think about a lot.
Every scent in a Royal Heir product comes from a plant we name right on the label. You can read it and know exactly what is there. Nothing hides under the word "fragrance."
For the baby, and for those first raw weeks, there is First Touch. It has no added fragrance at all, not even essential oils. The scent it does have comes from the ingredients themselves, the cocoa butter most of all, since cocoa butter is about thirty percent of the formula. A soft, natural warmth, and nothing laid on top of it.
I made it food-grade on purpose: plant-based oils, nothing synthetic, no fillers, no preservatives. It is EWG Verified and safe from birth. Because those little hands always find the mouth, and for my own baby, I wanted something I would never have to think twice about when it ended up there.
And because we know that even natural scent goes off, we make it the way fresh things have to be made: in small batches, every month, and we ship it fresh. Skincare made from real plants is best when it is new, so that is how it reaches you, made close to the month you open it. This is the pearl of pearls. The best we know how to make, slowly and honestly, and it gets to you while it is still all there.
If you only do one thing, start with First Touch. It is the gentlest thing you can reach for in these first weeks, for the baby and for you.
And if you have ever held your own newborn up against the flawless "soft as a baby's skin" picture everyone promised you, that picture has a strange history of its own, and it has nothing to do with your baby.
It is one word that can stand for the whole scent of a product, sometimes dozens of ingredients. The recipe counts as a trade secret, so a company is allowed to list all of it as just "fragrance" or "parfum." That means those exact ingredients never show up on the label.
They are two different things. "Fragrance-free" means no fragrance was added. "Unscented" often means a fragrance was added to cover up the smell of the other ingredients, so it smells like nothing but still has fragrance in it. Check the ingredient list and look for "fragrance" or "parfum."
Fragrance is the most common skincare allergen, including for kids, and the few inches around a newborn are where any scent collects. For the early weeks, the safest choice is a truly fragrance-free product like First Touch, which only has the light smell of the cocoa butter itself.
Named natural ingredients have one big advantage: you can read them and know what is there. They still need care, though, because natural scent breaks down over time and can start to irritate skin once it does. That is why we make in small batches and ship fresh, and why First Touch, the newborn product, is fragrance-free.
Your skin is thinner and quicker to react after the hormone drop, your baby's skin and senses are brand new, and you spend these weeks pressed close together. All of it points the same way: right now, less added scent is the kinder choice, and the smell your baby should be learning is simply yours.
Matrescence and the Fourth Trimester
FOURTH TRIMESTERWhat "Fragrance" Means on a Skincare Label (and Why "Unscented" Can Fool You)
On a label, "fragrance" can hide dozens of ingredients, and "unscented" is not the same as "fragrance-free." What the words really mean, and why it matters most around a newborn.
FOURTH TRIMESTERThe Myth of Perfect Baby Skin (and the Story Advertising Sold Us)
"Soft as a baby's skin" is a 140-year-old advertising trick, not a fact about newborns. Where the myth began, and what real newborn skin is actually doing instead.
FOURTH TRIMESTERHow Your Baby Knows You by Scent
How your newborn finds you by smell, why your own scent changes after birth, and why that is normal and expected.
The First Year of Motherhood™ is a guided year of care for you and your baby, from a former nurse and certified clinical aromatherapist. Places open to a small number of mothers at a time. Join the Early Access Waitlist to hear first when they do.
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