β Scribed by Donald L. Opdyke
No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
Fragrance raw materials are derived from many geographical, natural and chemical sources. Any programme of safety evaluation has to consider the materials' origins, types of uses and the concentrations used.An institute, the Research Institute for Fragrance Materials, Inc., an international non-profit organization, has been established by the industry to do research on nearly 5000 ingredients employed in perfumery. This institute (RIFM) was established in 1966 by the principal supphers of raw materials to the fragrance industry. At present, RIFM is supported by forty-five of these companies, representing nearly 97% of the industry in the United States, Europe and Japan. The sole purpose of RIFM is to assure the safety of perfumery raw materials.Raw materials are selected on the basis of the following criteria: (i) they must be representative of the material in actual use by the industry; (2) they must conform to the specifications and standards, if any. Of the Essential Oil Association of the USA(EOA) or of the International Fragrance Association (IFRA); (3) they must be supplied to the RIFM without indication of the supplier, with name and an identification number only; (4) they must be accompanied by gas-chromatographic, ultra-violet or infra-red curves to 'thumb-print' the materials.The specifications and standards in the monographs will be those of the EOA, where available. The levels of usage reported are the results of industry-wide surveys.The chief parameters selected for toxicological screening of all these materials include tests for allergenicity and phototoxicity on human skin; tests for general toxicity in animals by the oral and dermal route, and other procedures where required by an International Panel of Experts drawn from outside the industry.Several allergens and phototoxic materials have been reported. The ubiquity of fragrances in cosmetics, household goods, insect repellents, etc., makes the responsibility of such an institute a significant one, and it is hoped that this ingredient approach, responded to zealously by the industry, will eliminate potential offenders from fragrances world wide.RIFM has now completed the evaluation of 530 of the fragrance raw materials in greatest use, representing about 90% of the volume of fragrances. The programme is continuing on the smaller items. Of these 212 have been published in
π SIMILAR VOLUMES