Eugenol in Solid Perfume and Roll-On Oil: The Dilution Maths

A solid perfume or roll-on oil sits on skin and stays there, so the number that matters is the total eugenol in the finished balm or oil, counted from every material in it, not just the line that says "eugenol oil". This guide works that arithmetic for a 10 g roller and a 15 g solid, lays out three published figures that do not agree with each other, and says plainly what we have not done: we have not made or tested either recipe, and nothing here is a formula to copy. Patch test, and have a regulatory specialist review anything you sell.

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Three figures, and why they differ

SourceFigureWhat it measures
Our shop page0.5% to 2%Eugenol oil diluted in a carrier oil, for skin use
Our How We Test page"around half a percent"The standard fragrance-industry ceiling it describes for leave-on products
IFRA eugenol Standard, Amendment 51 (2023)2.5% in Category 4; 0.64% in Categories 5A to 5CEugenol, from all sources, in the finished product

The IFRA Guidance (2023) lists "solid perfume" and hydroalcoholic and non-hydroalcoholic fine fragrance of all types under Category 4, which is why we read the 2.5% figure as the relevant one for a solid perfume or perfume oil. Which category your particular product falls in is a classification question for a regulatory specialist, not something to decide from a blog.

The discrepancy between our two pages is real and we are not going to resolve it by guessing. Both are our own statements, and neither cites a category. Two observations, not explanations. Half a percent sits just below IFRA's 0.64% for Categories 5A to 5C, and it matches the older IFRA restriction the EU's Scientific Committee on Consumer Safety tabled in its 2012 opinion (eugenol 0.5% in perfume and 0.5% in hand cream, 0.2% in deodorant), against 2.5% in Category 4 now. We cannot tell whether either is where our page got its figure. The same opinion also quotes an earlier EU committee's view that it had "no confidence" the sensitiser levels set by the industry's risk-assessment model are safe for the consumer, so the IFRA figures are not the only expert view in the record. If you sell the product, take the question to your regulatory specialist and the current IFRA amendment, because limits change between amendments (this one was read against Amendment 51, with implementation dates of March 30, 2024 for new creations and October 30, 2025 for existing ones). Our IFRA explainer goes through the standard's structure.

The batch arithmetic

Work in grams, not drops: a drop varies by pipette and we have no drop-count data. Our published certificate lists a relative density of 1.065 at 20 C for one batch, so 1 g of eugenol oil is about 0.94 mL.

Eugenol oil as % of finished productIn 10 g rollerIn 15 g solid
0.5%0.050 g0.075 g
0.64%0.064 g0.096 g
2.0%0.200 g0.300 g
2.5%0.250 g0.375 g

Those are ceilings and arithmetic, not recommendations. At 0.5% in a 10 g roller you need 0.050 g, about 0.047 mL. A 0.001 g jewellery scale resolves that to 2%; a 0.01 g kitchen scale cannot (it could read 0.05 g as anything from 0.045 to 0.055, a 10% swing). Make a stock dilution instead: 1.00 g of eugenol oil in 9.00 g of carrier is 10%, and 0.50 g of that stock in a 10 g roller carries 0.050 g of eugenol, the 0.5% case, using a quantity an ordinary scale can handle (the stock's carrier counts toward the 10 g).

Counting what else carries eugenol

The IFRA Guidance says a restricted ingredient counts "regardless of whether the restricted substance is added directly or indirectly", and IFRA's annex of indicative natural contributions (printed with the 2020 Amendment 49 text) lists typical eugenol levels: cinnamon leaf oil 74%, clove bud oil 82%, rose absolute 2.3%, ylang ylang oils 0.5%. Our shop page lists rose, ylang ylang and cinnamon leaf among its blends, so here is a labelled illustration for a 10 g roller:

Total about 0.202 g in 10 g, or about 2.0%. The cinnamon leaf oil, not the eugenol oil, supplies roughly three quarters of it. That total is under 2.5% and over 0.64%, so which ceiling you hold yourself to decides whether the blend is within bounds. IFRA says to use your own analysis in place of the indicative figure if you have it.

Base choices, and what we could source

Jojoba is a liquid wax, not a triglyceride oil. Gad et al., Polymers, 2021, a review, reports that the wax is about 98% of jojoba oil and mainly wax esters, that its oxidative stability is high because of tocopherols, and that refined or bleached oil has low oxidative stability because those antioxidants are removed. Reasoning from that, the practical consequence is to ask the supplier whether the oil is refined, since a base that oxidises adds its own smell and muddies any judgment of the eugenol.

For fractionated coconut oil and candelilla wax we did not fetch a technical source, so we make no claim about their composition. Take the INCI name, melting range and oxidative stability from your supplier's technical sheet.

Beeswax is the usual solidifier, and de Groot, Ipenburg and Rustemeyer, Contact Dermatitis, 2026 surveyed 500 cosmetic ingredient lists and reviewed the literature on beeswax allergy and propolis. They found no propolis on any list, described the evidence for a propolis-to-beeswax link as inconsistent, and judged reactions uncommon and mostly tied to lip balms. That does not clear a given beeswax for a given person. It is one more reason to patch test a finished balm and not only the eugenol.

We give no wax-to-oil ratio, because we have not found a source and have not made the product. Work it out on a small batch of your own, and write down the weights.

If you sell it: labels, darkening, and who to ask

On labelling, the FDA's fragrance page says US rules let fragrance ingredients be listed simply as "Fragrance" and that FDA lacks the legal authority it has for food to require allergen labelling on cosmetics. Our How We Test page states that eugenol is a fragrance allergen that must be declared on EU and UK labels above set thresholds. Those regimes differ, so see our allergen labelling guide and ask a regulatory specialist. For the fragrance mixture, ask the supplier for the SDS and IFRA certificate.

Eugenol darkens toward amber with air; our How We Test page calls that ordinary behaviour for a phenol, not spoilage. In a clear or pale balm, that shows. See the chemistry of darkening and ageing a blend before bottling, and consider amber glass or an opaque tin.

Who should skip this

Anyone with a known fragrance or balsam allergy should ask an allergist or dermatologist first. Keep the product away from eyes, children and pets, per our safety copy, and do not make one for a child without a pediatrician's view. We are not saying anything is safe for any group, and we sell only eugenol oil: you buy the carrier, wax, rollers and tins elsewhere.

Our eugenol oil is a refined isolate from clove oil, sold undiluted, so the percentages above are yours to calculate and check. See also the bench guide on dilution and IFRA and the sensitisation guide.

Eugenol Oil bottle

Eugenol Oil

Eugenol Oil from our own shop, in sizes from 0.5 oz to bulk.

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Sources & Further Reading