What IFRA Does
IFRA stands for the International Fragrance Association. It is an organization that creates safety standards for the fragrance industry and sets limits on how certain fragrance materials can be used. Some ingredients may have a maximum allowed level, some may only be used under certain conditions, and in some cases a material can be restricted completely.
IFRA and Reformulation
This is also one of the reasons why perfumes sometimes get reformulated. If the allowed amount of an ingredient is reduced, the formula may need to be changed. This does not mean that every reformulation makes a perfume weaker or worse, but if that ingredient played an important role in the original formula, the smell or performance can sometimes change.
How It Reaches Perfume Brands
The important part is how this affects perfume brands. IFRA works mainly with fragrance houses and fragrance ingredient manufacturers. Manufacturers are the companies that create and supply fragrance concentrates and raw materials to perfume brands. If a manufacturers follows IFRA standards, the fragrance concentrate it creates for a perfume brand will already be formulated within those limits. So even if the perfume brand itself is not directly an IFRA member, it can still be affected by IFRA because the fragrance supplier it works with follows those standards.