Written by Vanessa Gray Lyndon, Founder of Vanessa Megan Skincare
It started with a sentence from my best friend Mel.
“You should never put anything on your skin you couldn’t eat.”
I remember the moment she said it. I was modelling at the time, which meant my skin was being touched, treated, and layered with products almost constantly. I’d never stopped to question what was in any of them. The packaging looked professional. The brands were trusted. That felt like enough.
But Mel’s words burrowed in, and once they did, I couldn’t un-hear them. I started reading labels. I started studying biochemistry. And what I found sent me down a path I’ve never once looked back from, because what I found, once I started looking, was genuinely troubling.
At the top of that list, hiding in almost everything: fragrance.
The word that means nothing and everything
When you see “fragrance,” “parfum,” or “aroma” on an ingredient list, you might assume you’re looking at a single thing. A scent. A finishing touch. In reality, you’re looking at a legal black box.
“Fragrance” is a trade secret classification that can contain hundreds of individual chemical compounds, none of which manufacturers are required to disclose. It is one of the most enduring loopholes in the beauty industry, and it has allowed a whole class of chemicals to sit on bathroom shelves, pressed into skin every morning and night, without most people ever knowing they were there.
Among the most concerning are phthalates. Synthetic chemicals used to help fragrance bind to skin and last longer. They’re also used in plastics and industrial coatings. And they are endocrine disruptors, meaning they can interfere with the body’s hormonal signalling, mimicking or blocking the hormones your body produces naturally. Your skin absorbs them directly. They don’t just sit on the surface.
This is why, from my very first formulation, a natural, alcohol-free fragrance I created for my sister back in 2002, I made a decision that has never wavered: no synthetic fragrance, ever. Not a drop.
When it becomes more than a beauty issue
For many women, the connection between beauty products and hormonal health isn’t something they think about until they have to. I’ve heard from so many people over the years who only discovered the link between endocrine-disrupting chemicals and their wellbeing when they were in the middle of something difficult, a health challenge, a hormonal shift, a period of their life when their body was asking for more support than they knew how to give.
Fertility is one of the areas where this comes into sharpest focus. The hormonal environment required for a healthy reproductive system is delicate, and the science connecting phthalate exposure to disruptions in oestrogen levels, ovulation, and hormonal signalling has been building for decades. And yet it remains something that most women are never told, not by the brands they trust, not at the beauty counter, not anywhere they’d naturally look.
It’s something friends have spoken to me about personally. Only discovering how harmful synthetic fragrance could be when they were navigating their own fertility journey, and then again, now in menopause, understanding with fresh clarity why avoiding hormone disruptors matters so much at every stage of life. This story is one I hear echoed by many women. The discovery comes late, because nobody thought to mention it earlier.
That gap in the conversation is something I’ve always felt a responsibility to help close.
What menopause taught me about the body’s limits
Now, navigating menopause myself, I understand even more viscerally why this matters. When oestrogen is declining, when the body’s hormonal balance is already shifting, the very last thing you want to be adding to the mix is a daily application of chemicals that can further disrupt that system.
The skin changes that come with this stage of life are real, dryness, sensitivity, shifts in tone and texture, and so many women are trying to address them with heavily fragranced products that are quietly making the hormonal picture harder. They’re doing their best with the information they have. But the information isn’t good enough.
What your skin actually needs in menopause is nourishment, support, and the complete absence of unnecessary chemical load. It needs ingredients that work with your biology, not against it. Ceramides to rebuild the barrier. Peptides to support collagen. Botanicals that have been working in concert with human skin for centuries, not synthetic compounds invented to extend shelf life or amplify a scent.
What I would tell you to look for
Reading labels is the single most powerful thing you can do. A genuinely fragrance-free product will not list “fragrance,” “parfum,” or “aroma” anywhere in its ingredients. If it does, it doesn’t matter how premium the brand looks, or how natural the marketing feels, that loophole is open, and you don’t know what’s walking through it.
Phthalate-free matters most for products you use on large areas of skin, or anything you leave on overnight. Certified organic provides a meaningful layer of accountability, independent verification that what’s on the label reflects what’s inside the bottle. It’s not a guarantee of perfection, but it is a commitment to transparency that not every brand is willing to make.
And if in doubt, come back to Mel’s question, the one that started all of this for me: would you eat it? It sounds simple. But it has been the truest compass I’ve ever had.
For over twenty years, I’ve built every single formula around the belief that effective skincare and clean skincare are not in conflict. You don’t have to choose between results and safety. You don’t have to accept that something which smells beautiful must also be harmful. Nature, when you understand it, when you work with it , has more than enough to offer.
Your hormones, at every stage of life, deserve nothing less.
Vanessa Gray Lyndon is the founder and formulator of Vanessa Megan Skincare. She has spent over twenty years creating results-driven, certified organic skincare rooted in the power of natural actives.
Earlier this year Vanessa introduced a new era of fragrance with Eau De Parfums. Six of her best-selling scents are now available as a longer lasting, stronger EDP while remaining all natural with zero synthetics.
