Scented products, including car air fresheners, soaps and deter-gents, candles, and even garbage bags, are ubiquitous in our ev-eryday lives. They are primarily intended to cover up malodors but can also enhance one’s mood or be used in aromatherapy.
Thermal desorption is an introduction technique for gas chro-matography that can be used for a wide variety of applications, including the analysis of fragrance compounds in consumer prod-ucts. Options for thermal desorption include direct thermal ex-traction, Twister, Thin Film SPME, air sampling, and direct injection of liquids.
 For scented products, the level of fragrance compounds in the product may need to be determined for quality control purposes or to see how long the compounds stay active (shelf life). Other components of scented products can also be determined using thermal desorption techniques.
This study used direct thermal extraction to determine fragrance compounds in scented crayons purchased at a local store.