When you notify a poison centre about a home-fragrance product, you have to say what it's for — using a EuPCS code. For candles, diffusers and sprays, that code almost always starts with PC-AIR. Here's what the air-care codes mean and how to pick the right one.

What EuPCS is

EuPCS — the European Product Categorisation System — is a list maintained by ECHA that describes a product's intended use. Every Poison Centre Notification (PCN) under CLP Annex VIII has to carry at least one EuPCS category, so that if someone calls a poison centre after an exposure, the responder immediately knows what kind of product they're dealing with.

Crucially, EuPCS is about use, not chemistry. It doesn't care what's in your fragrance oil or how it's classified — only what the finished product does.

The PC-AIR family

Air-care products — anything that odorises or deodorises indoor air — live under the branch coded PC-AIR. ECHA's own description is broad: it covers products for rooms, and for objects like shoes and cars, and explicitly "includes incense, candles and matches used to light them."

One catch: PC-AIR itself is not selectable. It's a heading, not a choice — you always pick one of its more specific children.

The codes that matter for home fragrance

  • PC-AIR-7 — Candles (scented and unscented). Candles get their own dedicated code.
  • PC-AIR-1 — indoor rooms, continuous action. Products that release scent steadily over time, including reed diffusers and other passive diffusers. Its description specifically excludes incense and scented candles, which have their own codes.
  • PC-AIR-2 — indoor rooms, instant action. Products that odorise the air on demand — room, linen and pillow sprays.
  • PC-AIR-6 — Incense.
  • PC-AIR-4 — vehicles. Car diffusers and vent clips.
  • PC-AIR-5 — ambient deodorisers for enclosed spaces like wardrobes and cupboards.

There are a few more in the family — PC-AIR-3 (shoes), PC-AIR-8 (matches) and PC-AIR-OTH (other air care) — but most makers never need them.

Candle, diffuser or spray?

The dividing line is how the product delivers scent:

  • A candle is its own thing → PC-AIR-7.
  • A reed diffuser releases scent slowly and continuously → PC-AIR-1.
  • A room spray puts scent into the air in one burst → PC-AIR-2.

A wax melt is the one that makes people pause. It isn't a candle — no wick, nothing burning — so PC-AIR-7 doesn't fit; because it releases scent steadily once warmed, it sits most naturally with the continuous-action air-care code, PC-AIR-1.

Why "selectable" matters

EuPCS is a tree, and only the leaves — the codes marked selectable — can actually go on a notification. The parent headings like PC-AIR exist to organise the list, not to be chosen. If a code still has children beneath it, keep going until you reach a specific one.

EuPCS isn't CLP, and isn't IFRA

It's easy to conflate the three, but they answer different questions. CLP tells you how to label a hazard. IFRA tells you how much fragrance you can use. EuPCS tells a poison centre what the product is for. Your candle can need all three, and the PC-AIR code is only the third. We cover the first two separately: whether your candle needs a CLP label and how IFRA categories set your maximum load.

How Molekule does this for you

When you create a product in Molekule — a candle, a wax melt, a reed diffuser, a room spray — it assigns the right PC-AIR category automatically, so the intended-use code is ready the moment you need to notify a poison centre. No decision tree, no guessing which leaf is selectable: you pick the product you're making, and the category follows.