Rethinking Ethics in Perfumery

The long read

Allergens

With regard to human health and fragrance allergens specifically, we follow the most up to date IFRA Standards in formulation, Health Canada Food and Drugs Act and Health Canada Cosmetics regulations in ingredient and packaging transparency. This stringent practice means that we adjust our formulations occasionally as these standards evolve over time.

Industry

As a tiny, self-taught, artist-run business on the west coast of what is currently known as Canada, with a total staff of two, who do every single thing in the creation of our product by hand, heart, blood, sweat and tears, it is arguably laughable for us to speak of “the perfume industry”. However it’s important to acknowledge that this industry has global control and consequences, and while it drives, and has historically driven, many of the problems in the myriad cultures of perfumery, it also has the capacity to enable incredible innovation, technological and creative possibilities.

Like most industries in this late capitalist era, the fragrance industry is dominated by huge global conglomerates and corporations. This impacts big houses, mid-sized, smaller brands and also fragrance production and ingredient manufacturing. The biggest fragrance ingredient manufacturers, (such as Givaudan, IFF, dsm-Firminich, Symrise, Takasago and Robertet), own and operate the large chemistry labs that manufacture over 50% of the perfume on the market, and most of the remaining 50% is created using some of their products. This means that they effectively monopolize the whole supply chain - from small farms to big labs, naturals and synthetics. They manufacture the ingredients that are used in functional fragrance—by which I mean dish soap, laundry detergent, deodorizers etc. rather than “mood-enhancing” functional fragrances, yes, the language gets confusing!—mass or popular perfumes, celebrity, designer, prestige, luxury and niche lines. What this means is that no matter where you buy your scented product, most of the ingredients in it come from the same sources - the same labs, the same farms, the same producers.

So why does it matter, with regard to our ethics, who owns the industry when we are a tiny independent project?

Perfume was historically the domain of apothecary and pharmacology through the Middle Ages, Renaissance and well into Modernity in the west. It increasingly moved into the realm of fashion through the late 19th and early 20th century. The massive conglomerate takeovers (LVMH, Coty, L’Oréal, Estée Lauder, Puig, Interparfums, Shiseido, Revlon, Parlux) of luxury fragrance houses and brands kept pace with corporate globalization trends in the 1990’s and early 2000’s. Since the slow rise (or rebirth) of niche and independent perfumery and modern aromatherapy (circa. 1960’s), small independent would-be perfumers have fought for access to materials that were reserved as an unwritten rule for only the big corporations. They also fight for transparency in supply chains and the chemical constituents particularly of natural ingredients, to avoid the adulteration that has been rampant on the open market, especially in the age of internet commerce.

This enforced opening up of that market has helped spur other kinds of positive ripples. Along with consumer consciousness of so-called “green beauty”, a kind of trickle-up effect is taking place, from the fringes to the giants, with endeavours such as IFRA’s Green Chemistry Compass offering a great example of ecological focus reaching the upper echelons of industry action, or at least awareness. This is all in play at the time of this writing. This industry is never static.

Natural

This will be old news to many of you reading this but may be surprising to some: Within perfumery, natural is not necessarily more ethical - for your health or for the environment. The lines between what is natural and synthetic in perfumery are blurry to begin with. From tinctures and absolutes made from the cold enfleurage process through steam and solvent extracted oils, fractions, isolates, single molecules extracted from plant and animal source material to compounds and perfumers bases created entirely by chemists in the lab — the definition of natural is somewhat open to interpretation.

With regard to our own ethical standards what matters about a given ingredient is the ecological footprint of the entire process of its production, use and disposal, as well as the working conditions of the people producing it. Surprisingly, sometimes our own small distillation of a locally wild-harvested plant material may in fact be the worse option when it comes to this footprint, as opposed to our sourcing from a huge company who have the resources to distill in a more efficient way at a mass scale. Not often, but occasionally.

The raw natural materials of perfumery have ancient roots dating back thousands of years and hail from every continent. Many of these materials have evolved or been altered over centuries and migrated with human agriculture and trade from continent to continent. In these journeys, like many natural resources, some have been over-harvested, (eg. Vanilla orchid) or even come close to extinction, (eg. Mysore Sandalwood or Aquillaria species - where Ouds come from). Some are now cultivated or farmed specifically for the perfume industry because their natural habitat has been decimated for other human uses. Others that were once harvested in their wild environments are now farmed from a sustainable source that does not interfere with their wild counterpart in order to avoid the pitfalls of monoculture and encourage biodiversity.

At Cracher Dans La Soupe we research each of the aromatic ingredients we use individually for aroma quality, authenticity, proven or suspected threats to human and environmental health including long term accumulation and ecological footprint of their manufacture or extraction (be they of synthetic or natural origin) to the best of our ability.

We harvest local aromatic plant materials ourselves when these plants are abundant, invasive or we have grown them for this express purpose. In the cases where there is both an abundant local source and one produced for the industry, we weigh the footprint of our own small-scale distillation and enfleurage processing against that of the industry product and choose the more ecologically responsible option to the best of our knowledge. This measurement varies from plant to plant, hence our consideration of each and every fragrant material as its own unique case.

We do not use any plastics in our formulation and maceration process or in our packaging, with the exception of the inner lining of our spray pumps, which are POM-free and made with PP (polypropylene). Everything else in our packaging is 100% recyclable paper, glass and metal.

In summary, this little essay is intended to elucidate the fact that ethics in perfume are an evolving state that involve many moving parts, not something we wish to risk glossing over in a few quick key words or slogans, but rather to engage with on an ongoing basis. The choices you make as a wearer in this field matter, and ultimately your own ethical concerns have the power to swing this giant industry.