PERFUME: WHAT YOU SHOULD WORRY ABOUT AND NOT WORRY ABOUT

Yesterday morning I happened to see a “news” article on “what you should worry about” and “what you should not worry about”. It was a strange list that suggested people should not worry about Ebola and GMO organisms (really?) and should worry about things like flu and driving. OK, if we’re talking about probabilities this week in the US, flu and driving are higher probability events than Ebola currently is, but they are not biggies in the overall scheme of things. Flu is a minor inconvenience for most people, and driving safety (which is what the article referred to, not broader consequences of an automobile-centric society) is probably at least 75% in the hands of the person doing the driving. Accidents do happen, but if we worried about them, we would never set foot outside the house – or get out of bed for that matter, because lots of accidents happen at home. Some accidents even happen in bed.

In the spirit of that article, I decided to list some things that one could conceivably worry about when it comes to perfume (I won’t presume to tell anyone what they should or should not worry about!) and some that probably don’t warrant as much concern. Here goes.

1. DON’T worry about “synthetics” in perfume. Many synthetic molecules have exactly the same chemical structure as molecules found in nature. They are simply present in their pure form when synthesized, but they are mixed with other things in the natural material. As more and more natural isolates become available, the line between natural and synthetic is blurred anyway. Synthetics themselves are not going to affect you in any way that’s different from the natural molecules. Many synthetic fragrance materials are not found in nature, but there is no evidence that the ones currently used in perfumery are harmful. There’s a lot of paranoia out there, but most of it is based on irrational fears with no basis in reality.

DO worry about adulteration of “natural” materials. As a perfumer, I do not want to be sold an expensive flower absolute that is adulterated with cheap synthetic materials, and I do not want to pass it off to my customers as “natural”.  With experience, I’ve come to trust some suppliers more than others, but no supplier can be 100% trusted to sell 100% natural materials, or materials that are exactly what they say they are.  That is why I’m always skeptical when I receive a new material, especially if it’s from a new source. Some suppliers just plain misrepresent the materials that they sell, and I have no doubt that some “natural” perfume-makers use these synthetics in their formulations, believing what they read on the vendor’s website. This is more of a worry for perfume-makers than for the public, because as far as I know the adulterated materials are not harmful in any way, and some of them actually smell quite nice.

2. DON’T worry about “chemicals” in products that contain fragrance. Everything in the world, your body included, is made up of chemicals. Natural substances may well contain a larger variety of “chemicals” than man-made ones. Warnings about “chemicals” are just another form of scare tactics that play into marketing strategies.

DO worry about misrepresentation in marketing. Many people want “pure”, “simple”, and “natural” products, but do not really have a good grasp of what these terms entail. Manufacturers and marketing teams have been instrumental in creating this desire, and they take advantage of it by labeling products in such a way that they appear natural and/or environmentally friendly even though they were mass-produced from artificial ingredients that are essentially the same as those in standard products. A good example of this is the bottle of dish detergent that appeared in our kitchen after we had been out of town. I think the house-sitter must have bought it. It’s called “Palmolive Pure and Clear”, and has a big banner at the top of the label that says “no unnecessary chemicals”. Huh? Is the nauseating artificial “apple shampoo” fragrance that it reeks of really necessary? This is just one disgusting example of a mass-produced, totally engineered product masquerading as a “natural” one, but every supermarket aisle is filled with them, and they’re not just in the cleaning products and cosmetics sections. 

3. DON’T worry about there being too many perfumes, too many perfumers, or too many perfume bloggers. The marketplace for products and writing about products is a virtual jungle where natural selection occurs. Some will persist and multiply, while others won’t. Some will become invasive pests, some will successfully occupy a tiny, specialized niche, and others will become extinct. That’s how nature operates.

DO worry about taking perfume reviews too seriously. If you’re a perfumer, be aware that perfume is a matter of taste and a negative review is no reflection on you or your product. It’s simply one person’s opinion and not worth worrying about. If you’re a consumer, don’t take every review at face value. It’s one person’s opinion, colored by that person’s intrinsic bias to be kind or nasty, which is further colored by whether the reviewer received a free sample or other perks and feels in some way beholden to the perfume manufacturer. It’s never a good idea to rush out and blind buy a fragrance because there’s a huge amount of hype and/or a reviewer recommended it. You might hate it and be stuck with an expensive bottle of something you’d never wear. Even worse, you might wear it trying to be trendy, but really hate it. To avoid this trap, it’s wise to sample everything before you buy anything.

I didn’t get through very many Dos and Don'ts today, but that just means that I have more for another post. In the meantime, what do you worry about/not worry about when it comes to perfume? 

[All images from Wikimedia except for the dish soap bottle, which is from a box store website] 

COCKTAILS AND NATURAL CHEMISTRY

This recent article on natural perfumes was brought to my attention by Dee Howe on Botoblog. Overall it’s quite a good write-up on the use of natural materials in perfumery, but I was struck by a quote in the article stating that natural perfumes, unlike synthetic perfumes “are not a cocktail of chemicals”. I did a double-take on this one. If natural materials are not chemicals, what are they? Some sort of magical ether that contains no molecules at all?

There seems to be widespread misuse of the term “chemicals” as a pejorative when, in fact, everything in nature is made up of chemicals. Every molecule, natural or synthetic is a chemical. Our bodies are complex collections of chemicals. The food we eat is nothing but chemicals. The plants that grow in the wild and in our gardens are sophisticated aroma chemical factories that produce odors to attract pollinators to their flowers. On the flip side of the coin, their vegetative parts often produce chemicals that repel, disable, or even kill pests.

Many of those attractants, repellents, and insecticides are exactly what our own noses find attractive. It’s tempting to speculate that, historically, plants with pleasant odors have been domesticated, thereby increasing their chances of survival in a world where more and more of wild nature is being destroyed by an exploding human population.

I sometimes feel like the odd perfumer out, standing in no-man’s-land in the pitched battle between two opposing camps of extremists. On the one side there are those who advocate aroma chemicals for their “purity”, “reproducibility”, “hypoallergenic properties” and all of the other virtues attributed to chemicals made in factories. On the other, arguably more vocal, side there are those who advocate the use of nothing but natural materials, simply because they are mysteriously produced by plants (or in some cases, animals, but that’s a different issue).

The truth is that toxic chemicals are made both in factories and by plants. Helpful chemicals are made both in factories and by plants. Some of the aroma chemicals made in factories are the same molecules as those made by plants. Most essential oils, absolutes and tinctures that are lauded for their simplicity and “purity” are actually cocktails of dozens or hundreds of different molecules (i.e., chemicals). In fact, that’s what I love about natural materials. They are cocktails with a richness of fragrance and a “personality” that’s not often found in synthetic molecules. Give me a good cocktail of chemicals like an aged olibanum, Mysore sandalwood, Bourbon vanilla, coffee absolute, kewda attar, rose de mai -- or even a good mojito -- and I’m a happy perfumer!

[Cocktail photos all adapted from Wikimedia]

LIVING IN A PARANOID SOCIETY

Today is rant day. A weekend’s worth of shows went without any horrible screw-ups. I’m through teaching for a little while. Yesterday I actually had time to water the greenhouse before all the plants died, and I was able to get a couple of nights sleep. I suddenly have the energy to get on my soapbox and rant!

Paranoia, as we all know, is an irrational fear. It seems humans have a deep-seated need to fear something, and that need is not going to go away any time soon. If our lives are so safe and comfortable that we don’t need to fear plagues, famines, attacks from wild animals, or war on our very doorstep, we find other things to fear. If the things we should fear are too big to be comprehensible, like an undersea oil leak spilling so much for so long that it, together with the garbage we have dumped, kills all of the oceans on the planet, or humans continuing to reproduce exponentially so that we eventually wipe out every other form of life and starve to death while wallowing in our own garbage and excrement, we find small things to fear - things over which we feel that we, personally, can have some control. Things like razor blades in apples at Halloween. “Germs”. Being sued. “Chemicals” in perfume.

Every product comes with a warning label lest someone should misuse it and sue the manufacturer. “Do not put the plastic bag over your head and keep it there for so long that you suffocate. Do not drink the drain cleaner or wash your hands with it. Do not put your fingers in the food grinder while it is running. Do not touch the heating element when the space heater is on. …”, and so on. Everyone is assumed to be an imbecile with no common sense just waiting to sue the manufacturer of a product that they have misused.

People have become so paranoid about “germs” that they continually wash or “sanitize” their hands in a way that could only be characterized as obsessive-compulsive. The medical profession has been so eager to prescribe antibiotics “just in case” that a whole host of mutated microorganisms have arisen, ones that are resistant to all of the commonly used antibiotics. That is far more scary than any of the “germs” that our immune systems evolved to deal with.

There are entire websites devoted to bashing “chemicals” in perfumes. If not chemicals, what, pray tell, are we supposed to put in perfumes? What are we supposed to wear, eat, or drink? Everything in this world, including the very people who fear chemicals in perfumes, is made up of chemical building blocks. Our own bodies contain things that would make us shudder in horror if we saw the whole unpronounceable list of ingredients written out on a label. The same people who claim to be allergic to perfumes blithely go about inhaling air fresheners, fabric softeners, deodorants, shampoos, and hand sanitizer gels that contain more cheap “chemicals” than any of the perfumes they object to. Ah … but they are using these products out of fear that their garbage will stink, their laundry will be less than fresh and fluffy, their armpits will smell like sweat, their hair will be oily, or their hands might have “germs” crawling on them. Using a scented product for pleasure does not fit with the puritan ethic of using things only out of necessity or fear.

Maybe we should concentrate more on big fears and not worry about the small stuff. Wear good perfume while we think about how to stop war, overpopulation, and global warming. If we can't stop Rome from burning, at least enjoy a tasty meal, a glass of good wine, a fine perfume, and some lively violin music on the way out.