Why it is not sustainable that all the perfumes carry only natural ingredients?

Sandra Iruela
27 of July of 2022
Perfumery and sustainability

It is not sustainable because the climatic change desfavorece the obtaining of prime matters and does that we are increasingly limited in the obtaining of these.

Speak of sustainability means to speak of ethical, of social consciousness, of responsibility, of solidarity.

Increasingly, when the consumer buys a perfume or a cosmetic that puts in his skin, wants to know of where come the ingredients that have used , wants to know if it is sure the product, who has produced them and in which conditions. It wants to know if the agriculturalist that cultivates these prime matters –in occasions in countries in complicated economic and social situations– "is happy".

The consumers demand "transparency". Now we do not conform us only with using a perfume that like us and "smell well". Now practically 80% of the consumers are interested in knowing that to do his perfume has paid a just price to the agriculturalist that has cultivated the prime matter; that it has done in some acceptable labour conditions and that has protected the environment.

It exists a dichotomy between 'synthetic' versus 'natural'

The perfumes arise from a complex mix whose preparation involves so many essential oils and extracts of vegetal origin and animal like pertinent substances of these sources, extracted directly or sintetizadas, by what do not fit the differences.

A perfume that contain alone oils or natural extracts does not mean that it was better or worse for the health that the synthetic perfume.

When we say that we only want natural products have to know what wants to say natural.

The components of the perfumes contain molecules that are usually in the nature and these same substances can have sintetizado or extracted of a natural source and are indistinguibles.

For example, the essential oil of bergamot, a pertinent natural extract of the skin of this citrus, that cultivates mainly in Italy (Calabria) and that smells to the typical water of colony that all know and has effects fotosensibilizantes.

Instead, the acetate of isoamilo, that is used to sintetizarse industrialmente does not suppose any problem for the health.

The essential oil more natural needs processes fisicoquímicos with elder or lower degree of intensity: distillation by drag of steam, extraction with dissolvent, or enfleurage, (extraction from flowers with fats).

In the year 1882 with the perfume Houbigant discovered like isolating determinate molecules of natural prime matters and in concrete, the Cumarina, which isolates of the Bean of Tonka and also is present in vegetables and in the cinnamon.

The olfactory note of Cumarina is deliciosamente sweet like the marzipan and smells to grass recently cut mixed with vanilla, licorice, candy and nail, topped with a touch of magnolia.

Laws that regulate the use of the substances in the perfumes

For all substance and application, the European Union has the norm REACH, to protect the human health and the environment of the possible risk of the utilisation of chemical products.

As they reflect the standards of the International Association of Scents IFRA, whose database collects all the compounds that forbid and restrict and the specifications of the admitted, the artificial and the natural, so many substances of synthesis like extracts and essential oils, form part of the listing of the forbidden and restricted.

Therefore, the fact that something was synthetic or natural does not have at all that see with that it was well or bad for the health.

The synthetic ingredients are ecologically better

Something that is sure is that the synthetic ingredients are ecologically better and allow to the perfumistas do art, because they provided him an effect of strength, enhance the freshness, difuminan a character punzante, and allow to separate the notes between yes, that could not obtain of the natural ingredients.

It is alone thanks to the synthetic substances that the perfumistas can extend the life of the scents of a pair of hours on the skin until 12h, 24h or more

Besides, his election answers very often to ecological requirements and contribute us proof in the quality of the products.