The trend toward a minimalist aesthetic in fragrance can however be more harmful than it appears, particularly when it comes to flowers. The struggle major companies face is how to sustainably produce what is inherently an unsustainable product, especially as consumers demand more and more raw materials.
— Read more at A sweeter choice: synthetic perfumes, while unpopular, are better for the planet at The Guardian.
This considering that most of the market uses natural flower essences, which is a kind of a naive view of the article. But not only flowers, this can be a problem with wood extraction too. Consider species like Agarwood or Sandalwood that takes years to achieve the maturity required to their proper exploration.
But to say that synthetics are more ecologically sound is oversimplify something (which is the kind of thing that most of journalists like to do). Consider some former polyciclic musks that are still widely used. Like Galaxolide for instance. Their stability is such that they accumulate on environments and there are studies that have found them on breast milk and also studies that showed they interfere with the reproduction cycle of some marine specimens. So how can you say that something like this is ecologically sound?
Still, it’s very unfair that those articles focuses on perfumes, considering that you also have a great market for naturals in the traditional medicine fields. Also on flavouring. So, i doubt about this question that synthetics or naturals are better or worse when you look at them generically and also only focus on fine fragrances.
And I knew someone would take the time to explain this. And second on the focus on fine fragrances- a subtly dig at self grooming, where somehow a wo(man)’s vanity is responsible for the ongoing heat death of the universe.
Is this really a dig at self-grooming? It seems more like a critique of one kind of luxury (perhaps grooming falls into that category?). My copy of the Republic is in my office, but I was reminded of the description of the city with a fever: replete with pastries, perfumes, and prostitutes.
NB: This is not an endorsement of the Republic, one does have to draw the line somewhere.
Hah! I still have my tattered copy of The Republic.
You know, if you consume chocolate, coffee or tea- those have serious impact in terms of fuel for transport, workers’ rights and usage of land. If you consume white sugar from sugar cane, that has the blood of some 12 million or so West African slaves and their descendants on it. The same with cotton. And have you seen a farm field after high yield corn has been harvested?
But in discussions of this type, there is always a pointed dig at scent or cosmetics,- never the mega scale commodities that actually does incredible damage- and this goes all the way back to The Republic.
To be fair, the article does talk about sandalwood. And vanilla beans.
(Although, now I’m not quite sure I’m parsing your first paragraph correctly. Sorry if I’m just reiterating the point you’re trying to make!)
It is not a balanced article — agree. Give no consideration whatsoever to the environmental impact of synthetic materials in any sense.
Probably it is not ecologically sound to use perfume at all.
Forget perfume- Right now I am thinking about all the synthetic fragrances that are added to our everyday products like shampoo and detergent…..those also make their way into the environment and I am sure are not helping at all!
Yep, that too.
If you think in volume terms im pretty sure that the worst ones are the fabric conditioner ones.
An over simplification of a complex problem. I love essential oils which are really perfumes in and of themselves. It is the perfumer’s job to trick me with excellent synthetics. I am not adverse to their use. Our continued rape of the natural world is one of the century’s most urgent problems. The company that comes most immediately to mind is Juniper Ridge, sustainable harvesting, done in an old fashioned labor intensive way. I think the burden is on us as consumers to insist that companies be more translucent about their sourcing and ingredients. I was very heartened that the new Stella McCarthy Pop ad copy was clear about it’s synthetic ingredients and why the company had chosen this route.
Agree completely that it’s oversimplified.
Not to pick on Juniper Ridge (I do like the brand) but if lots of fragrance companies were doing what they’re doing, even in the old-fashioned way they are doing it, it’s hard to see how the impact would not be devastating. It is sustainable only in the sense that it wouldn’t be worth it to do it on a larger scale.
I will have to see what I can find to read about Juniper Ridge now
I agree that the article is problematic. Most perfumes which use natural sandlewood (and very few do) do not use Indian Sandlewood. As I understand it, sandlewood is a special case anyway, since obtaining natural sandlewood requires harvesting very old trees. Many floral essences come from picking flowers off existing plants, just like grapes are harvested from existing vines, without uprooting the vine. Most flowers, even if completely uprooted can be replanted and regrown within a few years. Therefore, using more flowers for perfume does not exhaust a supply of flowers, more flowers can be planted to satisfy the demand. To the extent that the article implies that the use of any crop for anything other than food is environmentally bad, I agree with the other commentator who pointed out that this a prejudice against products the writer might thing he/she does not use (except of course, fragrances are in numerous products, not just those sold on fragrance commentators). I would however, add, that a high value cash crop is a good thing for farmers. If local economies do not distribute a large enough share of wealth to those who do the physical work, that is a political and structural problem which would not be solved by depriving the community of a high value crop.
As for synthetics, I would like hear from chemists, but I thought many synthetic fragrance molecules were based upon petroleum derivatives, in which case their use and manufacture also has political and economic impacts. Others, I thought, included plant based sources, even though not the exact flower or scent they were imitating.
As for Juniper Ridge,it claims that it sources materials by foraging. If there was large scale foraging, forests would be deprived of material for natural decay of plants to sustain other plants and life.
Dilana, i would like to use your comment to point out another false idea explored in this article, the implied notion that shifting the production from fragrant materials to food would be better to the environment. Really? Only if it’s to the producers of pesticides and other enhancers used. Who can justify that those crops will not drain the soil minerals? Or that by leaving the cultivation of flowers and herbs they will not be replaced by pastures, for instance?
I think this is a very biased article trying to push a very simplified – and false – idea.
Agreed.
Plus the implication that these people would rather grow food rather than high value commodity crops. As a daughter of an immigrant, I can safely tell you that harvesting fruit and vegetables without machinery is backbreaking, soul crushing work. While picking flowers is actually very hard, the women who earn this cash can then send their children to school and buy rice and corn and grow supplemental vegetables at home.
I followed a few of the articles linked and found them fairly superficial too. It reminds of a tangent though-
Quinoa grown in the Andes has become such a hit in the US that local farmers who lived on it now can’t afford to keep it to feed their families. Any crop can be good or bad it depends on the politics…sad
I completely agree with rickbr as synthetic muscs as well as Iso E Super consist of very large molecules which are not bio-degradable.
It seems to me that this article has been pre-written by a PR chap from Symrise and the Guardian has simply published it without having done a lot of research beforehand.
Why on earth would it be a waste of land to grow some flowers?
Maybe this way a farmer could earn more money than by growing some crop to merely sustain himself and his family.
This article leans so very much on the chemical industry’s side, that it has to be taken with a grain of salt.