The forbidden ingredients this time round are so extensive that I am asking myself, to give you an analogy, how could a baker make bread without flour? Substituting some materials with others is an option but it is possible that some fragrances will never see the light of day. This has already happened to me three times.
— Serge Lutens, talking about IFRA regulations, in There’s a bad whiff about this fuss over fragrance at the London Evening Standard. Thanks to Anya for the link!
They are not banning vanilla though.
If they banned vanilla, the whole fragrance industry would collapse! I still don’t understand why the IFRA has such clout.
Adherance to the IFRA guidelines only applies to members if i am reading the site correctly. So if the fragrance industry WANTS to shun the IFRA, they can by just relinquishing their membership status.
On all of those prescription medication commercials, the voice-over person reels of a list of side-effects which are numerous and scary and might prevent you from taking a drug that could very well benefit you. But if *one* single person in the test trials has any kind of “reaction” like hives or vomiting or dizziness, whatever, the company has to report it. And the side effect might not even have anything to do with the drug, but rather something the person ate or were exposed to at work, etc.
My point is, I think fragrances should go ahead and use whatever sources they want, but cover their butts like everyone else with a warning: “Clinical trials have found some ingredients may cause allergic reaction.” Basically, use at your own risk. I know, we live in a ridiculously litegenous society, but these huge companies like Lauder, have troops of lawyers to defend their every move already.
Basically what I’m saying is: “I want my vintage Narcisse Noir back now!!!!” lol
I agree… personally…there are a few scents out there I’d put up with an itchy rash for….
That makes sense for larger companies, maybe, but drugs trials are incredibly expensive, I don’t think that niche and especially not independent perfume makers could ever afford that type of testing. I agree with the idea to just have a label that says “use at your own risk” but I think requiring testing like that really would be the death of smaller perfumers.
IFRA was created by the fragrance & flavor companies to represent their interests. Individual perfumers might not like what is happening, but it isn’t at all a case of “IFRA vs the perfume companies” — they *are* the perfume companies.
I am so confused. So is it the perfume creators who are complaing b/c their hands are tied by the giant scent/flavor companies they work for?
Yes, although for obvious reasons, the most vocal complaints have come from perfumers who don’t work directly for the f&f companies.
Absolutely preposterous. The world has gone mad.
Yep.
Oh Serge! Heartbreak.
McDonough makes a point that I had missed while following this debate: that a number of the restricted fragrance substances are foodstuffs. Why, oh why can Ifra not handle these things like the food industry? I mean, no one has proposed banning the sale of basil or lemons, nuts or shellfish, down at the local grocery. I understand that allergies and other sensitivities are no joke (I’ve friends with nut and shellfish allergies, and a friend with celiac disease), but no grocer has been required to stop selling nuts, shrimp, or wheat flour, and no food manufacturer has been forced to remove these things from processed foods. Sure, the food industry could do an even better job at Informing the public of what allergens may be in food (it is a nightmare trying to find processed food that is celiac-safe), but this seems like the better approach.
I think (emphasis on think, I don’t know) that the fragrance industry is extremely concerned about outside regulation, given that perfume, unlike food, is not necessary, and there are increasingly vocal elements calling for bans on its use in public.
Their strategy seems to be “regulate as much as possible so other entities won’t step in to regulate”. I happen to think that’s wrongheaded, but it seems to be their approach.
My understanding is exactly the same as yours, R. And Denyse (of grain de musc) has confirmed that’s the rationale given by the IFRA folks she’s spoken with.
Actually it was my businessman father who clued me in to this logic when he heard me complaining about it one evening. He recognized the strategy right away from his own very different world. “Oh yeah, I’ve seen that many times,” he said. “Typical fear move. Never works.”
FWIW…
Ok… if they finally move to ban people from wearing perfume in public places, then how will they be able to prevent BO???
I mean there is no such thing as “odorless deodorant” right?
Well perhaps that crystal deodorant that L’oCcitane sells, but hey, this is crazy.
Well, if I can take your deodorant comment seriously for a sec, you can buy fragrance-free deodorant. I make it a priority b/c if I’m shelling out big (or even small) bucks for perfume, I don’t want my deodorant clashing with it! Avon sells an effective ff deodorant which I wore for years. So does Mitchum and a few others. But they can be hard to get. Interestingly, Clinique – which has always made a huge fuss about its fragrance free products – sells a ff deodorant that actually does have slight, cloyingly sweet smell, tho’ it does not last.
While I agree with what you think, R, I think there’s another reason for them to regulate other than fear of outside regulation (as others have suggested): it allows the perfume companies to cheap out. Not to be a cynic, but the perfumers themselves may care deeply that the classics are defaced and new masterpieces are ruled out, but I don’t believe that the top sales executives at Dior, for example, are crying themselves to sleep at night every time the IFRA tries to ban an expensive, variable natural ingredient.
Oh, entirely agree with that too, and anyone who thinks that every bad reformulation is because of IFRA is much mistaken…
100% Agree with this comment.
I think it boils down to cheaper ingredients = higher profits and the perfume companies are entirely behind this and in fact promoting the ban of certain ingredients especially if they are a mite more expensive.
I imagine it’s unlikely cheap-o ingredients will ever be banned.
It’s all about profits people!
P.S. Now dying to smell those three non-compliant Lutens!
2nd that … what a loss.
I’d be willing to buy a perfume whose label said “This perfume deliberately does not comply with IFRA standards. We do what we want and what smells good, using quality materials. Use at your own risk.” Hell, I’d buy a crate.
I like your suggested warning.
I do worry that putting warning labels on perfume does potentially cause people who already think that fragrances are the devil to say, “SEE?? We told you!”
Now that’s the kind of marketing that sucks me right in!
It’s really like the Hays Code in 20th century Hollywood–the movie industry made its own rigid production code in order to stave off official government censorship. It kept the government out of pictures, but at a major cost to art. As “moral standards” changed it was eventually phased out in favor of a ratings system based on actual content, so that . If we could have a perfume safety system based on clear labeling and individual judgment.
Oh wow, I hit “post” too soon. I meant to say
“If we could have a perfume safety system based on clear labeling and individual judgment, I know I’d buy R-rated perfume!” Unfortunately I think that’s the best possible outcome; given that, if IFRA wants to stay in business, it’s going to have to justify its existence by issuing new rulings every year, which will only increase the number of “banned” substances.
Hell, I’d buy XXX-rated perfume! Bring it on!
A friend of mine is a principal at a high school in Kentucky. He invited me to stop by one day about a year ago…as we were walking in, there were these huge sign’s on the front doors (next to the sign reminding me that there were no concealed weapons allowed) that any products containing nuts were strictly prohibited from entering the premises. I was dumbfounded…he explained there was a student who went there that was so highly allergic to nuts that even being in the same the room with them or anything containing nuts would immediately send him into anaphylaxis. He said no students could bring their own PB&J sandwiches for lunch, no crackers with nuts, the vending companies had to only bring no nuts products, etc. He said the worst was when everyone found out that even at the baseball/football games outdoors, they could no longer sell peanuts and had to check everyone as they came in. Poor Kid…. but what a pain in the @$$ for everyone else. What would we do if we suddenly went to the airport or hospital or library and were met with a sign that said absolutely no one wearing fragrance products allowed.
The Scent Gestapo…
This is going to sound really heartless, but geez, you gotta figure that kid didn’t make it for very long. There had to be a run-in with peanuts somewhere.
Maybe we should just split society in half: everyone who freaks out on this side, everyone who wants to enjoy all of their senses on this side! Go!
I’m sure that kid carries an epi-pen, as does most anyone who has a life-threatening allergy. But don’t want this to turn into a big debate on whether or not peanuts should be restricted in schools or elsewhere…this just isn’t the right forum for that.
Sorry. My bad.
No, did not mean it that way … you said nothing wrong at all. Just don’t want someone else to come along and start arguing the peanut-restriction premise, that’s all!
Sorry, Robin – but I just wanted to add that my brother’s kid is one of those kids who is highly allergic to nuts. I don’t think his school has gone to quite those extreme measures but he does have to sit at a different lunch table. Anyway, my other brother who is a doctor (radiologist) commented that this generation of kids’ immune systems are going to be so weak as they get older because it is through levels of exposure that your body can become more resistant. (He also said parents’ eagerness to put their kids on anti-biotics for even just the common cold is also putting them at a high vulnerability.) I know that as a kid I had an allergic reaction to a bee sting but I’ve been stung as an adult and did not have the same reaction.
I said it before, I am more than willing to let someone wear Cashmere Mist to my workplace and enjoy her fragrance, while I carry my Nasonex and inhaler to make sure I can enjoy breathing, too.
Sorry again Robin and Fuddy Duddy – should have read further down before I posted!
No worries!
The writer of the article said this, “Look girls, there’s a lot at stake. If you don’t like the way your scent has changed, write to the head office of the company that makes it, saying you’re not happy. This is one bit of Brussels bureaucracy we can do without.”
Would this really help or work? Should we get our stamps ready to send en masse or what? I am willing!
I’m already drafting a letter to Caron!
Also just have to chime in about something …all these allegy scares…I do have compassion for people with allergies. It’s not easy to live with. However, I have a theory about why allergies are on the rise. It is because we do ban all this stuff. People’s immune systems have become next to useless because we never expose ourselves (in small degrees) to anything these days. How can you build an immunity if you are never ever exposed to it. My daughter was supposedly allergic to strawberries according to her doc. She was 6 months old when he declared this. Well…most babies are allergic to strawberries at that age… their immune system hasn’t developed enough to handle it yet! So I waited until she was about 3 years old. And I gave her a bite of a strawberry. I was ready with the antihistamine and ready to run to the ER but my mom insisted I do this. I was totally against it at first – well guess what -Mom was right and strawberries are one of her favorite foods now…Don’t hate me and I do feel bad for people who have allergies but I think people should take responsibilty for themselves and not force this on everyone. If you know you are prone to allergies, then protect yourself and find out about the ingredients before you buy. Don’t prevent me from enjoying it!
Sorry – had to get it off my chest.
Again, don’t want this to turn into a big discussion about food allergies and whether or not food bans should be in place, it’s a very hot topic…so what you posted is just fine, but let’s leave it at that.
I think I posted at the same time as you did on the previous comment about not doing this – I very much apologize. I hope everyone has a great weekend!
Truly no reason to apologize!! Just trying to avoid trouble
The article says “Scent makers will have to comply or be named and shamed by the fragrance version of Health and Safety.”…. hmmm…. how bad does “named and shamed” really seem at this point. I think a lot of us perfume lovers would take the houses on the “Named and Shamed” naughty list and make those our first choices….
Aha! A name for a new fragrance line: “Named and Shamed” – and it has the marketing allure of the forbidden and naughty!
I’ll read the linked article at some point in the next few days, but I’m getting to the point where I don’t even want to know!
Seriously, ignorance is bliss when it comes to knowing about frags that might never be put on the market.
I
AM
SO
ANGRY!!!
As a Londoner I am pretty impressed that article was written and published in the Standard which isn’t the most serious of papers shall we say. The basic points of the debate are covered and there’s a peach of a quote from Serge Lutens. If this raises consciousness on this issue just a small bit I’d be very happy. (As others before me have commented, would love to know which three SLs – Fem de Bois one – the other two?)
oh sorry I mis read – the three SL scents never saw light of day. I was thinking about SL’s admirable admission that FdB had been reformulated.
Maybe it is a good thing that I have (by my calculation) about a 20 year supply of quality pre-reformulated perfume already. I wasn’t splurging, hoarding, or impulse buying–I was just stocking up in advance of the coming shortage.
This is really very symbolic of the fascistic trends in the entire Western world, where freedom hangs by a thread ready to be cut by some fat bureaucrat.
Oy, I’m just going to enjoy what I enjoy, not worry about what I’m missing, and buy lots of perfume from Andy Tauer.
Actually, I’m convinced the issue here is no longer “natural vs. synthetic” ingredients. I don’t know what the true issue is, maybe it’s simply about making perfumes so expensive and so unavailable that only the elite few will have access to fragrance, or health activists going nuts (high sin taxes on alcohols, proposed sin taxes on fast food, and the state of TN banning wine sales outside of liquor stores — no Wal-Mart or grocery store wine for you! — are other examples I can think of). Heck, maybe it’s even some sort of weird twisted morality (“raise taxes on cigarrettes and wine to protect the health and morals of the public”) or part of a plan to put a sin tax in place for perfume simply to generate more revenue (given our females’ fondness for cosmetics and their useage, in the late 1990s, Mexico put a 20% tax on cosmetics simply to raise more revenue for the federal government on the assumption that women would continue to buy. Unfortunately, that tax raised the prices of cosmetics so much people actually stopped buying them, some of my aunts included, and cosmetics sales did decrease. I have no idea if that tax was repealed or not)? Or maybe there’s one person at the IFRA who *really* likes fruity florals with pink pepper openings and molten wood bases, and colognes with aquatic ozonic sweet notes, and thinks ALL perfume should smell like what s/he wants? (I’m only half joking.)
Or maybe they’re simply trying to control the art of perfume like government censors have controlled other forms of art in the past (again, look at the USSR, where art, music, literature, theater, practically every art form was censored, controlled, and shaped into what government, and sometimes simply specific indiviuduals, wanted.) It’s obvious those IFRA experts have *some* sort of agenda, are most likely some species of activist, and are going to follow it no matter what the public, the perfumers, and (I’m assuming eventually) the companies that created the IFRA want, and as long as those companies are willing to back the IFRA and stand by its rulings, perfumery will be continuously be impinged upon and eventually become limited (whether sensually, creatively, and/or distribution-and-price-wise). And I am so exhausted right now that I can’t even be sure that what I wrote makes sense, much less conveys what I wanted it to… forgive a tired, pretentious idiot her ramblings? 
I’ve gotten to the point where after folling this story for so many months and trying to keep up with what’s allowed and what’s not, that I am honestly beginning to wonder of some of those IFRA scientific experts are believers in the “perfume and makeup are bourgeoise affectations that no good member of the Revolution should/will indulge in” and are therefore slowly making it impossible for perfumes to be mass produced and marketed for the public at large. Look at the USSR and Mao-period China for examples of that thinking
The initiative to ban ingredients frequently comes from a dermatologies.
This is because modern perfume users spray it to the skin following a myth that the skin secretion/sweat will mix with the perfume and creating an even nicer (or worst) smell.
The truth is that perfume will last much longer if we spray on a handkercief like in those days of Cleopatra’s day (at least in Cleopatra’s movie she also used handkercief).
Perfume was very expensive in the ancient time before the agriculture revolution began to be able to produce high quantity of natural raw ingredients. This is why perhaps (in the ancient time) they did not even want to waste perfume by spraying it on the skin, because I think even in those days people had noticed that spraying it to the skin just reduce the life of the perfume by 2-5 times shorter than when they sprayed onto a fabric.
But if I’m not wrong, there was several perfumers started to tell a myth about the best place to spray perfume: spray it on the area you would like to be kissed by your lover…this means the most sensitive area of our skin: wrist, behind the ears, neck etc.
I personaly do not want to follow this myth spraying a perfume on my skin. First of all, even without talking about the scent ingredient, perfume contains 80% of Alcohol (Ethanol). And spraying 80% ethanol to our skin is already bad for our skin. Of course it dissinfects, but it also iritates and dries the skin! And if you do this spraying 80% ethanol everyday on the same area of the skin then it’s not going to make it better for the skin itself. Even Luca Turin sprayed some of his perfumes on fabrics and hedoesn’t really believes in the myth that the same perfume will changes much of the smell on different types of skins (unless you sweat a lot of you have a genetic problem in your homeostasis?).
If everyone (and the perfume company) agree to make regulation to spray only on fabrics then there will be less fuss about banning scent ingredients that iritates the skin, and Dr Ian White (the anti perfume dermatologist) will have less skin alergic patients as he wishes always!
Yeah I give a rebirth to this 2 years ago conversation because now the European Union is taking step about banning 3 more natiral ingredients: geraniol, coumarin, and citral (citrus).