I have been in shock for the last few days. It has transpired over the last few days that the EU are bringing in new legislation, based on IFRA standards, that in short could put the natural perfumer out of business. First of all it took me a while to read and understand the official type documents (I hate them) and then it took me another while to understand the implications.At first I felt shock, then disbelief, then confusion (well confusion was present most of the time) then understanding and finally motivation to action.
You see the IFRA standards are standards set in place to protect the consumer, that's fine with me. But the thing is that while it is easy to regulate and monitor synthetic fragrance materials, because they are always the same molecular structure, it is not so easy when it comes to the complexity of natural materials. Not only that, but isolating a chemical compound in an essential oil for example and saying that it is dangerous, doesn't always apply because in the case of the "whole" material, mother nature usually includes the antidote. (For example did you know that raw unpasturized milk contains the enzyme necessary to digest milk, this enzyme is killed during pasteurization, interesting eh?)
So what's happening in the EU is that it is is going to be mandatory to label products and comply with IFRA standards, which hitherto was optional. This will make it impossible for a natural perfumer like myself to stay in business, as it will mean hiring a team of chemists to monitor and regulate and measure every molecule of natural material I use in a perfume. This in itself becomes an insurmountable task because it will be nessesary to take into account changes in a natural material based on weather, crop, storing etc. (Have you ever read the nutritional analysis on the back of a carton of milk? It always says that the values are approximate and can vary depending on season, herd etc)
Go to this page to read more about it.
Synthetic v Natural: The Battle is On
In my opinion this change is happening because the chemical cosmetics market are losing a large percentage of the market share to the smaller companies producing natural products. It dawned on me yesterday that I haven't heard of any consumers crying out for tougher labelling policies, and more stringent tests done on cosmetics and perfumes. I think that by and large the public believe that the natural choice is the better one, and that is a major worry for big chemical cosmetic and perfume industries.
I have great faith in the likes of Liz Tams, Tony Burfield, and Dr Robert Tisserand, pioneer of aromatherapy and others, that they will guide the rest of us as to where to go from here.
Support is needed here, I fear that upon finding my path in life, it will be made impossible or even illegal for me to follow it.
Would you please go to the Perfumer & Flavourist
site, and vote for Cropwatch in the Cropwatch vs IFRA poll / (scroll down to bottom left hand
corner of page).
In the words of Tony Burfield:
"A good showing for Cropwatch would maybe allow us
natural product lovers, to gain more credence in these issues."
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