For something so fragrant, it’s hard to believe that perfume can actually be so sinister. The sad reality is that the majority of perfumes we wear are of dubious origin with links to animal cruelty, extortionate budgets and a Frankenstein-esque manipulation of nature. From capturing animals to harvest their gland secretions, to razing forests to the ground in the search for sweet-smelling wood, there is no doubt the perfume industry is a cut-throat business.
And yet as bottle of perfume is one of the most sublime accessories we can buy; totems of personality with a language all their own.
In recent years there has been a more general movement towards vegan and sustainable products, largely helped by an EU ban on animal derivatives in perfume. This legislation, combined with the sheer expense of animal based products, means it is most likely you are wearing a vegan perfume right now.
Meanwhile, increasingly ethical customers are demanding to know where their fragrances are actually coming from. "I think what they are talking about is a standard of perfume and naturals and talking about using products that aren’t harmful", says Sadie Chowen, owner of The Burren Perfumery, an all-natural, cruelty free and certified organic producer. "Generally they’re talking about companies with a social conscience, which do not test on animals and are actively trying to ensure that they don’t."
With technology offering ever more replacements for the scents of our decadent past, a new set of obstacles and moral quandaries have emerged. The discussion surrounding how to ethically buy perfumes is larger than just vegan, and underlying it is the aspiration that we will kill fewer living organisms in our quest to smell nice.
In Patrick Suskind’s cult classic 'Perfume: The Story of a Murderer', an orphan in 18th century France is born with a prodigious sense of smell. Initially using it for good, creating otherworldly scents for men and women, he soon uses it for evil, murdering one young girl after another in an effort to preserve their "pure" scents. As you can imagine, it doesn't end well and while on trial for murder, the orphan escapes death by unleashing his ethereal fragrance, inciting a city-wide panic and eventually allowing himself to be ripped to shreds by the ravenous masses.
It’s a protracted but unnervingly accurate portrayal of the primal, intoxicating nature of perfume, showing how easily we can be manipulated by smell. Smell is by far the most elemental of our senses, so primordial that even the greatest writers have struggled to put words to certain aromas because they almost defy definition.
The animal part of us refuses to be smothered in florals and citrus notes, so we still seek out the primal in our scents. In centuries past, it was the heavier, more animalistic scents that stirred the heart, heavenly jasmine notes anchored by materials that, in large quantities, reeked but in tiny doses played the devil to the more delicate angels. These included civet, musk and ambergris, sourced from the civet, the musk deer and whales respectively. We crave something a little rotten with our sweetness, and the most sought-after materials were acquired through the murder and torture of animals.
Social consciousness has increased demand for vegan perfumes, but the change came over a century ago. Long before the EU ban on animal derivatives, classic perfume houses such as Chanel and Coty were transitioning to synthetic scents as the natural materials became too expensive. Take ambergris: expelled naturally from endangered sperm whales, it emerges as a waxy ball of rancid-smelling bile and feces, and is deposited on beaches. Extremely rare, it’s thought that only 1 per cent of sperm whales produce ambergris.
Gradually, classic perfumers found themselves without their liquid gold. "It’s a bit like asking a painter to paint without using white paint", says Chowen. "They were struggling to create things they felt were acceptable and of the sophistication that they had been doing." With the release of Guerlain’s iconic Jicky scent, the first perfume made using synthetics, in 1889 a new era of perfumery began. In 1921, the world met Chanel No. 5, made using aldehydes.
So if we have many vegan scents, not to mention the most iconic ones, why cause such a stink? Turns out science can’t fix everything. Over a century later and the "synthetic thing is a world of pain", says Chowen.
"In people’s minds, natural is good and synthetic is bad. Synthetics are things that are synthesised in the laboratory, but you can have really cheap synthetics which are really horrible and really destructive to the environment. Then you can have artificial synthetics which have never been seen in nature, they’re molecules which have been created in a laboratory. And then you have natural synthetics, which are also molecules."
The process of choice is called nature identical, where the molecules in a natural organic material are analysed and used to recreate a scent that can no longer be used, such as sandalwood, which is environmentally protected. This has "widened the palette", Chowen says, allowing for lighter fragrances to last longer.
The move away from certain synthetics is increasing, with more consumers seeking out certified organic and all-natural products, while 'vegan' products are more widely expected. To be certified organic, you must use 95 per cent organic materials. Joan Woods, owner of waters + wild perfumery located in West Cork, which is 100 per cent natural, certified organic and cruelty free, interprets vegan perfumes as being good for the environment.
"We only use 100 per cent naturals. We are looking after, and care about the earth. We don’t want to use pesticides, we don’t want the chemicals on the plants in our perfumes because one, it’s destroying the earth and two, it’s destroying us. It’s going into our skin."
The beauty of perfumery, for her, is its changeability and the unpredictable results that come from responding to the earth.
"A chemical can never replace the beauty of a true rose otto, It changes every year, it’s like a vintage wine. Every season, every batch of perfume that we create is going to be different because the earth, the ground and the seasonality will change."
This is especially interesting when considering how we treat smells. Our swiftest route to the past, and to memory, is through smell. Much like memory, smells only last a short while before they start to fray and distort. The very act of bottling rose or lavender or iris was an attempt to stop this distortion, and it’s the closest we come to bottling memory.
"You don’t want a perfume to last forever", Woods says. "Only the chemicals last forever."
There are clear benefits for organic perfumers, especially small-batch producers like Chowen and Woods. As the marketing budget for a major perfume house could be €40m, companies like Chanel and Dior cannot afford to make a perfume that doesn’t sell, resulting in scents that might be, at most, slight variations on the same.
Working with raw, specialised materials also allows these perfumers rare access to highly exceptional ingredients. Woods mentions a scent of hers made with true rose mixed with an oud called "liquid gold" - a luxury item even for perfumers. "A large perfume company was never going to use those ingredients, unless it’s €300-€400 a bottle. Because we’re smaller I have the joy of working with really gorgeous ingredients."
Creative freedom is also unparalleled, as Woods notes: "A lot of big companies work with the same noses in France. I am the creator for these perfumes so that gives me a kind of freedom to work and play with anything. There are no rules. And it’s continual learning. It’s very like cooking, it’s about blending spices."
On a grander scale, though, the move towards fully organic products suggests a growing social conscious in consumers. Shoppers are no longer content to be peddled the same smokey-sweet perfume, promoted by Cate Blanchett in another gauzy dress. They know a new aftershave won’t make them more like David Beckham.
Bigger than this, customers want their purchases to mean something. Maybe it’s because of how available everything is, maybe it’s the wider market, maybe we just miss that anticipation we’d feel at Christmas, waiting for Santa, but we want to shop with purpose. Maybe the guilt of trampling trees and draining oceans for the latest must-have accessory is getting to us.
"I think it’s time that we take responsibility", says Chowen. "We buy less but better." As well as this, customers are energised and eager to seek out something a little different. "They’re definitely willing to put a little more work into what they buy. Certainly the young generation. Those who are aware are very anxious about what’s going to happen and they’re voting with their money."
Like all remnants of an ancient world, perfume is both cruel and sublime. The word 'perfume' comes from the Latin pro fumum, meaning "through smoke", and suggests its origin in the burning of incense during religious practice. Burned by women to scent their hair and bodies before their wedding night, it was also burned to shield the smell of human sacrifices. It was the link between the ugly and the beautiful.
Chowen says that to this day perfume still serves the purpose of "conjuring up the divine". "In the best of worlds, when you put a perfume it transports you. And I think we need to go back to that, rather than it being just another fashion accessory."
The crafting of luxury scents extends to 18th century Paris when wealthy women would visit a perfumer much in the way they would go to "get their clothes made", says Chowen. The woman would be shown a range of scents, select her favourite and have it dabbed on the flesh to allow it to settle and adjust to her body. A cup of tea and some gossip later, the scent would be sniffed again, possibly tweaked and then that would become her scent for life. "For me, that’s the true meaning of the word luxury," says Chowen.
"Now everything’s so fast."
Perhaps we are moving back to that place of conscientious shopping, luxuriating in our preferences and relying on our own tastes to guide us to a better understanding of ourselves. We are using perfume to root us to our land, to help us stop and smell the roses, to heal the earth, but what are we really looking for?
"I think we’re looking for connection," says Chowen. "Our connection to family is fading, we tend to be more individual units, our connection to religion is diminishing, all the networks that held us together - to the land, the landscape - is diminishing. I feel that our great consumer drive is to replace satisfaction from more elementary parts of life."
