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Natural Perfumery without Cruelty
Perfumery enjoys a very colorful history, some of it decidedly dark. Animal-based essences such as civet, musk, and ambergris are a decided throw-back to the dark ages in terms of ingredients-sourcing. An odd dependence on animal-based essences has continued into modern compositions by large perfume houses, sometimes in synthetic form (ironically musk ketones are one of the biggest offenders when it comes to environmental pollutants; they persist, do not biodegrade, and have been found in the waste-water stream, in fish, in birds eating the fish, and even in soil), and sometimes in natural form.
It is understood that ambergris is a materia non grata in modern compositions, due to the endangered status of sperm whales, but there are a few perfumers and raw materials suppliers who insist on trafficking this substance. The claim is that well, the ambergris was found on a beach somewhere, so it is okay. The fact of the matter is that whales were gutted for possible stores of ambergris back when they were killed for oil, and whales are still hunted.
It is further understood that the musk deer (all species, there are several) have been hunted nearly to extinction for their musk pods, and this is also a forbidden ingredient to work with. Again, there is still a trade in musk pods if not merely grains of real musk.
In the instance of civet, the case is one of abject cruelty. These creatures are kept in deplorable conditions, often living the entire spans of their short lives within a wooden cage in which they cannot even turn around. They are kept in these cages for ease of scraping the excretions out of the pouch near the anal glands. Ethiopia is the hotbed for civet production, although there is also limited harvesting happening in Vietnam. Because the civet was seen as a disease vector for SARS a few years ago, however, civet production has largely fallen to farms in Ethiopia.
Major perfumery houses such as Lancôme, Guerlain, and Chanel have been put on the spot about usage of substances like civet and as recently as 2000 were found to have backpedaled entirely on their original "We do not use such outmoded ingredients" stance, once it was found that some compositions do indeed contain such things. It then became a refrain of "Well, we are merely using up our stores of those ingredients". Which one is it, folks?
It certainly stands to reason that if those stores of civet, and castoreum, and musk had been used up, the international trades of such would have dried up overnight, does it not?
Civet is still a hot commodity, castoreum is easy to get, and one can also get musk if one knows where to look for it. Ambergris as well.
The last time I was sourcing some floral essences from major brokers in France, in fact, I found no less than two that will sell one civet paste.
So much for perfumery in an age of enlightenment.
As it turns out, as soon as perfumery was starting to cut its teeth as a science as much as an art form, and when the ingredients palette was increasing, there existed formulae for vegetable-based musk. Perfumers have been trying to replace the animalic essences for as long as they have been perfuming, in other words.
A few modern perfumers (who embrace the naturals) have attempted to green-wash and rationalize continued usage of animalic essences with the statement that well, these are natural. With the plethora of plant essences that can approximate such odors, as well as the fact that one does not even need to approximate such odors in blends, such attitudes are antiquated and out of place knowing what we do about the animals such essences are harvested from as well as the conditions under which they are harvested.
Mandrake Apothecary™ has made a point of avoiding the animalic essences, and is taking this a step further to educate consumers that even in an age of increasing awareness of animal welfare, in an age where people are enlightened enough to know that some species are endangered if not near extinction, there is still misconduct going on even in the seemingly frivolous realm of aromatics. Don't hesitate to ask about the ingredients that go into a formula, and if you encounter resistance to such disclosure, be wary. Perfumers can be touchy about ingredients (though ironically, it is actually quite difficult to reverse-engineer another perfumer's formula), so don't be surprised if you raise some hackles. |
