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ALTERNATIVE MEDICINE | June 200736

“About 100 years ago, most per-fumes were made entirely of natural in-gredients,” says Denys Charles, PhD, achemist from Urbana, Iowa, who stud-ies the chemical makeup of essentialoils. “However, the modern perfume in-dustry uses mostly synthetic chemicals.Today, of the more than 3,000 fragranceingredients available to the perfumers,fewer than 5 percent come directly fromnatural sources.”

That tiny bottle of your signaturescent can hide a host of synthetic com-pounds undetectable to the human noseand unlisted on the label. These chemi-cals, often used to make perfumes lastlonger on the body, include aldehydes,benzene derivatives, phthalates, andmany other known toxins. While our de-sire to smell delicious is understandable

Mandy Aftel, founder and crafter of theBerkeley, California–based line of nat-ural fragrances Aftelier Perfumes, hasno love for her glitzy, department storecompetitors. It’s not that those other per-fumes—often made with lab-producedfragrance oils and chemical solvents—smell bad. It’s just that, as she explains,“synthetic oils have nothing to do withthe world of nature and plants. Theydon’t have the holistic properties [of nat-ural fragrances] and don’t smell any-where near as good.” While scentpreferences vary considerably, Aftelspeaks for a growing world of per-fumers who—with some dedicated con-sumers in tow—avoid artificialingredients and instead use pure essen-tial oils in an attempt to revive the some-what lost art of natural perfumery.

Ecco BellaEau de parfum inBourbon Vanilla stayssweet and sultry withintermingling undertonesof cocoa, rose, and jas-mine blossoms. Keep thisscent in your gym bag—it’s both mild andportable enough for apost-workout spritz.

$18.50,1 oz; www.ecco-bella.com

Tsi-LaTsi-La’s Fiori D’Arancio fragrance packs a citrusy burst of orange, tangerine, andneroli tamed by notes of vanilla orchid. The fragrance, formerly known asMillefiori, sports a new name and gorgeouspackaging, but inside, the same delicatescents remain. Mini collection set of four,$75, 0.14 oz each; www.tsilaorganics.com

AjneMaternité Rosé blends mandarin,Bulgarian rose, and sandalwood in abalancing fragrance for the sensitivenoses of moms-to-be. With plant ingre-dients sourced from the California-based company’s own organic farm,Ajne perfumes have gained a followingamong Hollywood celebs.

$75, 0.5 oz; www.ajne.com

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Nature’sGateThis unisex fragrance inSicuro sparkles with zestygrapefruit top notes layeredover a bouquet of lily, jas-mine, and rose. The upside:This line of complex andandrogynous fragrancessuits everyone. The down-side: Sharing means youmay use it up twice as fast.

$39.99, 1.6 oz;www.natures-gate.com

B Y E I N AV K E E T

From Simpleto Sophisticated

The latest natural fragrances give women a reason to shelve their synthetics.

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unisex

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Natural perfumes offer a seductively healthy

alternative to heavy, conventional scents.

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AftelierPink Lotus parfumcombines dominantflorals and a subtlehint of sandalwoodfor an intoxicatingblend. Aftelier’sscents, which use anorganic grape–alcoholbase, offer a throw-back to the ancientart of perfumery.

$140, 0.25 oz;www.aftelier.com

PatykaOrganic perfume (travel size) in Boiséwraps woodsy pine, cedar, and juniper oils around hints of tangy grapefruit. This French fragrance line—crafted fromEcocert-certified organic essential oils, plantabsolutes, and alcohol bases—delivers rigor-ous purity.

$52, 0.5 oz; www.patyka.com

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—research has, in fact, shown a rela-tionship between our ability to smelland our sex drive—exposing ourselvesto ingredients that may cause cancer,birth defects, allergic reactions, respira-tory problems, and nervous systemdamage hardly seemsworthwhile. Afterstudies showed thatthese compoundscaused cancer and re-productive systemdamage in lab ani-mals, the Centers forDisease Control andPrevention in 2000conducted a study onhumans. The scien-tists detected measur-able amounts of diethyl phthalate aswell as other phthalates in the urine of289 adults, concluding that humans—especially women—are exposed to andmetabolize phthalates. Although theFDA later said that phthalate levelsused in cosmetics and perfumes werewithin safety limits, the EuropeanUnion issued a ban on the use of onephthalate in cosmetic products.

Aftel, author of Essence and Alchemy:

A Natural History of Perfume (GibbsSmith, 2004) and founder of the Artisan

Natural Perfumers Guild, says that theuse of synthetic oils and chemicals hasbecome the standard in the perfume in-dustry, but she hopes that she and oth-ers can reverse that trend. “Mostcompanies say that their products are

made with natural ingredients, andthey’re not,” she explains. Instead, per-fumeries now rely on less expensivepetrochemical-based fragrance oilscooked up in a lab to mimic pure essen-tial oils. And it can be hard for con-sumers to tell the difference: To helpprotect trade secrets, the FDA allowsperfume manufacturers to label theirproducts with catchall terms such asfragrance, perfume, and parfum.

“Only a very highly trained nose willbe able to smell the difference between

Fragrance Lore…JJust as there are four basic tastes and three primary colors,

did you know that all smells fall into seven categories?

Whatever you are inhaling right now falls into one of

seven scents: minty (peppermint), floral (roses), ethereal

(pears), musky (musk), resinous (mothballs), putrid (rotten

eggs), and pungent (vinegar).>

Have onebefore you

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a pure natural essential oil and a per-fume created by mixing syntheticchemicals,” says Charles.

So how can we separate the attarfrom the aldehydes? Since companiesdon’t like to divulge their formulas,trying to find out exactly what’s in yoursignature scent can be a fool’s errand.Luckily, the blossoming market of nat-ural perfumes offers a seductive-smelling array of healthy substitutes.Look for perfumeries that use only 100percent pure essential plant oils inbases such as organic alcohol or oil.Aftel points out that natural perfumerycan involve compromises—for instance, sacrificing synthetics often results in the loss of long-lasting fragrance.

But for people like Natalie Sza-powalo, who cofounded Tsi-La Natu-ral Perfumery more than seven yearsago in response to her own suspicionsabout cosmetic and fragrance ingredi-ents, the trade-offs are more than ac-ceptable. “We wanted to createsomething that didn’t lie to people; wewanted to tell them exactly what wasin the product and that what they wereusing was going to be good,” says Sza-powalo, adding that 60 essential oils cango into one fragrance blend. Becausesmell permeates both our inner as wellas our outer lives, a perfume whose in-gredients are as wholesome as its scent is well worth sniffing out.

ALTERNATIVE MEDICINE | June 200738

EOAmma’s Rose (named in honor of India’shugging saint) of-fers the intensityof attar of rosescomplemented bya grounding san-dalwood infusion.Just like its namesake,EO’s blend offers a warm embrace.

$34.99, 0.4 oz;

www.eoproducts.com

n a t u r a l R A D I A N C E

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