44. Pros and Cons of Safe Synthetics vs. Natural Scents in Perfume (Cracking the Fragrance Code: Part 1)

I know Black Friday has everyone on a shopping spree, and it seems like toxin-free colognes and perfumes are hot on the list. This episode is sponsored by the hundreds on DMs I got asking about synthetic fragrance. Here's the thing - not all synthetics are bad, and not all-natural ingredients are automatically safe.  So let's unpack that!

Conventional perfumes often hide harmful ingredients, but the lack of transparency makes it hard for consumers to make informed choices.  If you're unaware of why we should be avoiding certain fragrances, check out episode 2 where I do a deep dive on the fragrance industry as a whole.

But today, we're specifically talking about safe synthetics and natural plant-based fragrances. What are the pros and cons to consider when shopping for your colognes and perfumes this holiday season? Tune in so that you can make an informed decision you feel great about! 

In this episode, we chat about: 

• Why lab-made doesn't automatically make ingredients toxic 
• Why transparency is so crucial, especially in the fragrance industry
• The environmental benefits of lab made ingredients 
• The therapeutic benefits of plant-derived fragrances 
• Following the money to find out why it's so difficult to really understand whether a fragrance is toxic or not

Read more in the shownotes

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Just because something, an ingredient, is made in a lab does not automatically mean it is toxic or bad. The opposite is true as well. Just because something is naturally derived from a plant doesn't mean it's not toxic. Japanese honeysuckle is a perfect example. Japanese honeysuckle comes straight from a plant, but the way that its molecular structure looks like it acts like a paraben in your body because it almost has an identical structure to a synthetic paraben. So that is a natural, plant-derived ingredient that is on my avoid list.

Speaker 1: 0:37

Hey there, my name is Wendy and I'm an environmental toxins lawyer who is obsessed with showing women how to toss the toxins out of their life and embrace a more holistic lifestyle. I'll be dishing up bite-sized but binge-worthy episodes on all things detox, low toxin, what's that toxin and what is it really doing to my health? I'm breaking it all down for you, separating the myths from the facts and pulling back the curtain on the products and beauty industry. You'll hear my unfiltered and sometimes unpopular, but honest opinions. No topic is off limits. We'll dive into what's really causing our thyroid issues, hormone imbalance, infertility and more. Think of it as a crash course for all things holistic living, but for real life you don't have to do everything. You just have to start somewhere. Let me show you how.

Speaker 1: 1:27

This is the Detox Dilemma Podcast. Welcome to episode 44 of the Detox Dilemma Podcast. I am your host, wendy, and this episode is brought to you by the bajillion questions that have been in my email box, because it's Black Friday and everybody is shopping, and one of the things that everybody is shopping for which I actually found really interesting is cologne. You, ladies, are all searching for non-toxic, amazing smelling cologne for your men, and you're probably shopping for some perfume for you as well. I'm sure I'm not the only one shopping Black Friday deals for myself, but this week brought a lot of questions about the companies that are out there that are making a toxin-free fragrance, but they're using synthetic ingredients and not natural, plant-based, essential oil-based ingredients. The question that I kept getting from people was aren't synthetics bad? Why? I'm looking at these companies you have on your toxin-free shopping guide. I trust you. I know they've got to be clean, but I see a bunch of synthetic chemical ingredients on here. What's up with that? How can that be safe? And then that question opened up a whole host of other questions surrounding fragrance. Some of the brand new labeling laws that are out there and companies are starting to change the way they label fragrance on their ingredients, and so you know what I decided we're gonna do a series. There's a lot to unpack here and I don't want to do a two-hour long episode, so we're gonna do a three-part fragrance series. Today is gonna be part one and we're just gonna talk about the one question, and that is are safe synthetics in perfume actually safe?

Speaker 1: 3:09

So in order to answer that question, first I have to talk a little bit about what's the problem with a conventional perfume. So a conventional perfume is usually a mix between some naturally-based ingredients, so extracts or essential oils, and or a bunch of synthetic ingredients. But the problem with those perfumes and colognes is that they are allowed to have ingredients in them like diethyl phthalates. Then we, you all know phthalates are bad. And if you don't know phthalates are bad, go back and listen to episode one what the fuck is an endocrine disruptor anyway? And episode two, which is all about fragrance in the industry and what phthalates are, and you can do some background catching up and then come back here for the rest of this topic.

Speaker 1: 3:56

So those conventional perfume brands are not actually regulated, but they do have a standard that was created by the International Fragrance Association that allows a specific list of ingredients to be in perfumes, and of that list of ingredients that's allowed, there are actually a bunch that have shown toxicity. Some of them are carcinogenic. There are problems with them. They have a toxicity issue. They are not ingredients that I would consider safe whatsoever. They would never make any of my lists and I would avoid them.

Speaker 1: 4:30

The bigger issue with that is you don't actually know which companies are using them, because you don't know what's in the perfume. If you go to shop for a perfume and you look on their website and you click on ingredients and it says Parfume or fragrance and that's it, well, you have no freaking idea what is in that perfume or cologne. It could be full of all the toxic shit, or maybe it's not, but if it's not, then why wouldn't they just tell you what's in it? And up until recent years, this idea that fragrance should be proprietary, that there's all this competition and that if somebody were to say what their ingredients are then it would be stolen by another company, and so the laws actually protect currently that these are proprietary and companies don't have to disclose them. Now, in next week's episode, we're going to talk about how that's changing a little bit, but for purposes of perfume and cosmetics they don't have to tell you squat.

Speaker 1: 5:25

So, bottom line, I would never recommend a conventional perfume from any brand that is not transparent about what they're actually using in their product. So what about the companies that are claiming to be clean and safe and tax and free and yada, yada and all the million words that are out there that actually be nothing and they are telling you what their ingredients are, and they are synthetic. You're seeing long lists of synthetic ingredients and maybe you're seeing some natural stuff in there, maybe some essential oils neroli and bergamot or some of my favorite but you're also seeing a long list of synthetics. In my opinion, if a company is fully transparent about their ingredients that they're using, they are not using any synthetic ingredients that are known to cause harm to human health. So they're not endocrine disrupting, they're not carcinogenic, they're not mutagenic, they've been tested, they know that they're safe, they're not bad for you and they're not adding any of the things that are bad for you.

Speaker 1: 6:24

There is nothing wrong with a perfume that is made from safe synthetics. Just because something, an ingredient, is made in a lab does not automatically mean it is toxic or bad. The opposite is true as well. Just because something is naturally derived from a plant doesn't mean it's not toxic or there's no toxicity to it. Japanese honeysuckle is a perfect example. Japanese honeysuckle comes straight from a plant, but the way that its molecular structure looks like it acts like a paraben in your body because it almost has an identical structure to a synthetic paraben. So that is a natural plant derived ingredient that is on my avoid list. So of the 4,000-ish ingredients that are out there that you could possibly find in a perfume, about half of them I would say a full 50% of them have been fully studied for toxicity and impacts on human health, and there's still some work to do on some of the other ones. So there are some gaps in data on some of the ingredients that are being used in perfume, but we do have data on about 2,000 of them.

Speaker 1: 7:34

So if you're shopping for a perfume or a clone and you're somebody who really cares about toxin-free living, what are the pros and cons? Why would somebody pick a safe synthetic perfume versus? Why would somebody choose a perfume that is made plant-based? Only isolates in essential oils? Let's run through that for a second. So let's start with some of the pros of safe synthetics. And listen, I fully understand there are people out there in the industry that are plant-based or bust Synthetics are bad. I'm not that person. I don't think that there's any science to support that. I don't think that's realistic, and I'll explain a little bit more about why it's not realistic in a second. But first let's look at some of the pros of using safe synthetics in perfume, and I'm going to use Michelle Pfeiffer as a perfect example.

Speaker 1: 8:24

For her son, she created her line, henry Rose, and if you're not familiar with Henry Rose, michelle Pfeiffer makes perfumes and colognes and now other scented fragrance products as well. But she created them for her son because she wanted a toxin-free product to use, and so she couldn't find one on the market that she liked, so she created her own. When she started that company, her goal was to use 100% all-natural essential oil-based synths. That was her goal. That's what she wanted, and I've actually listened to multiple interviews with her where she has said that it quickly became evident that not only is that really hard to do, it's also not necessarily the best thing to do for people, because there are a lot of natural ingredients out there that can cause sensitivity to your skin and in order to create a fragrance that is a true perfume or something that has the aroma that somebody would want to wear as a perfume or cologne, you have to use a lot of it, and so usually people who use essential oils we know you have to dilute them. You need a little bit of essential oil and you need a lot of carrier oil and unfortunately in that situation you're not going to get a really strong perfumey smell. So anybody who wants to actually smell like you're wearing perfume that stronger, specific smell of a perfume or cologne that is really really hard to make and create when you're only using natural materials. It doesn't mean it's impossible, it just means it's really really hard. So Michelle Pfeiffer actually made the decision for her company that she was going to use safe synthetics. So one of the pros strength and scent. You can get a stronger scent if you're using some synthetics. The other thing is reliability of scent.

Speaker 1: 10:14

One of the magical things that I love so much about essential oils and things that are distilled from plants, isolates and absolutes. One of the things I love the most about essential oils is that it depends on the harvest. Every bottle you get is slightly different. Was there a lot of rain that year? Which is the soil doing? Every crop is different. It has its own personality and its own nuance, and while I love that and appreciate that, because it's coming from Mother Nature, when you create perfumes and you're using essential oils, it's hard to recreate the same scent when every single batch of essential oil that you get might smell slightly different. It's a really hard thing to sell a perfume and say this is what it smells like, have somebody fall in love with it and then they go buy another bottle and it smells differently. And so that's one another one of the reasons why some really good toxin-free perfume companies choose to use safe synthetics.

Speaker 1: 11:11

Another pro is there's no environmental cost. Distilling essential oils takes a massive amount of resources and that's why I am so picky about where mine come from. Because I is an environmental toxins attorney and an environmentalist. I am all about sustainability and protecting the earth. When you're buying essential oils from brokers or from places overseas, there's a lot of destruction happening. Young Living is the only company that I use. I don't make a secret out of it.

Speaker 1: 11:44

They, for 30 years, have instituted not just regenerative farming practices in all of their farms that they own, but reforestation everywhere where they are. So for every bottle of essential oil you're buying, you're supporting the replanting and reforestation of thousands of acres globally, everywhere. Like it's incredible, but not every company's doing that. In fact, 99.9% of the companies and the places where you're getting essential oils from they're not doing that. They're clearing fields, they're wild crafting. They're decimating sandalwood, sandalwood and frankincense and rosewood. They've been decimated over decades, and these are natural resources that are really important to our environment, and so one of the pros of using these safe synthetics is that you don't need to extract them from the earth. You can create in a lab, like a citrus isolate or an isolate of an essential oil, that is lab created, and you can get that for like $50 per kilogram. But if you want the real thing, you're talking 10 to 100 times that cost. So the cost of extracting natural scents is way higher than lab created.

Speaker 1: 13:01

So some of the companies that make the best essential oil-based perfumes like Heretic is one of my they do this so well. I'm obsessed with their stuff. It's not cheap, and it's not cheap for a reason. I'm happy to buy it because I know where they get it from, I know it's sustainable and it smells amazing, but it's not necessarily something that everybody can afford. Now, those are just all of the pros of using safe synthetics, but there are also a lot of pros to using fully natural extracted essential oil-based perfumes as well. One of the things I love about them they have like a lighter scent that isn't so overpowering. I really can't stand things that have really strong smells. I'm super sensitive. I don't like them. I love that essential oil-based natural perfumes have this very light, crisp aura about them. I love the smell so much better. I prefer it and a lot of people do.

Speaker 1: 13:55

Another pro is that we know what's in an essential oil. We know the therapeutic value. They've been fully studied, we understand them, we know that they are safe and to the point of people who've said there's these 2,000 other safe quote unquote safe synthetics that we really don't know a lot about. There is some missing data there, and so if you are concerned about a gap in data currently, then an essential oil-based perfume is going to be your best bet and the best way to go.

Speaker 1: 14:25

Another pro, which is a huge pro, is the therapeutic value of an essential oil. So when you're talking about safe synthetics, you're talking about an isolate, so a single constituent. If you have an essential oil, you have anywhere between 150 and 500 chemical constituents and they all work together and they're intricately created with these ratios that mother nature decided were perfect. And so there's these intricacies and these therapeutic values that come from all of these, all of these individual constituents that you cannot recreate in a lab, you just can't. And there's so much science on essential oils and specific oils in general, supporting you. They lower your anxiety, they can help with depression, they really support your mood and for me, when I put an essential oil-based perfume on my body, or just an essential oil in general, if I'm wearing it as a perfume, which I do a lot I can immediately be distressed. I mean one half of it and I just feel so relaxed. And that's the therapeutic value of all those constituents working together. And you're not going to get that from a safe synthetic. A safe synthetic is going to be nothing more but a scent or fragrance and you're not going to get any therapeutic value out of it other than loving the way you smell, which totally counts.

Speaker 1: 15:50

The other pro about using essential oil-based perfumes, especially for some companies that are doing this correctly and with a lot of ethics and a lot of values, working with local communities. There are places in Taiwan and Africa and the Middle East and there are villages and local areas where they are learning sustainable farming practices and these companies that are buying their distilled oils for purposes of their perfumes, they're literally taking care of that entire community. They're bringing money into that community, they're teaching them skills to keep their community going, and I like the idea of money going into the economy, into communities that really need it, versus a company that's making a perfume and they're paying a lab to do it. It's just that connection with our local communities isn't there for me. I was actually just in Kona, hawaii recently, and we have a Sandalwood Reforestation Project. We I mean young living who I love, and I work with them. They're reforesting the entire area and, like I said earlier, sandalwood and Frankincense and Rosewood are crops that have been decimated, some of it for furniture, others for essential oils, and so to have a company that I know not only is just practicing sustainable practices, where, if a Sandalwood tree has to be at the end of its life in order to distill it, but that the money that's made from the distillation and the selling of that Sandalwood oil is going to the full reforestation of that area. So not just a sustainable practice, but a creation practice, where that area now has completely changed its microclimate. It's brought in the rains back. It's an incredible story and I love the idea of supporting the companies that are protecting our environment and bringing back our soil and bringing back our forests and leaving the earth better than when we got here.

Speaker 1: 17:52

Okay, so those are the pros and cons and, as you can see, there are pros and cons to both of them. I really think it's just a personal decision. Okay, so you're like okay, yeah, yeah, wendy, thanks, great, appreciate it. Safe synthetics not terrible. That is a good way to go and they can still be toxin free. But where do I shop for them? How do I know that a company is truly a safe synthetic and not just a conventional synthetic company? So if you go to their website, they should be loud and proud about it. If you open up their ingredients and there is not a long list of ingredients, then that's a red flag and you should probably go somewhere else.

Speaker 1: 18:32

The companies that are doing the right thing they're creating safe synthetics, they're making sure there's no toxic chemicals in it. They are out there and loud. It's all over their website. You can find every ingredient. That's super transparent.

Speaker 1: 18:45

I do want to caution you about shopping and checking and using the EWG Skin Deep Database. Here's why Henry Rose is a perfect example. Ewg works on a pay-to-play basis when it comes to rating products, so Henry Rose paid the money for the EWG to certify their products as a fully safe, synthetic, no toxins perfume cologne company. You can have another perfume company that uses the exact same safe synthetic ingredients as Henry Rose, but they didn't pay the money to the EWG to get certified as EWG certified, and so if you look up their product on the website, then instead of the EWG actually giving you a list of all of the ingredients and being transparent, they just put the word perfume or fragrance and they rate it as an eight, and they do that because they weren't paid by that company. But if you go look up Henry Rose, you'll see every single ingredient being open. And so there's a lot of companies out there that really don't like this. They're refusing to play the game. That doesn't mean that there's anything wrong with their product. They're completely mislabeled on EWG. Their fragrance is not an eight, it's not toxic. They're just not paying to play the game.

Speaker 1: 20:03

So I would highly recommend checking out my toxin free shopping guide, which, as of the day that this episode is airing, has been fully updated to separate out the safe synthetic options as well as the companies that are making just the essential oil based, natural plant based perfumes and colognes. They are now separated into two separate categories so you can shop whichever one you decide is best for you. Thank you so much for listening. Happy shopping and I'll see you back next week. You, my friend, have officially finished another episode of the detox dilemma podcast and if you want more, head over to wendycathroncom to get all the show notes and links to discount codes from our amazing partners. If you're looking for something specific to help you detox your home, make sure you check out my toxin free shopping guide at toxinfreeshoppingguidecom. It's organized by category and makes detoxing your home simple. I'll see you next week and until then, I hope your life is getting just a little less toxic.