Imagine loving the world of fragrance so much, landing your dream job in the industry, only to find it was keeping you sick. For Sada and Amanda, that's exactly what happened.
Luckily, they didn't have to leave their passions in the dust. The fragrance industry has often been shrouded in mystery. But today, we have a unique opportunity to take a peak behind the curtain. We're dissecting the ambiguous claims of "safe synthetics," and questioning the effectiveness of self-regulatory bodies like IFRA.
ESAS Beauty's products don't just smell divine, they also last. And in the world of fragrance, where we're always told synthetics are absolutely necessary for long lasting scents, that is huge. I'm so excited to take you behind the scenes so chat with Seda and Amanda about the revolutionary changes they're bringing to the business of fragrance!
Shop ESAS Beauty (use code WENDY20 to save 20% off)
Research on the health impacts of phthalates
head on over to www.detoxyourpits.com and use discount code WENDYKATHRYN at checkout for 10% off!
If you enjoyed this weeks' episode, please:
Imagine loving the world of fragrance so much, landing your dream job in the industry, only to find it was keeping you sick. For Sada and Amanda, that's exactly what happened.
Luckily, they didn't have to leave their passions in the dust. The fragrance industry has often been shrouded in mystery. But today, we have a unique opportunity to take a peak behind the curtain. We're dissecting the ambiguous claims of "safe synthetics," and questioning the effectiveness of self-regulatory bodies like IFRA.
ESAS Beauty's products don't just smell divine, they also last. And in the world of fragrance, where we're always told synthetics are absolutely necessary for long lasting scents, that is huge. I'm so excited to take you behind the scenes so chat with Seda and Amanda about the revolutionary changes they're bringing to the business of fragrance!
Shop ESAS Beauty (use code WENDY20 to save 20% off)
Research on the health impacts of phthalates
head on over to www.detoxyourpits.com and use discount code WENDYKATHRYN at checkout for 10% off!
If you enjoyed this weeks' episode, please:
Hello friend, welcome back to another episode of the Detox Dilemma podcast. As always, I'm your host, wendy, an environmental toxins lawyer turned clean living coach. On today's episode, I'm sitting down with Sada and Amanda, the amazing women and founders of SS Beauty. Sada and Amanda spent 15 years working for what I call big fragrance. After realizing that the industry no longer aligned with their values, they left the fragrance industry behind and founded SS Beauty, which just so happens to be my personal favorite 100% botanical, synthetic free fragrance company. We left no stone unturned and I asked all the hard questions about their time at big fragrance, like why is there so much secrecy surrounding fragrance formulas? And how the fragrance industry really feels about the clean beauty and clean living movement. We dove into why words like natural fragrance doesn't necessarily mean natural at all and how brands don't even know what's in their fragrance products most of the time, and you know that. I asked why big fragrance continues to use endocrine disruptors like phthalates and reproductive toxins like lilyl, and the answer might surprise you. They also share their difficulties in creating beautiful smelling perfumes and candles that last without using any synthetics or toxins, and how their passion for clean fragrance keeps them going.
Speaker 1:I hope you loved this episode as much as I love talking with them. I learned a ton, and I hope you do too. As always, if you are loving the show, please take a moment to leave a review or rating. I personally read every single one of them and it means so much to me when I see them pop up. All right on to the show. I have been waiting a really long time to have you ladies on the podcast, so thank you for being on the show. Sada, amanda, let's just dive straight in and get to it, because I have so many questions and there's so many topics I want to cover. Sada, let's start with you. Tell me and tell my audience, what did you do in the fragrance industry? You were there for a long time, what was your role and what was that like?
Speaker 2:So I studied chemistry and so straight out of college I actually worked as a skincare cosmetic chemist for a few years prior to going into corporate fragrance, and so I was always on the product development manufacturing side. I left that after a couple of years because I wasn't comfortable with the ingredients that I was exposed to every day and I always had a true passion for fragrance. I grew up with my mom having a refrigerator just for her fragrance bottles, and so it was something, and they used to call me a bloodhounds growing up because I just smelled everything. I was obsessed with things that smell. I had a friend who was like hey, I know somebody that works in the fragrance industry. Are you interested? I'm like that's an industry and it's kept so secret that even when I was in college nobody spoke about it, so it's not like I had any access to it.
Speaker 2:Long story short, I started in the lab in fragrance and I loved it. I think after a year I was just kind of like I'm sick and tired of being around these materials 24, seven, get me out of here and I wanted to, I think, explore more in terms of account management and things like that. So I ended up staying in big fragrance, if you will, for nearly 14, 15 years. So I've had experience in the beauty industry for over 15 years.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's a really long time. You have so much experience. I'm so excited to dig in Amanda.
Speaker 3:I was born with eczema and severe allergies, ranging from food and from seasonal allergies. So from a young age I always grew up reading ingredient lists and trying to find products that worked well for my skin. When I entered college, I really loved organic chemistry and learned that that's actually the science behind. Product development is really the ingredients in chemistry. So at college the company that we worked for they were actually at our career fair and I was like I never knew this much about the world behind the fragrance and I was excited to get my first internship there. Then I ended up working there for 10 years, strictly in the labs, strictly starting with like learning about the ingredients, how products are made, and then into managing a small team that did help with manufacturing.
Speaker 1:There's so much experience between the two of you and I can't wait to dig into what happened. What was the tipping point where you both were in this industry for 10, 15 years, doing really well? You had wonderful careers. What was it that made you leave?
Speaker 2:We did so for me. I got Lyme and I got very sick and to the point where it was hard to wake up, it was hard to focus, I didn't know what was happening with me and it took years to essentially overcome the bout of Lyme and also overcome the insane amount of antibiotics I had to take to overcome the Lyme. And I was on vacation and there was a book called the Bulletproof Diet and it talked all about the anti-inflammatory lifestyle. And so my now husband was like, okay, I was sick at the time, I was on antibiotics while we were on vacation and I had a bunch of other infections going on. So he's like, all right, this is you every other week, we need to figure this out.
Speaker 2:And basically I changed my lifestyle just to go fully organic, anti-inflammatory, and it changed my life. Like I said, what's the big deal? I'm just going to eat a few organic ingredients that you know like. How much of an impact can this have? I was really, really cynical let's just put it that way. I think that's just me, you know, naturally and I think within a few weeks I saw a change. Within a few months I saw nearly a 180.
Speaker 2:And that's just for me personally, I could not believe the impact that changing the ingredients that I put in my body had. Like I really I was buzzing around work, I was just annoying to be around, and so I became evangelical about this lifestyle. And it wasn't like any crazy lifestyle, it's just organic food, focusing on anti-inflammatory, removing you know all the, I think, known offenders, nothing crazy. And I just really delved deep into that world, right, especially when it comes to health and wellness.
Speaker 2:The first entree point is food, and I started to look around and I was like, hmm, I'm eating organic, I'm doing all these things, I'm removing all these now other toxins in my life. Why am I here and what am I doing? How am I a part of something I no longer believe in? And I started to become really uncomfortable yet again with, now, the fragrance ingredients that I was, you know, working with every day, and so I started to really question how I wanted to spend the next phase of my life and whether or not that's where I wanted to be, honestly. And so I started to put things on paper and have conversations, and I went to Amanda and I was like you know, have you ever thought about this or have you ever thought about that, and so this now essay started with just a really small conversation many years ago.
Speaker 3:I remember, the same time that I was talking about bulletproof at the office, my eczema was getting a little bit worse. I was getting encouraged and started making decisions about trying to take depixit, which is like this injection that you would take every two weeks to keep your eczema down, and I was like I'm too young for this. I think there's different ways for me to take care of my health outside of having to take an injection every two weeks, and I was talking to say it about it and she was talking to me about bulletproof and I'm like you know what, maybe let's give it a shot. What's the worst that's going to happen with me buying organic ingredients and eating healthier food than eating just like the cart food that was outside of our office in New York.
Speaker 3:It changed my life in three days. I saw just the media, just like you're more awake in the morning, you have more energy, you feel like, okay, I was actually eating things that weren't good for me and I was looking around at the ingredients that we were working with and my office was covered with ingredients. I was just in the lab every single day. I didn't see that the ingredients that I was helping create products with weren't really aligning with also the lifestyle that I was having. And one thing after another, another conversation after another, it's like we can make products that align with the values that we have at home.
Speaker 1:I love that, so let's talk about that. I think that most people who are listening to this and I mean this show they've heard me preach all the time about what could possibly be in fragrance, and I think the last time I checked the IFRA list it was like 3,800 and some change. That's the list of chemicals, molecules, ingredients that are allowed in fragrance, that could possibly be found in fragrance. But I think there's this misunderstanding and people think that there's plant extracts and chamomile and lavender and citrus and these really natural, beautiful, safe things in their products. So let's talk about what is actually in fragrance. Can you guys walk us through the process and tell us what kinds of ingredients are actually in products that make the scent Sure?
Speaker 2:So we always like to say there are around 4,000 ingredients that the fragrance industry uses to formulate their fragrance oils. Then those fragrance oils is a blend of synthetic molecules and naturals. They do use some naturals, but when they tell their fragrance stories I think this is where consumers are so confused they reference all these beautiful naturals so they'll say this beautiful gardenia or this beautiful lily of the valley, when there is really no gardenia in there. They may or may not be, but more often than not there isn't. And so they're telling these ingredient stories as if the whole thing is natural, or as if they're using whole naturals and they're not, and so it's really a blend. But I would like to say, based on my personal experience, especially the accounts that I worked on, it's probably 99% synthetic and some naturals, so that they can tell those stories, so that they can claim that there are some naturals in there.
Speaker 2:And not all synthetics are created equally. Either you have some fully man like, lab made synthetic molecules and then you have something called naturally derived, and this is where things get really murky, because what started out as maybe they extracted some small smidgen of something like a small molecule from a natural ingredient, but they've completely adulterated it, and so the final product it's really, in our book, still synthetic, still synthetic. But that also it's a very nuanced thing. I think it's not black and white. Nothing is. There is no good versus evil in the fragrance world. There is no black and white for the most part, and everything needs to be looked at in a nuanced way, including naturals, right, we don't use every natural just because it's natural, and even the ones that we do use, we source carefully, we make sure that we use at safe dosages and everything has to have a scientific lens on it.
Speaker 2:But a big part of the industry does use synthetic molecules, mostly because they make those synthetic molecules. And so I think what a lot of people don't realize and Amanda has said this before is that industry is considered a chemical industry in that, yes, we all know everything's a chemical. We get those comments often water is a chemical. Yes, congratulations, you graduated your chemistry degree. But we're talking about industrial chemicals, right? Like these companies, a big part of their revenue stream are the synthetic molecules that they make that. They like Lilliel, for instance. Lilliel is made by a fragrance house and that fragrance house uses it in their fragrances and they also sell it to the handful of other fragrance houses so that they can use it in their fragrances, and so everything starts to become really muddled, and it's a very insular industry. That's one of the reasons why they tend to use more synthetic molecules than not, because it's in their best interest, if you all.
Speaker 1:Well, they can resell them, right? It's just another way to make money.
Speaker 2:A whole other revenue stream for them, and that, I think, was the biggest surprise to me. You don't make money on naturals. You don't make money on using naturals, right? You're not. You can't have a high margin on naturals with synthetic molecules. It's your proprietary ingredient. You can charge it whatever you want. Nobody really knows what it's made of, how it was synthesized. It's all under lock and key. When it comes to naturals, it's just kind of like okay, I bought it from this farmer in Australia, or I bought it from here, and so you really can't charge the way you can for synthetic molecules and it just doesn't give you the margins that synthetic molecules does. You can't charge the way you charge, sorry for naturals, and so it's in their best interest to really use the synthetics.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So let's talk about the secrecy behind fragrance, because you know, fragrance is sold as one word. People go and buy a product, they turn it over and it says fragrance on the label and, to your point, sometimes it'll say natural fragrance oil or derived from natural, or phthalate-free. I see that a lot, especially lately, and we'll talk about that in a second, and I'm also going to ask you about leel-il-il. But first the secrecy behind it. You literally have no idea, unless you're working with a company that chooses to tell you every single one of their ingredients. But when a company is creating a product, let's say you have a celebrity, you know, pick someone who says I want to run my own skincare company or I want my own fragrance company or my own haircare company, and they need to put a fragrance in it. Who do they go to and what does that look like, like? What are the options out there?
Speaker 2:They. So when a celebrity wants to make a fragrance-assented product, they have to go to a few places. They don't go to just one place usually, and so they will go to a company that will buy the license for their, let's say, fragrance name or their product, kind of like a Kodi. And so they'll go to them and these people are experts in developing these products and those companies will come to a company like the one that we worked for just to develop the fragrance oil. There are so many moving pieces and so many moving parts into what goes into a final product. For the base, whether it's a lotion, whether it's a candle, they'll have to go somewhere else.
Speaker 2:Basically, if somebody wants to make a fragrance, they go to a middleman. That middleman comes to us, so they tend to be like two to three degrees removed from the fragrance process and knowing exactly what's going into those, to those formulas, the middlemen don't even know. There is something called trade secrets and the fragrance formulas are under lock and key in the industry, just like they are with flavors, because the fragrance industry is also responsible for making flavors, but we won't go into that because that can get a little confusing. But yeah, so everything is under lock and key and there's really no formula disclosure between the companies that we worked for the fragrance manufacturing industry and the distributors and the celebrities and the brands and the marketers. And, frankly, there's also very little formula disclosure within the company that we worked in, so you had to have access to that. It's not like the formulas were on blast and everybody knew exactly what was in it.
Speaker 1:So Amanda, you worked in the labs. Did you know the ingredients that went into these fragrances? It?
Speaker 3:took a few years for me to get access, but it wasn't until much later on in my career Because I had to help. One of my main roles was helping in between the actual formula development process and helping manufacturing. So if there are things that need to make manufacturing move faster, things that needed to get switched out, I was one of the main point people for that.
Speaker 1:Okay, so I actually just finished a podcast and published it a few weeks ago, where I talked about the pros and cons of quote unquote safe synthetics, and I think the words safe synthetics are that's this buzzword that's out there right now. Companies are seeking EWG verification and through that process they're saying we use these synthetically made molecules but we think they're totally safe, and I think there's a lot of questions out there about that. Have they been studied? Are they cancer causing? Because they're made from petroleum, right? And so one of the conversations in rumors is that this idea of safe synthetics is just a marketing term that came from the fragrance industry, because how many of these chemicals have actually been tested for safety?
Speaker 2:This is actually a funny conversation and this is where you might say a little too much. That's okay, that's okay. But when the whole safe synthetic idea came around and a certain celebrity was one of the first to really start that conversation I'll Queneth Paltrow, actually, I'll say her name People were laughing. I remember being in a meeting and people were laughing like what the hell is that? Like how silly, how silly is it to think that there is not? Because they think everything is toxic. By the way, right, it's just kind of like, all of a sudden, now there's only a few ingredients that are safe to use. Like how about the 3,500 other ingredients that we've been using? And so it was kind of something really silly that people were laughing about in the industry, because it came from kind of outside the industry. It didn't come from within the industry, it came from a celebrity or a brand wanting to market their product as safe. And was it any safer than the rest of the synthetics? How do we know?
Speaker 2:I don't recall a button that said safe synthetic in our system, so I don't really know what that meant. And by virtue of saying safe synthetic, are you saying everything else that we work with is unsafe, and so you know, words like that, for me, are just toxic in and of themselves, because I think it's just so misleading and I think, like we said, it requires a more nuanced conversation. Who's to say what is safe and what is not safe? The fragrance industry does not do testing, but a regulatory body called RIFM does, and they focus on raw material safety assessments and evaluations, and they come to these determinations through a bevy of different tests, right? So whether it's actual raw material testing or whether they're bridging testing due to molecular similarity with something else that's on the market, so, however they derive or come to the conclusion that something is safe is how they come to that conclusion, but it doesn't necessarily come from within the company that we worked in. It's not like we were doing any testing. We are relying on these other regulatory bodies in the industry.
Speaker 3:Yeah and those regulatory bodies. It was really also dependent where the brand is selling their product. So if the brand is being sold in Europe or if the brand is sold in Canada versus the US, like there's different regulations, so a product that you have in France might be completely different, even though it should be the same product here in the US.
Speaker 1:So let's talk about regulation.
Speaker 1:When I was researching the use of safe synthetics and I started trying to dig into the research and I went to all the places where I would typically research something.
Speaker 1:So I was going to the EU, which has a lot of consumer safety reports, their reach regulations, which is their regulatory scheme for ingredients and consumer products that are being sold, and they're much more protective when it comes to testing products for things that have possible health issues or health concerns. They're also, in Europe, much more proactive about banning things that are concerning and I'm actually going to ask you about a couple of them in a second. But what I found is that what I could actually find whether it was medical research published, whether it was medical research published information, whether it was published from the cosmetics industry, the fragrance industry or medical journals I could find about 20% of the total of the like 3,800 and change ingredients that are used. I found actual safety data on about 20%. So you know there's about 3,000 ingredients out there being used in fragrances that nobody really knows if they're safe at all. Is that an accurate statement?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think so. I think for me, a big defining moment was, you know it, there were, as Amanda said, she used to work on a lot of raw material replacements. So there would be a formula that has been selling, let's say, for 10 years and all of a sudden one of the regulating bodies flags an ingredient and so, behind the scenes, the team would have to essentially replace that ingredient with something more up to date. And I remember thinking, you know, once we were on like our 100th replacement. Well, who passed us to begin with, Like, if this is not safe now, why was it safe 10 years ago? So how do we really know if the things are simply safe? And do we really know Not really right, if the industry has been under such locking key for now hundreds of years, there was never really an opportunity for true third party testing to happen, if you will, and so the testing is kind of a great area.
Speaker 2:When it comes to fragrance molecules, they may do individual testing. I have never really seen a testing done on accumulation in the body or anything like that. What does this look like? If I'm being exposed to polycyclic musks over 10, 30 years? What does that look like? And we have some sort of testing happening there now, because obviously they're finding these molecules and breast milk and breast tissue and our water supply. So I think it's. Do we really know if these things are safe? I'm not so sure. I don't think so.
Speaker 3:And you bring up a good point too, because when you create a fragrance formula you follow the regulations based on the dosage level. So let's say you can have 2% of this like bad ingredient in your body care products, but in your candles you can have 10 times the amount of that ingredient because they consider that safe. So imagine you have this body lotion, this shampoo, this candle, this air freshener, all these products having that same ingredient. The dosage level that you're inhaling is so much more than what was initially regulated.
Speaker 1:Yeah, this is rampant in the regulation of the personal care industry. I talk a lot about phenoxylethanol and in Europe they're like hey, 1% phenoxylethanol in this product. We think that's safe, we did the testing, that's good. Well, if you have 25 products in your home and they all have 1% phenoxylethanol, now all of a sudden it's like a 25 times the initial exposure. Then what was supposed to be regulated to begin with?
Speaker 2:I think that's a really good point. It's like who's doing that math and it's easy to say for the consumer but nobody really thinks about the people making these products. And because we worked in manufacturing, we were so close to these ingredients and I worked in cosmetic manufacturing prior to fragrance and I remember seeing people getting respiratory issues and production and it's like these people are being exposed to these ingredients at 100%, like 10 hours a day. It's just wild. And if you really want to know what the ingredient toxicity is on a person, go to the manufacturing facility, go to the plant, right, because you kind of have this accelerated study, unfortunately, of what these ingredients can do to people over time.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's very sad Actually. You make a really good point. The industrial use of these products, I think, is something people don't think about, and I think it's really important to know that we have all of these people working in, manufacturing and producing these chemicals at much higher levels than what we're being exposed to. So let's pivot really quick and touch on the International Fragrance Association. I will often find brands that are completely clean. However, they're using undisclosed fragrance. That's the one ingredient that's not clean.
Speaker 1:So I will email them and ask them what's in their fragrance, and 99% of the time, what I get back from these companies if they respond to me at all is that it's phthalate free, but that it's a special proprietary blend, that they're not going to tell me what's in it, and I get the impression they don't actually know anyway. Right, based off of what you're telling me, they got it from somebody, who got it from somebody, and it's proprietary anyway. So they likely don't even know themselves and couldn't answer the question even if they wanted to. But on top of that, there's always a note at the end of the email that says that they are in compliant with the very strict safety standards of the International Fragrance Association. So let's talk about that for a second. What is this global regulatory body that these brands are pointing to, and what do they do?
Speaker 2:This is self-regulating body number one, so it's kind of like this voluntary regulating body that's within the industry, and so a lot of people that sit on the board of IFRA come from the industry. So the president of this fragrance corporation and the president of that fragrance corporation so the very people who are making these synthetic molecules that are being regulated are sitting on the board regulating the molecules, and so it's like very topsy-turvy and very confusing.
Speaker 1:And they're making money from the sale of those molecules, right? So that is a financial conflict.
Speaker 2:It's a conflict, is it really in their best interest? And so there's a sort of industry capture that happens when it comes to IFRA and why looks good that they're there and at least there is IFRA, right, and it's kind of like, at this point we're talking about thankfully there's at least IFRA, but are they? How strict are they If every two years they're deregulating something they approved five to 10 years ago? And that's kind of where, for me personally, I became uncomfortable working with certain ingredients.
Speaker 1:So let's talk about those ingredients, because this is a world that I am very comfortable speaking in, and I'd really love to hear your take on why this still happens, frankly and to your point about you know, one minute, you know the ingredients in these fragrances are fine, and then the next minute IFRA comes out and says, oh actually, no, we can't use it anymore Because now it's a hormone disruptor where it's carcinogenic or it leads to birth defects. So let's just go through two well-known examples. The first one is diethyl phthalate. This is a well-known endocrine disruptor and I'm just going to read really quickly and I'll link all of these medical research citations in the show notes. But exposure to diethyl phthalates is linked to negative birth outcomes, lower probability of pregnancy and birth from IVF, higher risk of preterm birth, endometriosis, thyroid disorders and an increased risk of breast cancer, among other things. There's a lot more.
Speaker 1:That was the short list, so this is not theoretical, this is not, oh, we think maybe kind of sorta. This is no shit. Nobody should put this on their body. And so in California a couple of years ago, there was a transparency law that was passed and anybody using this ingredient or a whole host of other ingredients had to actually post it on a public facing website and I got to tell you before this interview. I looked up fine fragrance and diethyl phthalate and I found Jimmy Chu, coach, mom Blanc, paris, monte Carlo, kate Spade Labne in Paris. These fine fragrance companies are still using diethyl phthalates in their fragrance. I don't understand why. Can you help me understand this? So?
Speaker 3:first thing with diethyl phthalate and why it's used is a lot of. When you create fragrances, you want the fragrance to smell good, you want the fragrance to last long and you want it to be strong, like when you walk next to somebody. You're going to smell the fragrance. So diethyl phthalate is a fend like as a chemical ingredient. It's a solvent that can basically make your product stable, and then it's also used to denature alcohol so that you don't have to pay these hefty taxes when you use alcohol for perfume. So if you ever see this thing called 39C alcohol, diethyl phthalate is in there. A lot more companies are using 40B, so it has these other denaturants, but 39C was widely used for a very long time and so diethyl phthalate was in there. Why did companies continue to still use it Is because it's still allowed. It's still allowed. There are companies that have switched out of it, but I'm sure there are still many companies that haven't been able to make the transition yet.
Speaker 2:Yeah, like we had a big DEP removal initiative at our company and I remember that when a fragrance has been selling on the market for X amount of time, there was something called grandfathering in, meaning it was allowed to sort of pass through because it's been selling for 10 plus years, something like that, and so it could very well be because of that that it somehow slipped through the cracks. When these new regulations come through, it's often meant for new product formulation, and so things can always slip through the cracks. They can always manage the message internally as well oh, it's no longer selling, it's an inactive item. And maybe in an active item all of a sudden was activated five years later and they didn't do the due diligence. And I'm surprised actually that products are still being sold with DEP, because it's just like why? Why?
Speaker 3:There's so many other alternatives already for it. There's so many, and it's wild.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, I found hundreds. There's hundreds of products on the list in California being sold and that's only the companies that have already reported and that's only cosmetics. That doesn't include candles and plug-ins and other kind of fragrances. The list is only for actual like cosmetics and personal care products.
Speaker 2:And I think there's this internal thing in the fragrance industry that happens. Where it's like these are not really toxic, people are blowing it out of proportion. At this level, at this dosage, how big of a deal could it be? We've been using it for years, or always. These conversations that boil to the top of like okay, now we have to take it out because someone somewhere did something or said something. So I think there's also this overall consensus that it's not that bad. And so when you say why are these things still being used, it's because I think for the most part they would not. These things would not have been created if people felt they were that bad to begin with. I'm not saying that's true, but I don't think anyone's out there trying to create extremely toxic ingredients, right, you just don't really know the toxicity of them until it's too late.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know I always pointed to this really good study that was published last year I think it was April in 2023. And I'll go ahead and link this in the show notes, but it was actually really incredible. They took a bunch of women and they tested their blood levels, their serum levels, their urine levels, and they also took breast tissue analysis and they took a look at their gene expression and whether or not they had some of the gene expressions that were related to elevated risk of breast cancer. And they took the personal care products away from the women for 28 days anything that had phthalates or parabens in it and both phthalates and parabens are known under congestrupters, so they removed them from their products and gave them products that were phthalate free and paraben free. 28 days later, they ran all the same tests and what they found is that after only 28 days, it significantly reduced the breast cancer risk markers present in their breast tissue. It was actually decreased by 73%. And phthalates and parabens don't have a long half-life right. They don't just stick around in your body for a long time.
Speaker 1:The problem is we're slathering ourselves in it every single day, especially women. Women have like 20 products. We had dinner, skincare or lotion or shampoo or conditioner or makeup or perfume Candles it's everywhere and it's all fragranced. So it's hard. When you say people in the industry, they don't believe it's a problem. I mean, how much proof do you need? But I'm sure it's like living in an echo chamber. Everyone in the fragrance industry is like behind closed doors all telling each other this whole toxin-free living thing is just way overblown. Oh yeah.
Speaker 2:Even I used to work with parabens a lot prior to going into fragrance, I mean, I used to use the ingredient called phenonib and it's basically like methylethylbutyl. You know all these parabens, yeah, all the good stuff. And I mean it was dripping down like my arms and my elbows and I just remember and then doing my own research, and being like guys, I think this is bad for you, like, oh, it's fine. I've been working here for 20, 30 years, no big deal and I'm like, oh my gosh, like it's wild and it's almost, I think, out of people's comfort zone too. Do they really want to be like, wow, all of a sudden, for 30 years or 20 years I've been working with this ingredient. Now, all of a sudden, we're seeing how toxic it is. I mean, that's kind of scary.
Speaker 2:Nobody wants to believe that they've exposed themselves to something that is going to have a negative impact. So I think it's like a safe space a little bit.
Speaker 1:Yeah, totally. So. Let's talk about one more ingredient, and that is Lillial, which you brought up earlier. This is an ingredient that, back in 2017, the European Union said hey, we have some good animal studies that show that this ingredient causes birth defects, and so we encourage all companies to start phasing out and removing Lillial from all their fragrances. Fast forward five years, march 2022, they said OK, it's banned, it's illegal, you better have taken them out. It took five years for the official regulatory process to actually ban them. But here in the United States, we're watching Europe ban this ingredient. We're like that's cute, we're not doing that here.
Speaker 1:So I'm totally going to pick on Bath Body Works, because it was just Christmas. Lions, teenagers, teenagers I have a 12-year-old daughter who knows better, but all these girls want this stuff. They want it because all their friends have it. The way they're marketed, they're marketed to young girls, and Bath Body Works sells over 1,500 products in their store that contains Lillial. And listen, I didn't know any better. When I was the teenager, I was spending all of my money that I was making working at Victoria's Secret, buying body sprays and lotions and all those things. I get it. This isn't a judgment on the people that are buying these products because they don't know, and that's one of the reasons this podcast exists so people can know better.
Speaker 1:But I have to ask about places like Bath Body Works. They know this ingredient in there, because if you go to their website, it's in their ingredient disclosure, because laws are changing in the US to require more transparency, so I can go up on their website and it's actually written right there that you look it up. They know, and yet they're marketing it to female teenage girls. And if it causes reproductive issues, what else is it doing to your hormones? My question is this what is the moral responsibility of a company when it comes to this? And Sada you worked with around for are you familiar with Bath Body Works? I'm going to redo that. My question is this what is the moral responsibility of a company when they're selling ingredients like this to young girls? And Sada, I'm going to ask you so are you familiar with Bath Body Works?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm a little familiar, let's just put it that way. What is the moral responsibility? I'll tell you this I think everyone goes into the industry so excited to be a part of this wonderful, fascinating world where you're going to make everybody smell amazing and make everybody happy, but there is no conversation around morality, there is no conversation around health, right? That's not why you're in that industry. You're in the industry to win. It is competitive and you will do everything to win. And what does that look like?
Speaker 2:When it comes to fragrance, it's basically having as many tools in your toolkit as possible, and those tools for the fragrance industry are ingredients, and so the more nuanced your fragrances can be, the better they are. Right, I'm going to win over my competitor. And so basically, the way it works in the industry is that everybody kind of has the same accounts, especially when it comes to a big account like Bath Body Works, and you compete with all your competitive fragrance houses for each and every fragrance. And I say this just to kind of accentuate how competitive that industry is. I mean, we were out there to win and you will do everything, and we would always test new ingredients from ingredient vendors to say I don't think anybody is using this. Let's use this pirazine to see what kind of note or nuance it can give our new fragrance or a new candle. And so it is in everybody's best interests in that industry to use as many ingredients as possible to win that fragrance, because they don't really believe, or they don't want to believe, that any of these ingredients have any toxic side effects.
Speaker 2:And so it's never going to be a conversation around health. That I don't remember. I don't know, amanda, do you ever remember saying this is not healthier, that's unhealthy? That wasn't really a topic of conversation until I remember picking up probably the aluminum cans that I'd have to send out as a sales assistant many years ago, being like why is there a skull and bones on here? Why does it say reproductive issues or can cause? And it says it on everything. If you pick up a can of water, it says it on that too, and I'm like, okay, and so what's the moral responsibility? I think they feel there's more of a moral responsibility when it comes to sustainability than it comes to health. The moral responsibility is making beautiful fragrances. That's their responsibility.
Speaker 3:And when they talk about sustainability, it's more so in benefit for the synthetic ingredients. Right, don't use the natural. You're in the clean environment. Be sustainable, use synthetics.
Speaker 1:Yep, we're gonna talk about that in a second, but I just wanna hit one more question at home and then we'll pivot and talk about SS Beauty, which I'm really excited to talk about. So the modernization of Cosmetics Regulation Act was actually passed last year and it was the very first overhaul of the way personal care products are regulated in America and in my opinion it didn't go far enough. It's kind of a joke where it ended up versus where it started. But hey, progress is progress.
Speaker 1:But I will tell you from a legal perspective, the piece of that law that interests me the most is the part that says that these companies have to tell the FDA what is in their fragrance. They have to disclose their fragrance ingredients to the FDA. So in the small legal lobbying circles that I run in in my free time, we're wondering well, once these companies turn over that information I think it's the end of 2024, they have to do that Can we just file Freedom of Information Act requests, a FOIA request to the government, where they have to divulge information that they have, and will they turn it over? And what do you think? Do you think we're actually gonna find out what's in these fragrances?
Speaker 2:I'd be surprised. I would be. I think it'll be low hanging fruit, just kind of like how they have to list their allergens. I think it'll be something of that. I think they can also be strategic. I mean, I hope so, but I can see them using something called bases to hide ingredients, right, so this citrus base, which probably has a plethora of ingredients, the trade secret piece, is something they've held on to historically so successfully that I think there will be a lot of pushback and I'm really interested to see where it'll net out, because I can only imagine the conversations they're having internally.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm sure.
Speaker 2:I'm not happy. I'll tell you that they're not happy.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm sure I can imagine they're not. Okay, let's move on to talking about SS Beauty. Let's fast forward to the two of you deciding it's time to leave your big fragrance careers and start a company. What was that like? And I have to say, before you answer that question, I love your products. I can't wait to dive in and talk more about the actual products. But what was the beginning of SS Beauty and what was that like for the two of you?
Speaker 2:Well, we left in 2019, yeah, and we probably entered a really nice honeymoon phase. Okay, we left, let's start this company. And for a very long time, we didn't really know what we wanted to focus on. To be honest with you, we wanted to focus on ingredients, like our love and our passion at the root of SS are ingredients. We love ingredients, we love what comes with sourcing those ingredients, growing those ingredients, and so we wanted to really focus on growing and sustainability and growing them sustainably, because we know that there are issues with naturals and sustainability. So we wanted to essentially help solve that problem through indoor farming, vertical farming, and so we talked a lot about ingredients and so, with that, we started to develop all sorts of products. We have lipsticks, we have skincare, we have so many things.
Speaker 2:But when we ended up, launching first happened to be fragrance, because that's really what we found people wanted. Like, loudly, people said give us fragrance that is natural, that is transparent, and we're like, oh, wow, okay, like that's what people want, that's what we're gonna do. And so we pivoted in 2020, as every other human being pivoted in 2020 to really focus on what is relevant for now, what do people need now? And so we started with one product and that was a scented hand cleanser and that essentially evolved into now we have five categories, like 12 different scents across each category nearly and we have way too many products, if you ask Amanda, I think they're nodding like yes.
Speaker 3:Hey, it's really exciting, I think. At the end of the day, I also just love the ingredients and we love the products and the creation of those products and the creation of the ideas, because we still love scent and we know that there's definitely a way to use natural ingredients and still evoke those beautiful experiences. So, like recently, just this past year, we launched our room sprays, which actually was just really exciting for us to come out with a gardenia spray and a vanilla spray that we've been waiting to do for so long Because you'll be pressed hard to find these products.
Speaker 2:They don't exist. Because when we would have small potential customers come to us previously when we worked in the fragrance industry, and they'd say, I want an all-natural fragrance or I want an all-natural scented product, we'd be like, oh all-natural, that's not. You don't know, you don't know. And so these people, they had nowhere else to go. Right, they can't. Not everybody can just make a fragrance. It's a difficult thing to do. Take it from us. It's a very difficult thing to do, and so that's why you don't see so many brands out there that are doing what we're doing. So we're so happy to be able to fill that void, and so it brings us a lot of joy when people feel joy using our products.
Speaker 1:I love that. Let me tell you what else I love about your product line. So, first of all, sustainability. A lot of people, a lot of companies, come to me and they say well, we use safe synthetics because it's natural. It's not good for the environment. Essential oils are bad for the environment and takes a lot of plans to make a little bit of essential oil. But I'm an essential oil lover, but I also understand the environmental cost of it. So when you find companies, when I find companies that are doing it responsibly, sustainably, regeneratively, that's the sweet spot and those are the companies we need to support. It's important because they're the ones that are doing it right.
Speaker 1:And so one of the things I love about you guys is that you're so conscientious about your sourcing and people can be confident in the ethics and the way you're producing your natural products. But I have to say, the one thing that makes you really stand out is your sense. Last Like, I've purchased pretty much every botanical only perfume out there from every natural perfumery, and on my Toxin Free Shopping Guide, I have a lot of amazing perfume options. You guys are at the top of the list, though, for perfumes, because you're the only company that I know that's figured out how to make a 100% botanical perfume that doesn't fade after a couple hours. And that's honestly the number one complaint I get from people who the reason why they don't want to switch to natural perfumes or natural fragrances is because it doesn't last. You know plant extracts, essential oils they're volatile, they dissipate pretty quickly. So my question is how do you do that?
Speaker 3:Thank you. That's something that we worked very hard on because you have the right understanding. Yeah, natural ingredients. It's very tricky. It's a very tricky science. So it's a blend of knowing which ingredients to use, which type of extracts to use, and then knowing how they all work together. How do we use the bergamot? How do we make that last longer? Maybe it's pairing that with coconut and like we got this coconut. That's like extracted in a very particular way, using cold pressed, like CO2. So it's a mixture of knowing the extraction method, knowing which ingredients and then how to blend them together to make something that lasts longer. Like you can't just put lemon oil on your skin or eucalyptus oil or all these things. They're just going to dissipate really quickly. So it's creating this formula to make them last longer.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I've actually talked to other perfume companies who have told me yeah, you know, these are made from natural ingredients. They're just not going to last a long time. It doesn't work that way and I want to be like. You should call us this because they figured it out.
Speaker 2:We're trying. We're trying. It's like the musks. I think musk isn't everything. Musk is in all the fragrances because everyone wants, as Amanda said previously, bigger, last longer. Careful what you wish for those musks last forever. But for us, I mean, nature has nuances of musk in it and so it's like looking at those plants like gardenia. We never realized like true gardenia has like a slight muskiness to it. So how can we use the muskiness found in gardenia to add that to our other? You know fragrance formulations, but while hiding it because we don't want everything to smell like pure gardenia. So it's really having an understanding of the chemistry behind the naturals and formulating based on that. But it's definitely a challenge making naturals long-lasting for sure.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I can see the challenge that clean companies have when they come into the market. And I've actually thought a lot about this as I review products and people complain about the scents don't last long enough or the laundry doesn't come out of my laundry and smell like that, like really scented product, and I can imagine the hurdles that a new company you know has when they're trying to create these products. And where do they go for fragrance? They want clean, they want natural, they want essential oils. Only they want raw materials, botanicals, extracts, Like. Where do they go? Is there like a fragrance company or fragrance house that specializes in 100% all natural fragrance companies? Does that even exist?
Speaker 2:No, the bigger fragrance houses, I'm sure there are some small fragrance houses that will do it. We see a trend moving that way. Like I said, brands have come to us before and said I want a 100% natural, not the BS. Natural, naturally derived nature, identical, which is probably the funniest word ever, because it just needs 100% synthetic, right, which is fine. But, like, let's just call it spade-a-spade. And we've said no, we said you are going to essentially erode the earth of its natural resources if you use 100% natural and sometimes that may make sense, right, there are certain naturals that we should not use due to environmental issues. But then just don't use that, just don't make that scent. Make another fragrance is our answer, right? So, yeah, there are probably a few out there. I don't really know of any that specialize in it.
Speaker 1:You guys can add that to your repertoire and I'll send all of them your way. So another one of my favorite things about you guys you don't just do fragrance and I love your cleansers, by the way. They're so good but you make candles out of olive and coconut wax. Can we talk about that for a second? Because I'm kind of obsessed and I looked around and did some market research and there are people making coconut wax candles. I've got some of them on my Toxin Free Shopping Guide, but I've never seen anybody using olive like at all. Where did that idea even come from?
Speaker 3:Yeah, that was really exciting. We worked on candles Like that was a huge part of our roles when we worked at our old company and we understand why people use petroleum-based paraffin. It's just because it just works and it just burns very consistently. And when you look at just the basic chemistry of making a candle, you want to make sure that it burns well, that you're not trying to burn a wax that's just never going to burn, but you also want to make sure that it's hard enough. So when you ship you're not just sending a pool of liquid to California. So there's a nice balance that needs to be done.
Speaker 3:And when we were looking at different waxes, we played with so many different blends I feel like hundreds or thousands of different blends. We looked at a mixture of, like culinary science, like what are you cool with burning at home, and we looked at all these different ingredients. So like all these oils that you would burn at home, like whether it be olive oil or coconut oil and then we tried to find ways to get a wax version of that. Coconut wax by itself is not okay because it'll just melt and transport. While it burns nicely at home, it'll just completely melt if you weren't able to ship anything. So we need to blend it with something else and we looked long and hard. We tried so many different other waxes and then this olive wax we found from Spain that just works really well, blended with a coconut wax and blending with also natural ingredients for fragrance too, because it's hard to also make a scent with all natural ingredients for candles. So it's finding that blend too. It's a wax plus the fragrance itself, plus the wick.
Speaker 1:So I have to tell you this, and I think anybody who loves essential oils the way that I do we have we make our own candles. We've tried. We've tried to make our own candles at home and I did try to make some and I probably used about 300 drops of essential oils Like an entire 15 ml bottle and it still didn't smell Like you need so much essential oil to make it smell in there and I was using really good, really pure stuff. But your candles they burn and they smell so good and the fact that it's all natural like truly all natural you guys have created just a phenomenal product that I love so much.
Speaker 1:So what's next for Essence? You know I've been reviewing companies and products for gosh 10 years now and they're used to just be a handful, and now it's growing because people are demanding better. So, even though it's still a small piece of the market, I do see this industry growing and people looking for more natural fragranced products. So what is in store for the future of Essence? What would you love to create? What are you guys working on?
Speaker 2:We're actually working on something really exciting. We cannot wait. We're still in the R&D process of it, but we'll just say that it comes in the form of a machine and TBD, and mostly TBD, because we haven't finalized anything, so I don't want to say something without it being really confirmed. But our goal, honestly, is to send to your world in every which way that we can and the healthiest possible way that we can. And so, in addition to just expanding on our fragrance assortment, like you know, we'll be launching many more scents this year within each category. Yay, it's also like how else can we send to your home, send to your car, send the space around you? And so we're currently in a, you know, r&d process of creating something really unique and something really awesome. Yeah, it's exciting, it's really exciting.
Speaker 1:I will have to have you guys back on the show and that actually happens and we'll talk more about it. So you guys were sweet enough to give my audience a 20% off code. And if you hop over to my Toxin Free Shopping Guide wwwtoxinfreeshoppingguidecom, hop over to the fragrance category and you're going to see essence beauty at the top of the perfume section as well as the candle section. I'll also link that in the show notes so it's super easy to find. But I would love to see more people buying your products. I would love to see more people loving your products. Your perfumes and your candles are just to die for I love them so much. So tell my audience where they can find you on social media.
Speaker 2:So our handle everywhere is at SSNYC ESASNYC, like the city.
Speaker 1:And you guys are so fun. You do some really cool interviews. I love seeing you on social media. I love watching you interact. It's great. So go give them a follow for sure. Go give them your love. Thank you guys for being here. It has been an absolute pleasure. Thank you so much.
Speaker 2:It was so fun. Thank you for giving us the platform and allowing us to share our story.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's an important story.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and thank you for educating your community about everything behind the scenes.
Speaker 2:It takes a lot it takes a lot yeah what you do. It's not fun to do sometimes what you're doing right, because it's like people don't always appreciate it. Let's just put it that way.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's hard to deliver a message people don't want to hear, but you know it's my passion, it's why I wake up every day, just like I know creating products like you guys, it's your passion, it's why you wake up every day and I love having these conversations, especially when people are so passionate about what they do. So thank you so much and I'll have you back, take care.
Speaker 2:Yes, thank you. Thank you so much, all right, bye, bye.