Re: Cropwatch on Natural Perfumery, Luca Turin, EU legislation, etc.

[Guest guest]

.. So, for some at least, its' not the

> same game anymore. Old-school Corporate perfumers such as Luca Turin

[as

> revealed by his blog (Turin 2005)] have, in Cropwatch's opinion,

shown a

> lack of awareness of this change and cling to their own highly

judgmental

> criticisms of craft levels in this area as a way of maintaining their

> imagined high place in some grand pecking order. But times have

changed.

> Natural Perfumery is about exploring the art of the possible and

doesn't

> need such negativity - especially from someone so intimately

connected with

> the marketing of 'safe' synthetic aroma chemicals. Instead of publicly

> pouring cold water on their hopes and aspirations, Natural Perfumers

need

> support, guidance, enthusiasm, suggestions & direction.

>

I just want to interject here that Luca Turin simply treated the

selection of natural perfumes that he was sent the same way that he

treats the vast array of other perfumes that he reviews all the time.

no better, no worse. he really loved some, he didn't like some. it

happens all the time. this does not at all mean that he is " against "

natural perfumery. he was certainly not critizing natural perfumery as

a craft. he was not pouring cold water on anyone any more than he is

pouring cold water on any of the major perfume houses when he doesn't

like their scents. he is not in the habit of guiding or encouraging or

offering advice to anyone, so it should not come as any surprise that

he didn't offer any here. that's not what he does! he is a perfume

critic, with a very sophisticated and educated nose that has sampled

thousands of perfumes; he can by smell pick out many if not all of the

components used in a fragrance, and immediately know how they

harmonize. This is a very rare gift that he was born with, and usually

takes many years of rigorous training to accomplish. That's why his

opinion is so valued (and feared) in the perfume industry. he is not a

perfumery teacher and never claimed to be. so please let's lay to

rest this whole idea that luca is somehow against the whole art of

natural perfumery, when in reality he simply did not appreciate some

of the ones he sampled. i will miss his blog. just my opinion.

-linda

the Perfumer's Apprentice.

[Guest guest]

At 11:41 PM 1/7/2006, you wrote:

>I just want to interject here that Luca Turin simply treated the

>selection of natural perfumes that he was sent the same way that he

>treats the vast array of other perfumes that he reviews all the time.

>no better, no worse.

Different take on it, . I have his posts saved, and he started off the

critique with:

>Why bother with all-natural perfumes at all ?

Then he got rather wacky with outrageous statements about rose oil, how

naturals can't be blended because they're so unpredictable (he's never

blended in his life, AFAIK), and got progressively more mean-spirited in

response to rather placid comments by myself and others. Not an objective

critic at all.

>he really loved some, he didn't like some.

No, he didn't love any. The ones he liked the most he damned with faint praise.

>it

>happens all the time. this does not at all mean that he is " against "

>natural perfumery.

Again:

>Why bother with all-natural perfumes at all ?

>he was certainly not critizing natural perfumery as

>a craft.

yes, he did criticize it as a craft, saying it was impossible to create

beautiful perfumes with naturals. He said a lot more denigrating our art,

with no foundation, no background in it to call upon for reference.

>he was not pouring cold water on anyone any more than he is

>pouring cold water on any of the major perfume houses when he doesn't

>like their scents. he is not in the habit of guiding or encouraging or

>offering advice to anyone, so it should not come as any surprise that

>he didn't offer any here. that's not what he does!

Nobody asked for any advice.

>he is a perfume

>critic, with a very sophisticated and educated nose that has sampled

>thousands of perfumes; he can by smell pick out many if not all of the

>components used in a fragrance, and immediately know how they

>harmonize.

His nose has been exposed to be rather faulty. He praised Andy Tauer's

perfumes as all-natural, and Andy uses synthetics. He libeled several of

our perfumers as using synths because they stated their notes included

lilac, violet flower and musk, sarcastically accusing them of being naive

because those scents don't exist in the perfumer's palette as naturals.

Well, we're not naive, Ayala developed a violet flower doppelganger accord,

Terry created a lilac accord, and we mean musk ambrette when we say musk.

We explained that to him, and he got livid, and ignored it, and went on

ranting.

>This is a very rare gift that he was born with, and usually

>takes many years of rigorous training to accomplish.

I challenge his gift, seeing as how he was public with his blog for only

six months, and got exposed. A few weeks before the firestorm, he admitted

he had just smelled diluted, aged ambergris for the first time (provided by

Profumo) and was in love with the beauty of it, etc. YET, he had been

reviewing perfumes for years, writing on ones with ambergris notes. He

spoke of rose oil not smelling like roses! He seemed unaware that out of

the bottle, or on a scent strip, rose oil, or absolute, is, of course,

overwhelming. But dilute it down properly, and the true, rose nature,

delicate, opens up. He claims the only true rose scent has to be synthetic,

LOL.

There are many other reasons his blog is down, his office is " moved " and

he's on hiatus, but I can't reveal them here.

The perfumes he stumbled so over, his agenda, and the subsequent fallout

are his fault, not ours, and if Tony wants to point out the blatant

unethical position of him blasting naturals, while creating synthetics for

the industry, you have to take that into account for his current state of

affairs, also.

Critics are supposed to be above the fray, not cause it, be objective,

ethical, and most of all, know the subject matter at hand. He was inept

with naturals, and was exposed, and freaked out publicly in response. I

have every post archived, and the meltdown was monumental.

There is a thread on perfumeoflife.org right now, if you're interested. I'm

going to stay out of it publicly, except for a brief comment I made at the

beginning.

Anya

http://.com

The premier site on the Web to discover the beauty of Natural Perfume

/

Join to study natural perfumery

[Guest guest]

At 11:41 PM 1/7/2006, you wrote:

>I just want to interject here that Luca Turin simply treated the

>selection of natural perfumes that he was sent the same way that he

>treats the vast array of other perfumes that he reviews all the time.

>no better, no worse.

Different take on it, . I have his posts saved, and he started off the

critique with:

>Why bother with all-natural perfumes at all ?

Then he got rather wacky with outrageous statements about rose oil, how

naturals can't be blended because they're so unpredictable (he's never

blended in his life, AFAIK), and got progressively more mean-spirited in

response to rather placid comments by myself and others. Not an objective

critic at all.

>he really loved some, he didn't like some.

No, he didn't love any. The ones he liked the most he damned with faint praise.

>it

>happens all the time. this does not at all mean that he is " against "

>natural perfumery.

Again:

>Why bother with all-natural perfumes at all ?

>he was certainly not critizing natural perfumery as

>a craft.

yes, he did criticize it as a craft, saying it was impossible to create

beautiful perfumes with naturals. He said a lot more denigrating our art,

with no foundation, no background in it to call upon for reference.

>he was not pouring cold water on anyone any more than he is

>pouring cold water on any of the major perfume houses when he doesn't

>like their scents. he is not in the habit of guiding or encouraging or

>offering advice to anyone, so it should not come as any surprise that

>he didn't offer any here. that's not what he does!

Nobody asked for any advice.

>he is a perfume

>critic, with a very sophisticated and educated nose that has sampled

>thousands of perfumes; he can by smell pick out many if not all of the

>components used in a fragrance, and immediately know how they

>harmonize.

His nose has been exposed to be rather faulty. He praised Andy Tauer's

perfumes as all-natural, and Andy uses synthetics. He libeled several of

our perfumers as using synths because they stated their notes included

lilac, violet flower and musk, sarcastically accusing them of being naive

because those scents don't exist in the perfumer's palette as naturals.

Well, we're not naive, Ayala developed a violet flower doppelganger accord,

Terry created a lilac accord, and we mean musk ambrette when we say musk.

We explained that to him, and he got livid, and ignored it, and went on

ranting.

>This is a very rare gift that he was born with, and usually

>takes many years of rigorous training to accomplish.

I challenge his gift, seeing as how he was public with his blog for only

six months, and got exposed. A few weeks before the firestorm, he admitted

he had just smelled diluted, aged ambergris for the first time (provided by

Profumo) and was in love with the beauty of it, etc. YET, he had been

reviewing perfumes for years, writing on ones with ambergris notes. He

spoke of rose oil not smelling like roses! He seemed unaware that out of

the bottle, or on a scent strip, rose oil, or absolute, is, of course,

overwhelming. But dilute it down properly, and the true, rose nature,

delicate, opens up. He claims the only true rose scent has to be synthetic,

LOL.

There are many other reasons his blog is down, his office is " moved " and

he's on hiatus, but I can't reveal them here.

The perfumes he stumbled so over, his agenda, and the subsequent fallout

are his fault, not ours, and if Tony wants to point out the blatant

unethical position of him blasting naturals, while creating synthetics for

the industry, you have to take that into account for his current state of

affairs, also.

Critics are supposed to be above the fray, not cause it, be objective,

ethical, and most of all, know the subject matter at hand. He was inept

with naturals, and was exposed, and freaked out publicly in response. I

have every post archived, and the meltdown was monumental.

There is a thread on perfumeoflife.org right now, if you're interested. I'm

going to stay out of it publicly, except for a brief comment I made at the

beginning.

Anya

http://.com

The premier site on the Web to discover the beauty of Natural Perfume

/

Join to study natural perfumery

[Guest guest]

> Snip> . . . . . of the ones he sampled. i will miss his blog. . . .

What happened to his " blog " ?

[Guest guest]

>

> > Snip> . . . . . of the ones he sampled. i will miss his

blog. . . .

>

> What happened to his " blog " ?

>

i spoke to someone who is acquainted with him. what i understand is

that the reviews in his blog are going to appear as a part of his new

book, which is coming out soon, (in the fall?) this person thought

that the publisher could have requested the reviews to be taken

offline in anticipation of marketing the book. that was the opinion

given, which of course could be wrong. luca's blog was started back in

june, and contained many perfume reviews. (i have saved all of his

posts, there are lots!)

i am going to re-read the ones about natural perfumery, and try to

separate out in my head those things said by luca, and those things

said by others responding and others chiming in to agree with him and

adding their own comments. it got kind of confusing. i do remember

that he didn't start to get really cranky until his request to end the

topic was ignored. i know anya honored his request, but others didn't.

-linda

[Guest guest]

On Sun, 08 Jan 2006 07:58:56 -0000, wrote:

> > What happened to his " blog " (Luca Turin)? <snip>

> >

> i spoke to someone who is acquainted with him. what i understand is

> that the reviews in his blog are going to appear as a part of his new

> book, which is coming out soon, (in the fall?) this person thought

> that the publisher could have requested the reviews to be taken

> offline <snip>

Ah! Thank you for the update.

-= ß =-

_______________________________________________________

[Guest guest]

At 10:28 AM 1/8/2006, you wrote:

>On Sun, 08 Jan 2006 07:58:56 -0000, wrote:

>

> > > What happened to his " blog " (Luca Turin)? <snip>

> > >

> > i spoke to someone who is acquainted with him. what i understand is

> > that the reviews in his blog are going to appear as a part of his new

> > book, which is coming out soon, (in the fall?) this person thought

> > that the publisher could have requested the reviews to be taken

> > offline <snip>

>

>Ah! Thank you for the update.

Hi :

His book is due out in April, so it must be to press already. There is a

lot of talk about what is happening with the blog, and he has completely

closed access to it now, password needed. However, anyone wishing to access

past posts can do so via google or http://archive.com, I believe.

Anya

http://.com

The premier site on the Web to discover the beauty of Natural Perfume

/

Join to study natural perfumery

[Guest guest]

At 02:58 AM 1/8/2006, you wrote:

>

> >

> > > Snip> . . . . . of the ones he sampled. i will miss his

>blog. . . .

> >

> > What happened to his " blog " ?

> >

>i spoke to someone who is acquainted with him. what i understand is

>that the reviews in his blog are going to appear as a part of his new

>book, which is coming out soon,

Hi

He just denied that on POL forum. He did admit the shutting down of his

blog was messy, and there is supposed to be a new link to the archives.

Anya

http://.com

The premier site on the Web to discover the beauty of Natural Perfume

/

Join to study natural perfumery

[Guest guest]

On Sun, 08 Jan 2006 07:58:56 -0000, wrote:

> What happened to his " blog " ?

Just got a response from Mr. Turin.

The Blog is closed, with a short explanation and a complete (minus pictures) of

the articles in PDF format.

http://lucaturin.typepad.com/

Enjoy.

-= ß =-

_______________________________________________________

[Guest guest]

At 07:29 PM 1/7/2006, you wrote:

This is a long, long post, and I suggest if you find a bit you want to

reply to, just snip the rest ;-)

I'm hoping that these excerpts can trigger some discussion besides the one

on the demise of Turin's short-lived blog. There are some very relevant

bits (IMO) on our art, to wit:

>Natural Perfumery

>

>In the early days of aromatherapy, essential oil sales-people were quite

>sniffy about selling product into this market. As Aromatherapy steadily

>grew in popularity over the years, eventually to account for some 7-10% of

>the total volume of essential oil sales, needless to say the attitude of

>these sales-people changed.

I truly had no idea that AT accounts for 7-10% of sales of EOs. Now that

natural perfumery is growing so quickly, concretes, absolutes and waxes are

sure to follow this trend (less so CO2s, which are still rather unproven in

our art, and aimed at the flavoring industry, which uses huge amounts of

them.)

Arctander mentions many essences that were available on a very small level

before, boutique-type companies doing extractions of wallflower, or

hawthorne, or other fragrant, less-in-demand aromatics. Does anyone have

any contacts on that end? Do you know of obscure stuff being distilled or

extracted to meet a new demand?

> The heyday of Natural Perfumery is seen by some in the earlier decades of

>the last century ...

And the new heyday is starting now, with people all over the world, in

remote regions, able to access aromatics. Very exciting!

>IFRA’s Info. Letter on Natural Perfumery.

>

>(1) That if ethanol is used in a Natural Perfume, it must be organic and

>bittering-agent free - many devotees use various strengths of vodka, which

>may not be altogether satisfactory.

Don't agree with Tony here. Not at all. Any others with to discuss?

>(2) That nowadays a huge range of natural fragrance chemicals is

>available via fermentation ­ at a price! This greatly extends the range of

>the art of the possible in terms of the odour range in Natural Perfumery.

>Individual natural fragrance chemicals can give an intense singularity that

>is difficult or impossible to emulate with essential oils and absolutes alone.

Can anyone expand on this? Sounds exciting. Then, Tony warns....

>However the situation may be even more complicated than this with regard to

>definitions of Natural Ingredients. The author (TB) disagreed with a

>certain salesperson presenting 'natural' aromatic raw materials at the

>recent British Society of Perfumers meeting, to the extent that certain of

>the materials presented were in fact natural, since they were produced

>using aromatic materials used as molecular distillation solvents, which

>extracted but also chemically reacted with natural substances in the

>material being extracted, making new aroma compounds.

OK, is there a chemist that can make this easier to understand, perhaps

with an example?

>I consider that

>deliberately designed chemical reactions to change the nature of

>extractives does not give the product a natural status ­ and much of the

>audience seemed to agreed with me. OK its a bit of a side issue, but causes

>problems for those of us who have to ‘sign off’ natural formulations.

I'm also not sure what he means

> " for those of us who have to ‘sign off’ natural formulations. "

>Natural Perfumery does gives artisans a chance to re-discover ingredients

>that are rare or no longer used on economic grounds ­ like the art of

>making tinctures, or products from the manufacturing methods of enfleurage

>and maceration.

Ah, yes, the oft-discussed tincturing, infusing, maceration and enfleurage

discussed here -- very exciting, and something the mainstream perfumers

lament -- their business profiles and resources do no allow them the luxury

of this realm, often, if at all.

>On the other hand, Corporate Perfumers are at a distinct disadvantage in

>Natural Perfumery from two important factors:

>

>The burdening legislation makes it very difficult to construct perfumes

>that adhere to IFRA limits and EU legislation, and who’s ingredients are

>not subject to limitation with respect to labelling for R43 (sensitisers),

>R38 (irritants), R50-53 (harmful to the environment) etc. For example how

>do you make an orange fragrance that doesn't have to carry any warning

>labelling? It is quite likely that aspiring Natural Perfumers neither know

>or particularly care about these things ­ the chances of being detected and

>prosecuted are, they will argue, next to zero anyway!

good point.

>But Corporate

>Perfumers cannot take this risk with their company’s reputation.

>That whereas the Corporate Perfumer’s choice of ingredients is limited by

>stocking policy of the company and is limited to the number of ingredients

>held in stock, Natural Perfumers are free to choose from several thousand

>possible natural aromatic materials.

YeSSSSSS!

>The downside is that Natural Perfumes

>rely for their character much more on a very consistent odour quality for

>natural raw materials batch-to-batch. And this can be hard to attain with

>small suppliers, especially those that basically buy odd job lots of raw

>materials off the spot market.

Disagree with Tony. Many natural perfumers put a disclaimer on their

website that we realize odor quality does vary from batch-to-batch. So be it.

>EU legislation has made matters extremely hard for Natural Perfumery.

>Natural materials are more and more being unfairly discredited on safety

>grounds by " expert " committees who are acting as rubber stamps for

>political ends - to support the Chemicals Policy of the EU. Yet even in

>Conventional Perfumery, few fragrances that are any good are totally

>synthetic (“most synthetic perfumes today are crap…” (Turin 2005)) and

>essential oils figure from 1-25% of the composition according to fragrance

>type etc. - and probably will always be used at the 1-2% level at least.

>Essential oils, absolutes and other naturals finish off and give a body and

>roundness to perfumes which is impossible to achieve with synthetics alone.

Something Turin didn't understand at all, obviously (citing another part of

Turin's argument, not presented here, but part of the equation). The

previous paragraph highlights why, perhaps, natural perfumery is much

bigger in the USA than the EU.

>References.

>Grimshaw B. (1989) Natural & Nature-Identical Fragrances ­ A New Creative

>Challenge in Natural Ingredients in Cosmetics eds. M. Grievson, Janet

>Barber, Hunting pub. Micelle Press, Weymouth, UK 1989.

>

>Gupta S. (2002) “Natural Fragrances in Soaps & Cosmetics” Happi May 2002

>pp65-69.

>

>Turin L. (2005) ­ see blog at http://lucaturin.typepad.com/ - but hurry,

>parts of this section are threatened with deletion!

Le blog est mort

The rest I'll leave unsnipped for now -- it's just a good read about

shortages, standardization and other issues, and I didn't want it to be

lost in the other responses. The stuff below is very interesting, and very

relevant to us all. The last paragraph is particularly telling!

>The Standardisation of Natural Ingredients: A Good Thing?

>

> The year 2005 has been a difficult year for some natural ingredients ­

>low yield harvests affecting availability of Chinese Litsea cubeba oil,

>Indian mint oil and Egyptian tagete oil (Anon 2005). Cropwatch has also

>noted climate problems has affected US grapefruit oils and Chinese ginger

>oil, although the latter, together with black pepper oil, has also felt

>pressure from ethnic and trans-international demand for raw materials as

>ingredients useful in combating SARS and bird ‘flu. Chinese star anise

>fruits have been used as a source of shikimic acid to manufacture Tamiflu a

>drug alleged to reduce the severity of influenza (nce 2005), resulting

>in Chinese Star aniseed oil being more difficult to obtain and liable to

>adulteration with synthetic anethole. Geranium oil Bourbon and vetiver oil

>Bourbon have been virtually unobtainable this year, and correspondents in

>Indonesia have written into Cropwatch giving details of widespread

>adulteration of Patchouli oil with Palm oil by larger oil exporting

>concerns. East African and Australian sandalwood oil fractions continue to

>turn up in Sandalwood oil E.I., which anyway is almost unobtainable in any

>sort of quantity. And this is just some of what has been going on…

>

>In times of severe shortage, quality of natural products might be expected

>to vary ‘more than somewhat’ as Damon Runyan might put it, which roughly

>translates here as being ‘in excess of natural variation’. Yet customer

>rejections from QC number-crunchers have been uncompromising. Cropwatch has

>been discussing the reasons why this might be, with some more experienced

>industry colleagues.

>

>Secondly, the trend towards the increased use of synthetics (as the

>vendetta against naturals restricted on dubious safety grounds takes hold)

>may be raising a generation of technical staff who are expecting “same as

>last delivery” time after time. This does not happen with naturals.

>Suppliers have ironically pointed out to Cropwatch that if they routinely

>adulterated oils with synthetics, the resulting more uniformly-odoured

>essential oils would be almost certainly be passed by customers with

>histories of unrealistic expectations in this area.

>

>Thirdly perfumery and flavour training courses may not be teaching young

>analysts, perfumers and flavourists that if you compare a freshly distilled

>essential oil with a standard that has been in the ‘fridge for 6 months to

>a year, its going to smell different, and the colour might have changed

>also. What is required is to compensate for these facts and still make an

>informed opinion on acceptability ­ this comes with experience. Cropwatch

>intends to write to colleges which offer aroma training to remind them to

>emphasise this in taught courses.

>

>Fourthly, the trend towards the standardisation of products is becoming

>obsessive, and meaningless test result numbers are substituting for an

>innate ability to make commercial judgements. Why buy an essential oil not

>intended for pharmaceutical use which conforms to Eu. Pharm. V as a buying

>criteria for example? Does it guarantee a better oil? Of course not.

>Milchard et al. (2005) have provided the basic fingerprints of a number of

>essential oils ­ but, for example does adherence to the GC traces provided

>necessarily establish whether a given Indonesian patchouli oil is good, bad

>or indifferent, or even if it contains palm oil? Err….well, no, although,

>on a good day, the total area of the GC trace (not mentioned) might

>indicate something is amiss - i.e the oil might contain “invisibles”.

>Patchouli oils are, anyway, generally sold on odour profile and solubility

>in a given strength of aqueous ethanol, a 5-minute test which would

>probably quite quickly reveal adulteration with palm oil.

>

>As an end-piece, Cropwatch has learned of an instance of small 10Kg batch

>of genuine Sandalwood oil East Indian being offered but rejected by a

>certain perfumer because “it smelt woody and was not the same as last’

>(‘last’, it eventually turned out, was an unholy mixture of sandalwood East

>African Sandalwood and Cedarwood oil fractions). Just what is happening to

>our profession when perfumers cannot even remember what real Sandalwood oil

>is supposed to smell like?

>

> References:

>

>Anon (2005) ­ The Essential Oils Market Parfums Cosmétiques Actualités No

>185 Oct/Nov 2005 p82.

>

>nce J. (2005) The Independent Sat 15th Oct 2005 p1-2.

>

>Milchard M.J., Clery R., DaCosta N., Esdale R., Flowedew M., Gates L., Moss

>N., Moyler D.A., Sherlock A., Starr B., Wootten J., J.J., RSC London

>Perf & Flav. 29 (Aug 2004) 28-36.

Anya

http://.com

The premier site on the Web to discover the beauty of Natural Perfume

/

Join to study natural perfumery

[Guest guest]

>

> >

> >(1) That if ethanol is used in a Natural Perfume, it must be

> > organic and bittering-agent free

> Don't agree with Tony here. Not at all. Any others with to discuss?

Yes, Tony's assertion that for ethanol to be called natural it must be

" organic " seems odd. I am assumeing that the term " organic " here is

neing used the same as in " organic farming " , " organic food " etc.

>

> >(2) That nowadays a huge range of natural fragrance chemicals is

> > available via fermentation ­ at a price! This greatly extends the

> > range of

> > the art of the possible in terms of the odour range in Natural

> > Perfumery.

> >Individual natural fragrance chemicals can give an intense

> > singularity that

> >is difficult or impossible to emulate with essential oils and

> > absolutes alone.

>

> Can anyone expand on this? Sounds exciting.

I too would like to hear more about sources and availability of

fragrance chemicals produced by in vivo synthesis (fermentation).

> Then, Tony warns....

>

> > The author (TB) disagreed with a

> > certain salesperson presenting 'natural' aromatic raw materials

> > at the recent British Society of Perfumers meeting, to the extent

> > that certain of

> > the materials presented were in fact natural, since they were

> > produced

> >using aromatic materials used as molecular distillation solvents,

> >which extracted but also chemically reacted with natural

> > substances in the material being extracted, making new aroma

> > compounds.

>

> OK, is there a chemist that can make this easier to understand,

> perhaps with an example?

>

Not me, what Tony describes is not my understanding of molecular

distillation.