Unilever's new Comfort Naturals fabric conditioners

[Guest guest]

Hello world and especially UK natural perfumers,

I've been bombarded with advertisements of Unilever's new " Comfort Naturals "

range of fabric conditioners on the radio recently. They sounded fishy, so I

found this info online:

To quote popsop.com,

" The new concentrates are designed primarily for women seeking a clothes

conditioner especially formulated for sensitive skin, with a natural fragrance.

The three new variants are fresh olive blossom fragrance blended with cotton

extract, jojoba oil and fragrance of white orchid, and a soothing fragrance

blended with aloe vera extract. All have been dermatologically tested and

approved.

The packaging borrows cues from the skincare sector, the look created is

sophisticated with a soft and delicate colour palette. The front of pack label

depicts imagery relating to the ingredients in the natural fragrances, with

wording and font choice mirroring premium toiletry brands. The end result is a

bottle which looks very different to other laundry products and is set to stand

out from the crowd.

Coley Porter Bell Design Director Bell commented, “The launch of

Comfort naturals is a really exciting brand development, tapping into the

increasing consumer demand for natural fragrances. The elegant simplicity of the

packaging is bound to appeal to all those seeking a clothes conditioner

especially formulated for sensitive skin.†[end quote]

(Abbie here again) This makes an utter mockery of all our hard work trying to

get the general public to understand what natural fragrances are, i.e. derived

completely from natural botanicals or other natural, non-petroleum sources. As I

understand, there is a pitiful, token amount of jojoba oil in one of these

fabric conditioners, aloe vera in another and cottonseed oil (cheap) in the

third. None of these natural botanicals contribute to the fragrance aspect. The

fragrance component is (I am 99.9% sure) made up of synthetics, although some

synthetics are mimicking natural molecules such as linalool and coumarin. How is

the general public meant to know that fragrance of " olive blossom " and " white

orchid " are completely synthetic when the word " naturals " is the second largest

word that you see on the packaging?

I am seriously considering putting in a complaint to the ASA (Advertising

Standards Authority) in the UK on the grounds that calling them " natural " with

the inference that they are using natural fragrances is misleading. I just want

to see whether I can drum up some support, especially from UK people. The ASA do

tend to take more notice when they receive numerous complaints so the more

numbers we could manage the better. I think there are also some experts on this

forum who could word the complaint better than I could.

Looking forward to hearing your suggestions/comments,

Abbie

Here are the websites to reference:

On the packaging: http://popsop.com/7466

On the advertising:

http://www.brandrepublic.com/News/871089/Ogilvy-launches-new-ad-Comfort-Naturals\

-range/