scents

The role of scents and perfumes in cosmetic ingredients is to give a pleasant sensory feeling to he product user.

The way a product smells goes a long way to determining how it will be initially perceived by potential buyers, so the nicer a product smells the more likely it is to be purchased.

For most people like me who formulate natural skincare products, this can sometimes be a dilemma. That is at least true for natural skincare formulators who have not acquired skills in the art of perfumery…

I am not an expert in either perfumery or aromatherapy, but I do know a thing or two about the efficacy of essential oils and their potency for treating certain skin conditions.

I recently launched a range of natural skincare products, all naturally scented with essential oils. The feedback I get is varied to be honest, even though I don’t have all the results in, so far it seems like more people will like to have a little more scent in my face cream. I feel this might be because they have trained their noses to appreciate synthetic fragrances more due to long periods of extended use.

So today, we are going to looking at synthetic fragrances and their effect on skin…

Synthetic fragrances

These are chemicals that are either petroleum, phthalate based hat have been modified to mimic the smell of natural plants , flowers etc. Most times these synthetic fragrances are composed of very toxic chemicals and because the manufactures are allowed by law not to declare the composition of their synthetic fragrances, there is no way of knowing what allergen or skin sensitizer is contained in these products .

Natural fragrances

These on the other hand, are natural ingredients that are distilled from plants and include essential oils, distillates, extracts, volatile concentrates, isolates and exudates, such as resins. They are usually  therapeutic and  very useful for healing the skin when used in the proper concentrations. They also impart smell to cosmetic products and are usually more expensive than cheap synthetic fragrances.

Reasons why we don’t synthetic fragrances in our products

  • They can cause skin rashes, skin allergies, irritations etc.
  • The phthalate based ones can also cause hormonal changes such as low sperm count in men, and reproductive malfunction in women.
  • They can also trigger a number of other health issues such as  liver cancer, breast cancer, obesity, and diabetes.
  • Fetal exposure to  phthalates can increase the risk of ADHD, neurological disorders, and autism.
  • Furthermore, the process of making synthetic fragrances constitute a hazard to the environment.

 

 

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