It’s only natural
These sophisticated ‘clean’ scents will keep your hormones happy, writes Alison Izzo
The ‘clean’ or chemical-free fragrance category is enjoying a boom, with plenty of sophisticated perfumes and oils offering a more natural way to smell good – and they look good on your dressing table.
When it comes to ‘clean beauty’, myths and misconceptions abound – from greenwashing and eco-shaming to plain ol’ fearmongering, politicising the choices we make around personal care has never been more pungent.
Fragrance is one category that’s particularly tricky to navigate due to the fact that choosing how we want to smell is often driven by sentimental factors – such as memories and feelings – instead of intellectual factors like sustainability, brand transparency or hormonal health. But perhaps it’s time we started using our heads as much as our hearts?
While traditional perfumes may conjure special memories, they often contain synthetic copies of natural scents, and these are typically made from a group of chemicals called phthalates.
“Phthalates are known to be hormone disruptors, and can be involved in a host of hormone-driven issues such as infertility, diabetes, metabolic disease, breast cancer, obesity, testicular cancer, early onset puberty,” says naturopath and registered nurse, Madeline Calfas.
Calfas points to two 2016 studies from Harvard University that showed the link between phthalates and an increased risk of miscarriage and gestational diabetes, as well as the multiple other studies that have revealed phthalates act as an endocrine disruptor and “can cause reproductive and developmental concerns”.
Avoiding phthalates in perfume is particularly hard, which is what Nedahl Stelio, the founder of cleanfragrance brand Recreation Bondi Beach, discovered when she was trying to detox her beauty cabinet.
“There are currently 3000 chemicals that can be used to create ‘parfum’,” she explains. “And because the formulas are considered proprietary, companies don’t have to disclose what’s in [them].”
As Calfas explains, the list of ingredients may just include parfum or fragrance.
“And this is sufficient to meet labelling requirements [as] phthalates are allowed to be included as part of the fragrance, and don’t need to be listed individually.”
Recalling her struggle to make the switch to clean beauty, Stelio says: “The only thing I couldn’t swap out was luxury fragrance because there was nothing on the market at the time that was in great packaging and didn’t feel like a ‘healthy compromise’.”
Stelio ended up starting her own company to fill that void, but the market for chic natural scents has since blossomed.
So you can now spritz with abandon, safe in the knowledge that these phthalate-free fragrances will do nothing other than make you smell good.
How to be sure?
“Look for a ‘phthalate-free’ or ‘fragrancefree’ label on your fragrance, or one that only has natural ingredients,” Calfas says.
“Any product with ‘fragrance’ on it will more than likely contain phthalates.”
If you’re still committed to your ‘traditional’ signature scent, Calfas suggests you reduce your exposure to other sources of phthalates by using glass containers instead of plastics, and ensure other products you use don’t have ‘fragrance’ listed. You can also find biomonitoring tests to measure your toxic exposure.