Natural Ingredients and Ethical Reasons: Synthetic Ingredients, Regulations
Just the name - natural ingredients - is enough to tell us that everything in nature changes, so fruits and flowers during sunny years have a more intense scent than during rainy ones. The same goes for other natural ingredients. Logically, this difference will also be reflected in the fragrance composition, but only experienced perfumers will notice it. It is important to note that some ingredients are in deficit because they have been exploited unlimitedly in the previous period. Sandalwood is limited, and the same situation applies to oud (agarwood).
Perfume houses and perfumers have established the IFRA association, and they, along with the EU, enact regulations based on medical and chemical research on allergens. Such is the case with oakmoss, which has been withdrawn due to an allergen ingredient, and perfumers have been given a certain period to adjust the notes to the new situation. It is difficult to replace natural oakmoss because an entire perfume group (chypre) is based on it, but we will rely on experienced perfumers.
Some notes are no longer used in their original form, such as civet, ambergris, musk, and castoreum.
Civet is a type of cat found in Asia and Africa, and its anal secretion, which has a distinctly animalistic note, was used in the parfum industry. Civets were kept in captivity and forcibly made to produce the secretion. IFRA has banned the use of civet in the perfume industry for ethical reasons, although civet farms still exist in some parts of Africa.
Ambergris is a secretion vomit of sperm whales. It is collected on the ocean shores when it washes up and has the most pleasant scent used in perfumes with woody, animalic, and earthy notes. Officially, there is no ban on collecting ambergris, but due to its rarity and difficulty in collecting, its price is extremely high, making its use not profitable at all. And since sperm whales and dolphins are protected species, ambergris will most likely be protected by regulations.
Musk is also a type of secretion from a gland that comes from deer living in Nepal, India, China, Pakistan, and Siberia. Due to the endangerment of this species, this deer was placed under protection in 1979. Musk can also be obtained from other animals (tortoises, beavers, crocodiles), although rarely, as synthetic musks are in use today. The difference is that natural musk has a strong fecal odor, but distillation produces a pleasant powdery scent that evaporates for a long time, providing a long-lasting base for the perfume. I think that today fragrances with natural musk would be too strong for us because we have already accepted its synthetic substitute.
Castoreum Anal secretion in beavers that they release to mark their territory. Interestingly, this scent is fruity-vanilla, and besides being used in perfumery, it has also been used in the food industry, i.e., to obtain vanilla flavor. The process of obtaining this substance was totally unethical because it involved forced secretion production, so it is banned. If there was a possibility of finding this ingredient, it would probably be extremely expensive.
Licensing in the perfume industry
When a perfume house sells its license to another company, there is a high probability that the new owner will change the formula by which the fragrance was made at some point. Consumers are not informed about this, and they notice it in the difference in the scent notes of their favorite parfum.
Copy protection: Strategies of perfume houses
Some perfume houses reformulate their perfumes from time to time to prevent the creation of copies of their fragrances, i.e., clones. They make a new batch every year that differs from the previous one. As with some previous examples, the rule here also applies that the average consumer cannot recognize it, i.e., cannot see that there has been a change.
