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AJ ARABIA Perfumes: A Personal Presentation

 

 

At the back of the Roja Dove Haute Parfumerie, past the Baccarat crystal flacons and etched panels saved from the Orient Express, past the lined ranks of perfumery’s finest stalwarts and greatest modern talents, there is a little door that leads to the Urban Retreat café next door to it. Pushing open this door from the twilight twinklings of hushed reverie, one is propelled into a golden space full of clinking tea cups and nattering shoppers resting their weary feet. In the background, an operatic soundtrack soars above the conversations, and I sit down and look around me, making sure my phone is recording properly and re-checking the email from Ali Aljaberi, founder of AJ ARABIA perfumes which have exclusive launched in the perfumery I have just walked through, arriving only two days previously. I look at the man sitting in the corner of the café and wonder if it is Ali, but this gentleman seems busy, working on one of his two phones. As it later transpires, this is, indeed, Ali, and we have been emailing each other while sitting only one table away. The comedy of errors modern technology can now cure! Settled at the same table, helpfully, we can now get down to the business of the presentation. I have read about the perfumes on Fragrantica of course, and along with the many people who commented on previous articles, cannot wait to hear more about them and, naturally, to try them for myself.

 Ali Aljaberi: “I should start by saying that I am something of a perfectionist. It’s both a curse and a blessing because if something isn’t right, that’s it, I throw it all out and start again. That’s possibly why it has taken so long to get everything perfect and just how I wanted it. There is a saying—‘launch strong and stay strong’—the first impression is the most important, and that is why I wanted to create a real impact, that’s already 50% of capturing someone’s interest, and then, of course, a really nice scent. Something that is absolutely unique. I didn’t want to create something that was similar to something already out there, because if you are a person who loves perfumes, you know exactly what’s out there, there are a LOT of perfumes, so if you can’t immediately differentiate between this perfume and something else, for me there is no point in doing it. And these are the people I want to attract, people who want to appreciate a perfume as a perfume, and that’s why I’m niche and not mass commercialized, if I can say that.

"Each perfume takes two steps for us to go through of approvals. After I have made the perfume itself, I go to a large, luxury department store and take one of their perfume blotters and spray my perfume on it. I give it to the head of that perfumery and ask him or her, ‘which one is this?’ so the promoter thinks it is something from that store. If he or she can bring up the name of one of the perfumes they already have, or suggest something it is similar to, that means I have failed. I didn’t create something new. If they don’t recognize it or cannot liken it to anything else, that’s a very good sign—that’s check number one. This means there is nothing quite like it, or at least it is not a copycat. The second step is how will people react to it? Just because I love it does not mean that everyone will love it, and neither do I expect them to—we all have different tastes. There again, there is little point in releasing a fragrance if only I like it! And so I listen to the majority of opinions in the feedback we get, if perhaps 70% of testers say they like it, that’s another check for me. That is the second step complete. Then, and only then, do we consider making it. I do not release everything I make.

"I have three collections: Black, Gold and Crystal. Some of them are very limited edition and it will depend on the market as to how we release them. To give you an idea, in the Black and Gold collections, everything is ready, they are all completed, but I decided not to launch them all at once. I want people to experience each one. I want them to take their time and really try them before they decide which they really love, which one is for them, so they can appreciate it. You know how sometimes you try a fragrance and you might like one at first, but actually over time you decide that the other one, which perhaps you didn’t enjoy so much in the beginning, is really the one you love.

"So many fragrance collections launch too many too close together, I think—it becomes overwhelming for the customer, how can they possibly choose, and very few are just going to buy them all—perhaps people might try one or two, anyway, and then feel too confused to choose so they just walk away. My thinking is, why not just release them more slowly, and don’t try to flood an already overcrowded market. I think this is why niche houses are doing so well now, people can take their time with them, it’s not all about profit. I also make sure that I never launch two fragrances that are too similar too close together. Black Number 1 and Black Number 2 are so different. Again, I do not want to confuse the customer. What is the point of having so many fragrances that all smell the same with perhaps two different notes in between them? I say this as someone who loves buying perfumes myself! We want someone to pick up and try the perfumes and think ‘yes! This is the one for me …’ This is also why we are only going to be stocked in places where I have personally been and where I know the will give the perfumes the attention they deserve—not just our perfumes, but all the fragrances they are selling. I don’t want to be somewhere that just pushes whatever is hot that month or whatever they have the most of to get rid of, I don’t appreciate that as a customer myself. Because of this, it doesn’t matter to me if the places we end up are big or small, it just has to be right. So … hopefully it goes well.”

 

 Ali grins sheepishly at this, he is so obviously glowing with pride at being stocked in one of the most exclusive perfumeries in the world—what a first launch—to be in Harrods, and not just in the perfume hall (I hope they will forgive me, and that you will understand what I mean by applying "just" to the gravitas of being in Harrods at all) but in the Roja Dove Haute Parfumerie, the hallowed turf of perfume houses, every single fragrance having been rigorously tested and hand-picked by Roja himself. I love the fact that to Ali, it is no the notoriety of the store alone which matters, but the fact that here they take their time to help customers best select a fragrance for themselves or perhaps as a gift for a loved one.

I think it was Luca Turin who first used the phrase of "the spray and pray brigade" to describe those poor assistants in perfume departments who are just told they have to meet a target and not really care about what the customer has asked for or what might be best for them to try. You certainly won’t find that in these hushed bespoke surroundings—and yet to Ali, it could also be a tiny little back street boutique somewhere that eventually stocks AJ ARABIA, so long as they are passionate about perfume, so long as they truly care. Just that morning, Ali had engaged the staff in a one-to-one training session, in order that the staff fully understands the brand and where the perfumes have come from, the love and care that has been poured into every bottle—the years of work on the bottle and packaging itself.

Moreover, it is so important for the knowledgeable staff to meet the perfume-makers and for us as customers to learn about them, I think, because this way we can learn not only about the fragrances themselves but the spirit and passion behind the label. I know that for me, personal, it is extra special to wear a perfume I already love having met or learned more about the person behind it. I have used the analogy before—and do forgive me if you are sick of it, but I truly believe it to be perfectly apt—it is the same feeling of really liking a painting, and then seeing it again when you have met the artist or read a book about their life and influences. You feel a better connection, something almost spiritual if that isn’t over-egging the pudding somewhat, and that only serves to deepen your love of it. It is clear, from everything Ali says, that he is a true lover of perfume, and sees it as an art form.

Ali Aljaberi: “Let me explain to you, I adore Tom Ford perfumes, I am totally in love with many of them, but I really wish—and this is just my personal view as a consumer—sometimes wish they wouldn’t release so many, so close together. Now that may sound strange to some people—surely more is better if you love it? But I personally find it confusing, I forget which I have tried, especially if they are too similar, and this confusion can be off-putting. I would love to see them appreciate what they have more, in some ways I don’t think they know how special their perfumes are, they don’t let them stand alone for a while. As a true fan of Tom Ford I sort of wish they had released the perfumes almost as a niche project. I understand of course, it’s a big brand and they have to commercialize it, but I feel sad for the perfumes themselves which I think become undervalued because of this. I knew that when I released my perfumes I wanted to keep it small, to be true to itself. This is the greatest pleasure of being a niche brand, it gives you greater freedom overall.

"I am so influenced by my country, UAE, and especially Abu Dhabi. We like to focus on culture and education. Of course Dubai is very famous, and it has become a symbol for all that is opulent and luxurious, but because of its success it is now very multicultural, there are people and influences from all over the world and they want the best of everything, so it is difficult now to say ‘this represents Dubai’ or an area of Dubai. But Abu Dhabi is the opposite, to me it is more authentic, the identity has been kept stronger. We have the Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque there and, if you go there, you will know that they spared no money on it. It is so beautiful, my description cannot do it justice, the very best of all materials have been used, and yet isn’t over the top somehow. The workmanship shines through; it is beautiful because in some ways it is so simple. Yet it is the third biggest in the world, people come from all over to visit it. On Trip Advisor it became the number one ‘must-see’ place, one of those things you absolutely must visit and see for yourself. And this building inspired the shape of the bottle. I wanted to create something that represented it but also was of my personality. The building screams luxury, but in a very simple way. That’s extremely hard to do. You feel luxury in every single corner but it remains understated. This is what I knew the fragrances must be like.”

Those of you have already read Fragrantica’s first announcement of the AJ ARABIA perfumes will know that Ali is very proud of his origins, having studied at the University of Sorbonne Paris’ prestigious Abu Dhabi base, and further developing his adoration of and knowledge for perfumes when his studies took him to Paris itself. Here he learned more about perfume as an industry and was inspired to combine the love of fragrance he already had with the strong emotional ties to his home country, he had a dream of making "… luxury French-Oriental fragrances with international vision" and working tirelessly with renowned nose, Jean-Claude Astier, on the first Black Collection fragrance. It is important to point out that these are fragrances inspired by his homeland but not slavishly replicating what was already there. Traditionally based they may be, but these are modern classics in personality, the striking packaging is simple, streamlined, but echoes the traditions of the beautiful Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque. Equally, the scents inside the bottles echo the traditions of Abu Dhabi but have been honed down to their finest elements and blended in such a way that they segue effortlessly from past to present.

Ali Aljaberi: “All of my perfumes are unisex, and this is very important to me, too, because in fragrance I think there should be no such thing as gender. It is still difficult for some nationalities in the mainstream world, though. We have found that in some parts of the US the ‘unisex’ concept just doesn’t work as well, so you have to differentiate. It has to be split and marketed at a man or a woman. For these people if something is in the middle, neither one nor the other, then it might indicate that you are homosexual, as though that is negative, so they worry about it, it is confusing to them. So yes in niche perfumery this has been going on for a long time, and very occasionally in the mainstream, but still people are cautious. For me, though, and for the AJ ARABIA brand we say that ‘if you like it, wear it!’ But Europeans and South Asians and of course where I am from, we seem to take to this much more easily, and this is because it has been part of our culture for longer. Things like Oudh and Sandalwood are not gendered; men and women wear the same. So I always say that I am trying to bring perfumery to its origins. Again, ‘if you like it, wear it’ it’s as simple as that! Some perfumes of course scream femininity, and that is a bit different, perhaps not many men would choose to wear that, but in something that is well tempered and has a personality of its own, we leave it up to the customer to choose, we do not dictate what they must wear.”

Now Ali places a bottle temptingly on the table in front of me, nestled between our glasses of water and cups of tea and a plate of dinky little seeded biscuits that are also impossible to ignore. Once the bottle is there it takes all of my attention, not for the first time do I think that perfume addicts are akin to those who frequented Opium dens in Victorian times, eyes gleaming hungrily as the prize is in sight, ready for the first hit. Gosh. And all in the refined surroundings of Harrods. If only the elegantly coiffured ladies who lunch knew … and very possibly they do, for many of them are clutching tell-tale white bags with golden twisted rope handles that, to the initiated, give away their secret vice of having shopped in the Roja Dove perfumery. Rolling up my sleeve I give Ali my arm and he sprays a little on my left wrist.

Ali Aljaberi: “This one is the first, it is ARABIA I. The top note has Cardamom and Cinnamon, the middle note has Incense and Cyprus, the basenote has Sandalwood, Moss … There is a picture to this that I want to describe to you. If you go to any authentic house in Arabia, there are several steps to showing a guest our hospitality. The first thing we will do for you is serve you coffee. We do not ask you if you want coffee, this goes without saying, we just bring you the coffee. It’s served with Cardamom and Cinnamon in to spice it, and so these are what I knew I wanted to have as the opening for the perfume. You can smell the coffee and spices in the houses, drifting all over and even up to the next floor, it’s delicious and reminds me of home. The next step, after you visited the house and before you leave, we give you the incense Ouhd which we burn and waft around you to fragrance your clothes pleasantly. Then, just before you step outside, we give you a little bottle of perfume to dab on yourself, to refresh you. This is either Oudh in perfume form, Musk or a Rose fragrance. Literally you just dab this on and then leave, because we don’t want you to have to leave smelling of our house or of the food you just ate with us, but to smell of yourself again. In this way we show you the three steps of Arabian hospitality and these three steps are all present within ARABIA I.”

 

 

During this explanation, I have not had a great deal to say. This is because my nose has been almost permanently buried in my wrist, causing peculiar sidelong glances from the people on tables near us, which I am all but oblivious to, breathing in this beautiful scent. The first thing I will say is to cast aside all your preconceptions about Oudh perfumes. This is nothing like any of them, nothing resembling anything you have smelled before, I dare say. It has a softness and delicacy that belies its strong presence, we are back to the symbolism of luxury being in as much of what you leave out as what you choose to put in. Nothing dominates; nothing overwhelms or shouts for attention, it is a gorgeous fuzzy haze of dry golden woods and definite Cardamom/Cinnamon in the opening breath; this gently dissipates like the mists that presage a perfect Summer’s day first thing in the morning before the heat of the afternoon’s sun. Later on, past the middle of this journey through the Oudh and incense, a smoky stillness that is pure and clean cut through with Cypress, not at all heavy or ready to choke you as some Oudh based fragrances can; we reach a clearing of fresh Sandalwood, Cedar and the musk. The overall texture is smooth as silk, one note never standing too high above the others, and although no florals are listed, this final stage somehow does give the impression of walking through a garden as the cool of the evening descends, perhaps reminding me of those quietly decadent flowers who bloom only at night, which tend to have smaller blossoms, far less showy than their sunlit counterparts, and with a subtle whisper of moonlit muskiness.

You can probably tell that I like it a lot. The way I communicated this to Ali, poor man, was by smiling a lot and burying my nose deeper into my arm while saying "Oh … OH! It’s gorgeous!" He laughed at this and said “Good, good!” so hopefully I got my point across, though not as eloquently as I may have chosen to at the time.

Ali Aljaberi: “I don’t have AJ II to show you in here, but we can go to the perfumery afterwards and you can try it there. This is the problem with traveling— jumped on the train today, and later I am off to Paris, but I cannot take everything with me because of all the restrictions about what you can and cannot bring into the country in the size of bottles. It is very annoying. However, I can exclusively let you smell Gold I which we won’t be releasing until next summer. The Gold collection is more Oudh and Amber based, and this one is with roses too … I will be really interested to know your reaction to it.”

Burying my nose once again, on my right wrist this time, I was amazed how different this was to the first I had tried. It begins far drier and perhaps more complex in character, a richer scent altogether, and I noticed a hint of something sweet, asking if it was perhaps honey? Ali smiles enigmatically, pausing a little while, “Ah, not too far off, it is a touch of Caramel which I have used with Vanilla,” he finally reveals. I’m quite pleased with that, not too far off indeed, and this is no sickly caramel of the kind you usually find in celebrity perfumes or those aimed at the teenage market, this is incredibly refined, the caramel you may come across in the very best Parisian patisserie, a soft, true Vanilla shot through with a bouquet of freshly picked roses in full bloom. Reading this description you may be thinking, then surely this one is more obviously feminine? But no, it isn’t that obvious. The softer side is beautifully balanced against the warm Amber/Oudh and the unusual dry opening that heralds it. Again, I remark to Ali how seamlessly blended the fragrances are.

Ali Aljaberi: “Yes, this was very deliberate, I didn’t want anything too harsh, I don’t want the scents to have such obvious stages in them, I would like people to notice them changing but not immediately jumping from one note to the next, it should be a smooth transition and transparent. I don’t like these kind of perfumes where you have hard lines between the notes. You should be able to see through the fragrance as a whole. Once you smell the top notes, very soon you can see through it to the very end, but you notice it more as the stages slowly change on your skin. It’s not linear and it’s not one note after another always changing, but something in between.”

I likened it to hearing a melody, a particular refrain that takes you back to the beginning of the song but has changes in emphasis the further you get into it, which Ali pleasingly agreed with rather than looking at me askance as some people do when I go off into such swoops of imagining.

“Now I can let you try AJ Gold II, which also won’t be released ‘til next summer. This one is very different indeed. With this one it will be ‘yes I like it’ or ‘no I don’t.’” Ali suggested I try this one on a tissue or something else rather than my skin “…because it is so different.” I chose to spray it on my silk scarf, and wafted it about as the scent rose to greet me. “For this one I would like people to be reminded of something but not be quite sure of what!” Ali laughs as I waft some more. He is right. This one is far more complex again and incredibly different to either of the first two. It is stronger from the outset, quite challenging in a way, but there is something that keeps pulling you back for more. It is absolutely and unashamedly animalistic in the top notes, and I can only liken it to wrapping yourself in a vintage mink coat, letting the fur tickle your nose as you become entirely enswathed. “For this one it is all about the musk, it is very special indeed. It has strong Oudh, but the story behind this one is that women and men when they use Oudh back home they spray something else to make it a little bit softer in the end. Because you know that Oudh can be almost too strong, and so they end up mixing two perfumes, a softer musk to balance it. There is also a little bit of sweetness again with some Caramel and Vanilla, I just love Vanilla …”

Ali sits back and watches me with an amused smile as I try to work out what’s in it. It definitely doesn’t remind me of any other perfume I have tried, so he has no worries there, and I tell him it sort of makes me think of grinding spices in a pestle and mortar, a hit of fresh spice that nothing else can replicate a satisfying crunch of pepper and cumin seeds, perhaps coriander seeds too? All worked down by the cool marble into a smooth oneness, a complete being. He wasn’t giving too much away, but when he asked me which my favorite was so far—an almost impossible question to answer as they have all been so completely different, I surprised him by saying my initial reaction was for the Gold II. “Really?! Wow, that’s good. It’s great watching you trying to work it out because this is exactly what I wanted, this is what we were going for and here you are sitting in front of me and you are doing just that! That means I have hit the target, then.”

We talk about how he tests the fragrances on himself, and Ali says he only knows if the blend is right when he dips a perfume blotter into it and sleeps with every single night on his pillow. “If I wake up in the morning that means it is right for me … of course it may not be right for other people, but it means I will love it …” and I ask him how he first got into the world of perfumes and when his own love for them really bloomed. “I have always, always had a passion for fragrance,” he admits, “about any good scent. Every time I go shopping, I have to go shopping for perfume. If you look at my clothes and then you look at my perfume collection, you will say ‘ok, I know where your money is going now…’ Actually I can say I have a wardrobe full of fragrances, I guess I may have up to 750 different perfumes, all very differing types of perfume. I always go back to the first ones I got, but I cannot stop. If I see a perfume I just have to smell it, I don’t know what it is, it’s like something that is running through my veins, I have to smell it whether it’s good or bad, luxurious, mass-market, I don’t care I just have to smell them all."

At this his face lights up and I laugh in recognition of being in the presence of another true fragrance addict. “Even when I go grocery shopping for my house with my wife, she will literally avoid going into the cosmetics and toiletries aisle with me. She might say ‘Ok, I need a few things from there, but I am going on my own, I know what you’re like.’ If I walk past it, I have to grab it and smell it, and I don’t really care what it is, even, it could be a shower gel, it could be a body lotion, or of course a supermarket perfume. I have this need to know what’s in it, how are they fragrancing it? It drives her crazy.”

We talk some more about his journey, what led him to this point of being in such a prestigious perfumery. “You know,” Ali says thoughtfully as he munches on one of the delicious sweetly seeded biscuits, “six months ago we sat right here with Roja Dove and he smelled about six or seven of my perfumes. He said ‘I like them all’—actually, Annette in the perfumery, she took them to Roja Dove first, sometime before, because he is very busy and difficult to get hold of, but he had tried them, and he said ‘I wold like them all in my perfumery.’ I said, ‘Are you sure?’ I was worried I had misunderstood, so I said ‘ALL?’ just to be sure of what he was saying ‘… you want them all?’ He said ‘Yes. I want all of them.’ I was like ‘Wow, from Roja Dove this is some endorsement, what a start to my business.’ The more I know him the more I really like him as a person. He has been so supportive and kind, he is such a genuinely nice man. And you know what, although there has been such a lot of work, years I have put into this, I cannot yet say that the business has truly started, but he has such faith.”

As we wander back through from the Operatic hubbub to the darkly cocooning depths of the perfumery once again, they are carefully polishing the glass cabinet atop which Ali’s creations are proudly displayed. In prime position and immediately striking as you enter the room, there can be no doubt that the faith is well placed in AJ ARABIA, and Ali lets me spray AJ Black II on a spare bit of skin I have left on my right arm. Shyly, he admits that he was there on Friday when the perfumes had just arrived and been put out, and a gentleman walked in and tried Black II, falling in love with it on the spot, and saying "This is it, I don’t need to try anything else, I love it," and Ali went up and introduced himself to the man, shaking his hand and telling him that he was the first customer in the world to buy it. “I was so proud, I couldn’t help myself” he laughs. As I smell it, I cannot blame the customer for falling in love, it is another deliriously good fragrance, warm, mellow, a little sweeter than the others to my nose, certainly in the top notes, and putting my in mind of AJ I that I had tried first (the end section of it, at least) yet not at all the same. I explained to Ali that I would know the fragrances were from the same house but not quite how or why, being so different in character, and again he looked really pleased and said “…t his is good to hear, this is what we want. A familiarity in difference.”

We say goodbye to Annette, who shakes Ali’s hand warmly and thanks him so much for the wonderful training he gave them earlier in the day. Ali says it was his pleasure, and as we make our way down the gleaming escalators, from the very top of the store to the ground level again, Ali chatters excitedly about all the perfumes he has tried in the perfumery, and which ones he wants to buy, just as much as his own fragrances and how he hopes the business will expand. It is exactly this boundless enthusiasm and respect for perfume that shines from him when you talk to him, and when we finally part, Ali says that he has an announcement to make. “You know, I am a huge fan of Fragrantica, I use the site all the time as it’s so easy to navigate and I can feed my perfume addiction there. I’m not just saying this! I have a huge respect for anyone who truly loves and understands perfume, and I love what you do. I would like to tell you that I am going to exclusively announce all of my launches for AJ ARABIA on Fragrantica. Thank you so much for meeting me …”

 

He pressed the little tester bottle he brought with him, the first fragrance I tried, Black I, into my hand, saying “This is for you. I am so sorry I have not got all of the perfumes for you, I wish I did and could travel with them all, I find it embarrassing…” And with me so surprised and grateful because—you know what, actually I find this is my favorite after all —on that charming note he disappears into the perfume hall, saying he smelled a Roja Dove perfume earlier that morning and fell headlong for it, has been raving about it all day, and has decided to treat himself to. On speaking to the staff in the perfumery they suggested he try the Eau de Parfum and the Parfum before deciding which he should take, and off he goes like a shot, a fellow fragrance fiend on the hunt for the next fix. I wander out to the bright sunshine, taking time for another sneaky spray and inhaling deeply. It takes one to know one, after all.

 

The Perfume Conspiracy

 Let’s explore the current IFRA regulations and the looming events in the European Union with regard to restricting perfume ingredients under the guise of protecting 1% to 3% of humans from possible allergic reactions to the juice in the bottle. Rather than labeling perfume as potentially harmful, in the manner of food and tobacco labeling, legislation is being considered to restrict ingredients to a harm free level and in some cases to ban certain perfume ingredients entirely.

  The seed company Monsanto has propriety non-germinating seeds which it sells to farmers. These seeds are genetically modified to be disease resistance and to be optimized for growth by Monsanto fertilizer. Are we seeing a similar situation in Perfumery where aromachemicals become the only option for Perfumers? Perfumer Abdes Salaam Attar is of the opinion that this is the case. He chooses to only use natural ingredients, as his belief, not shared by all perfumers, is that there is a soul aspect to natural ingredients that cannot be replicated by science.

Chandler Burr and Luca Turin have done an excellent job of reassuring us that modern perfumery relies on scientific development and that we should take a relaxed attitude to aromachemicals and enjoy the additions that they make to Perfumery; additions such as the longevity and the stability of a scent as well as the formulation of scents that cannot be distilled or extracted from nature. The considerable cost of exalters such as ambergris means than the less expensive chemical formulations like ISO E Super and Timbersilk have given long life and exaltation to many if not most of the scents on the market today. This is a good thing, until your nose tires of ISO E Super.

The companies with a vested interest in selling aromachemicals rather than naturals are of course the Big 6; Givaudan, Takasago, IFF, Firmenich, Symrise, and Mane. The other big supplier Robertet specializes in natural ingredients. They are responsible for most of the perfumes produced in quantity everywhere in the world. They also employ what has been described as an army of chemists to find new ingredients or processes that make current ingredients more cost effective to produce in large quantities. I have noticed that sometimes when I have alerted perfumers to a new or interesting ingredient that they are completely uninterested as they are contracted to use the aromas sold by whichever company has a stake in their output.

There are seemingly independent creatively directed companies, none of whom I will mention, that are funded to a large degree by access to a prescribed palette of scent and in-house perfumers, from one of the aforementioned companies, or who have these companies as stakeholders in their output. A sensible choice with access to ingredients and perfumers. This also ensures a market for the aromachemicals on which considerable, make that massive, amounts of R&D money has been spent. The conspiracy theory is that it is the Big 7 perfume producing companies that stand behind the IFRA are actively engaging the replacement of natural ingredients with laboratory formed molecules. The IFRA styles itself as a self regulating body representing the perfume industry. The question is; are they representing the perfume industry or are they representing the R&D portion of the perfume industry? If this is their sophisticated business model it will ensure an ever growing market for aromachemicals especially in a scenario where natural scents that have been used for centuries in perfumery become banned or restricted substances.

A current overview of the legislative process currently on the EU table is available at Kafkaseque. Further details and an open letter from Luc Gabriel, CEO of The Different Company to journalists are at Grain de Musc. What do you think?