Are synthetics bad?

No, not all synthetic perfume molecules are bad. That we know of. But some we do know are bad.

The truth is, all natural essences from a plant are “chemicals.” When it boils down to it, everything is a chemical. These essential oils come from plants and flowers whose purpose is to etiher repel and protect) itself, or to attract other life forms. The way a plant is interacting in its environment causes this chemical reaction to occur, resulting in the fragrance we smell, whether attractive or not.

There are some synthetics that we know are toxic endocrine disruptors and these are the sytnhetic musks. Unfortuately, these musks smell great and make up the bases of many perfumes we love. They also contribute to longevity of the fragrance. These musks have been found in body tissue of the wearer, weeks later, as well as in the breast milk of women. What this tells us is that the body absorbs it but does not dispel of it properly. Instad, it becomes intertwined with the chemical makeup of our body, interfering with our body to maintain balance and function properly.

One can say that the increase of chemicals in our society has created a huge increase in cancer and other diseases, whether these chemicals are ones found in our food, in the air, or in our hygiene and cosmetic products.

At La Roux Perfume, we use only materials we know are safe and avoid 99% of synthetic molecules. This is a hard balance to strike because working with synthetics has many benefits to a perfumer such as: it allows the perfumer a larger palette to choose from (synthetic molecules are often 1 single molecule whereas a drop from a rose that smells like the rose we recognize contains over 100 fragrance molecules, it allows for more manipulation and ability to make perfumes lighter (we have been conditioned to like more of these lighter and more synthetic smelling perfumes, and it is much cheaper than using naturals.