Get one whiff of oakmoss extract and you never forget it: a deep, raspy, dark smell that conjures up a primeval forest. For more than a century, this thick greenish-brown liquid — named for the bushy lichen it derives from, Evernia prunastri, which grows on oak trees — has served as a key ingredient in some of the world's most popular and profitable fragrances. But two years ago, industry regulators began radically restricting the use of oakmoss, leaving perfume makers scrambling to replace this idiosyncratic aroma.
Some chemists have risen to the challenge by brewing up what are, in effect, oakmoss knockoffs. One of the best substitutes is made by Mane, a flavor and fragrance manufacturer in the south of France. The man who developed it, Cyrill Rolland, used his lengthy experience working with natural raw materials to imitate the way the scent of oakmoss seems to evolve as you sniff, first evoking wet timber with a slightly bitter undertone of seaweed and then changing to a dry, woody aroma. Rolland has even captured the garden-mulch color of the genuine article. To an untutored nose, Mane's fake oakmoss smells like the real thing. But the company must convince a more discerning audience: other perfumers, who are the real customers for this product.
Why go to such lengths to replace this cornerstone of perfumery, a natural substance that is plentiful in the wild and available for just pennies an ounce? To answer that question is to plunge into a controversy that has split the fragrance industry and its often fanatical customers into warring camps. Starting in 2003, the main industry trade group, the International Fragrance Association, began to aggressively ban or restrict ingredients — now 174 in total — for health or environmental reasons. Some of the restrictions affect natural substances that have been used for centuries by millions of satisfied customers: rose oil, jasmine absolute, spice extracts, and bergamot and other citrus oils. In the case of oakmoss, testing has shown it to cause occasional cases of contact dermatitis, the sort of rash one gets from poison ivy and other chemical irritants. A few of the proscribed ingredients are important synthetics, such as lyral, a molecule widely used in perfumes to create a lilylike floral note. IFRA sees these moves as protective: Wary of bad PR and hoping to forestall action by governments (particularly the European Union, which has taken a hard-nosed approach to chemical regulation), the group feels that the industry is better off regulating itself. Because IFRA's members produce more than 90 percent of the world's fragrances, its rules effectively function as law for all but the most obscure niche manufacturers.
Not surprisingly, old-fashioned perfumers and critics are aghast that so many crucial, long-used ingredients could be jettisoned because of a rare and mild rash. Contemplating the most recent round of restrictions, one prominent perfume writer, Luca Turin, has gone so far as to pronounce the entire art of fragrance "officially dead."
The loss of oakmoss has been especially painful, because the extract traditionally anchored two entire classes of perfume. The first, the top-selling family of men's fragrances called fougére, began in the late 19th century and includes such famous scents as Brut and Drakkar Noir. The second, a family of both men's and women's fragrances called chypre, stretches from Guerlain's legendary Mitsouko, first released in 1919 and considered by some critics today to be the finest fragrance ever produced, all the way up to Chanel's Cristalle and beyond. For a $2 billion industry based on olfactory precision, in which a microliter substitution of one ingredient for another can constitute the entire difference between a dud and a megaseller, it is no exaggeration to say that Evernia prunastri has given off a valuable odor indeed.
"Some ingredients are there just to wrap things up," says perfumer Clement Gavarry of International Flavors & Fragrances. "They might add performance or make a fragrance last longer. But ingredients like oakmoss are there to provide character or give a crucial twist to the fragrance." Oakmoss has not been banned outright, but under the terms of its IFRA restriction, it can comprise no more than 0.1 percent of any perfume that contacts the skin directly — rendering the traditional formulas of chypre and fougére fragrances unusable.
Of course, even before this regulatory push, the technology of perfume-making had advanced far beyond the days when fragrances like Mitsouko were created by hand, using natural plant extracts adorned with just a few synthetic molecules. But traditional ingredients like oakmoss still tied perfumery to its ancient past. Now that this link is being severed, the challenge for the industry is to use technology to replace what's been lost — by developing new ingredients, both natural and synthetic, and using precise software-controlled machines to find new combinations that capture old essences. But with more ingredients getting restricted every year, the hunt for replacements has grown more complex, and perfumery is in danger of losing the scent.
In every spritz of perfume, roughly nine-tenths of the liquid is cosmetic-grade alcohol, which evaporates quickly, leaving the remaining 10 percent, a cocktail of dozens to hundreds of aromatic materials, hanging in the air or clinging to the skin. Perfumes thrive on complexity, and the makeup of that leftover tenth needs to strike not only the right combination of ingredients but also the right proportions among them, so that they coalesce into something new, a coherent, unique scent with pleasing associations. Most of us are unable to distinguish individual odors in a mixture of more than three components; confronted with the complexity of a good blend, our brains shape the experience into a seamless whole.
By volume, perfumes today are mostly synthetic chemicals that tend to be cheaper and more manipulable than natural materials. Perfumers can use a single chemical or group of chemicals to create an "accord," an impression of a smell in nature. Cis-3-hexenol, for example, suggests the aroma of cut grass. But natural extracts are still crucial because of their richness: Each contains tens to hundreds of different molecules, adding an olfactory fullness that no synthetic can match. And yet, the richer the chemical makeup, the greater the chance that one of those components could provoke a skin allergy or act as a weak carcinogen in rodents or become toxic to cells when exposed to sunlight — to name just some of the many reasons synthetic and natural raw materials are restricted today.
Denyse Beaulieu, a Paris-based fragrance writer and blogger, has coined a witty term to describe the kind of fragrance that thrives in the current regulatory environment: the "iFrag." It's a pun on IFRA and fragrance, but also, of course, on the iPod, which she feels shares a certain sterility with contemporary perfumes — scents that Beaulieu, when I met her in a café, derided as "skinny and fleshless." Like music heard through headphones, iFrags never invade anyone's personal space. To fragrance fans of Beaulieu's sensibility, perfume is supposed to be not just an art form but part of one's physical presence, a personal statement. Current tastes, she complains, demand scents that are scrubbed of all character, clinging meekly to the skin like a film of soap. "People want a sound bite of a fragrance — something nice, clean, and fresh," Beaulieu says. Above all, the iFrag avoids taking risks; its safety has been thoroughly evaluated, its pleasantness assured, its profitability guaranteed.
An altered perfume can feel like bad CGI: the surface seems accurate, but the substance has been hollowed out.The IFRA regulations have exposed a fundamental fault line in the perfume community. On one side are those like Beaulieu, Turin, and the British perfumer and writer Roja Dove, who see perfumery as an art with a deep creative history. ("The way I'd explain it," Dove says in the midst of an elegant rant about the regulations, "is that it's like trying to make a chicken dish if you can no longer use chicken. We're talking about raw materials that have been used in many instances for thousands of years.") On the other side, as expressed in the position of IFRA, is a vision of perfuming as a modern enterprise — and, specifically, as just one part of a much larger, more industrial fragrance business, in which the scent a customer wears on her neck soon winds up in a line of moisturizers or dish soaps. To this way of thinking, Prada and Gucci need to renounce proven allergens and toxins just as surely as Procter & Gamble does; otherwise, a product might not reach its full global market and the profits that come along with it.
The consequence is that IFRA's standards — drawn from independent scientific analyses by its partner organization, the Research Institute for Fragrance Materials — must put more weight on whether a material irritates an inner arm than on its beauty or place in history. The result, acknowledges William Troy, IFRA North America's president from 2007 to 2010, is that some essential ingredients are sacrificed. "And you know what? We can't do otherwise," he says. "If we can't demonstrate a safe use level, it's not in our best interest to allow that material to continue to be used in a product, because there are going to be problems — image problems as well as adverse consumer reactions." But fine perfumes, IFRA's opponents counter, cannot be altered as cavalierly as dish detergents can. To connoisseurs, poorly reformulated perfume is like badly rendered CGI: The surface details may seem accurate, but the substance has been hollowed out. Perfumes have scent structures, and once you become intimate with those structures it's easy to perceive the absence of a crucial room or — worse — a crack in the foundation.
Mane, Manufacturer of the ersatz oakmoss and a host of other perfuming ingredients, makes its home in a steep wooded valley near the village of Le Bar-sur-Loup, where its compound of utilitarian modernist buildings exudes a sometimes confusing array of smells into the country air. Passing through the hallways or past an exhaust pipe, one may suddenly be drenched by an olfactory blast of flowers or musk or cardamom. The surrounding hills and valleys are considered the birthplace of the perfume industry, which traces its roots to the 16th-century fashion of scenting leather products to mask the bitter odors of tanning chemicals. As perfumery has expanded into a global industry, the Grasse region, as it's called, has had to adapt. The tourist stops in Grasse still offer visions of flower fields and perfumers tinkering in old-fashioned laboratories, but in reality, the region is more of an intermediary these days, importing materials from around the world and extracting their natural essences. Although some flowers are still cultivated in Grasse, Jean-Pierre de Mattos, a representative of Mane, admits that today "the thing that grows best here is houses."
Mane produces its own perfumes, but it also develops raw materials to sell to competitors, an arrangement that seems odd but is actually common in the fragrance industry. On the day of my visit, the company was testing a new distillate of thyme, obtained through a process called supercritical CO2 extraction. Minced precisely, the thyme was mixed with cellulose and then poured into an extractor. Carbon dioxide was piped in and allowed to percolate with the herb. Finally, a lab-coated technician opened a small metal tank at the bottom of the last chamber, no more than a couple of feet high, and showed me what remained. The familiar kitchen herb had been transformed into a viscous liquid the color and consistency of butternut squash soup; it smelled pungently sweet and slightly smoky.
Although IFRA restrictions affect both natural and synthetic ingredients, they pose a particular problem for the natural ingredients, which can't simply be tweaked at the molecular level to make new compounds with almost identical scents. For example, IFRA limits levels of methyl eugenol, a chemical component of many natural materials, because it was found to act as a carcinogen in rodents. Not only is methyl eugenol a component of rose oil, one of perfumery's most prized ingredients, it is also found in spices such as clove and pimenta berry. The amount of methyl eugenol in a perfume must be controlled across its entire formula, so one material that contains it may have to be sacrificed for others. To replace a natural ingredient that traditionally has contained methyl eugenol, makers like Mane have to return to the raw materials, trying to find a new means of extraction whose result complies with the rules.
Natural ingredients can be swapped out for synthetics, but that's a complicated process in its own right. To mimic an aromatic substance like an essential oil using a man-made molecule, chemists first analyze it through gas chromatography and mass spectrometry in an attempt to figure out its chemical components. Using this information, they can sometimes identify which molecules are responsible for the odor and then re-create them synthetically. (These techniques also help to lift the veil on perfume formulas, which have always been guarded as carefully as nuclear launch codes. A quick chemical analysis can give a competitor a rough blueprint for how to copy any perfume.) It's common for companies to use these analytics to reproduce a well-loved smell in nature, like pear or lilac flower. But Mane has gone a step further to develop products that mimic the individual materials of perfumery.
At Givaudan in New York, if a formula breaks IFRA rules, the firm's three whirring robots won't even mix it. In its bid to replace oakmoss, Mane's laboratory began by chemically analyzing the natural extract, which, in the case of oakmoss, is called an absolute. Absolutes are more difficult to analyze than essential oils, which are obtained by steam distillation and made up of volatile molecules that are easily captured. Absolutes require the use of solvents, which concentrate heavy, complex molecules. Rolland says that a few of these chemicals could be synthesized artificially, but not all. The company spent months working on its oakmoss substitute and eventually found a natural substance — the identity of which is a closely guarded secret — that could be combined with synthetic molecules to produce its particular olfactory facets. And crucially, it passes muster with IFRA.
In making scents that comply with ingredient restrictions, raw materials are only part of the equation. Instead of doing one-for-one swaps, like fake oakmoss for the real thing, some perfumers will try to replicate scents with a blend of ingredients. Clement Gavarry of International Flavors & Fragrances hasn't found an oakmoss replacement that suits him, so he plays with multiple substitutes that he thinks produce a similar effect, such as synthetic musks. But, he says, "I don't have a secret accord that works every time. I have to be flexible and work with all the other ingredients I have." Andy Tauer, an independent Swiss perfumer, has been struggling to replace hydroxycitronellal — a restricted ingredient that was once commonly included in floral perfumes to add a lily-of-the-valley note. "I have to use a lot of creative energy to reinvent it, using different molecules and different materials," he says.
To see the contemporary perfume-making process in action, I visited the Manhattan office of Givaudan, a "fine-fragrance studio" with a hardwood and glass-block decor that strikes a neat balance between corporate efficiency and spa-like serenity. The largest fragrance and flavor manufacturer in the world, Givaudan has created perfumes for brands like Christian Dior, Calvin Klein, and Estée; Lauder. Based on specifications from these companies, Givaudan perfumers vie fiercely with the other major houses to bid on each project.
One of Givaudan's star perfumers is Calice Becker, who has the rare ability to make perfumes that are provocative but also pleasing in a crowd. Becker's fragrances tend to be smooth, seamless, and radiant, with no rough edges or elements out of place. She herself fits that description as well, elegantly dressed in neutrals with a flash of rust-colored lipstick to complement her reddish hair. A glance at her desk gives no doubt as to her occupation: Its surface is entirely covered with tiny glass bottles, arranged into clusters that represent the various projects she's working on.
But that's where the stereotype ends. Becker's creations begin not in a flask but on a desktop computer that accesses a central database holding all of Givaudan's formulas. When she wants to smell something she's working on, she sends the formula to the lab down the hall, where three whirring robots squirt precise amounts of chemicals and oils into canisters, producing the desired blend. The robots manage 85 to 125 mixtures per day, segueing seamlessly between various projects from the firm's many perfumers. Becker's computer is linked not just to the local robots but to similar automatons at Givaudan's other offices worldwide. This allows her to whip up a formula for a client in Paris or São Paulo and have it poured for them instantly. The system also makes it easier for Givaudan's perfumers to collaborate on scents, a growing trend that is upending a tradition of individualism.
Each formula is also linked to a database of safety and regulatory information on more than 3,000 materials. Regulation has made it nearly impossible to work efficiently without software to tell perfumers what they can and can't use. Even with their astonishing memory for materials, perfumers cannot hold in their minds every detail of the permitted dosage for each: IFRA's rules can vary depending on the type of product — an alcohol-based perfume versus a soap versus a candle — and also can change from one year to the next. When Becker started as a perfumer, only a few materials were banned and her firm employed just a single person to keep tabs on regulatory issues.
Now Becker formulates her palette under the watchful eyes of roughly 75 safety experts, a team led by Greg Adamson, vice president for global regulatory affairs and product safety. Adamson is a toxicologist by training, but he exerts a tremendous influence on the composition of scents: "If I say they can't use an ingredient," he says, "it can't be used." This is not just theoretically true; it's coded into the software. If Becker dreams up a fragrance that violates IFRA rules, the robots won't even mix it for her.
As the surge in regulation has thrown existing formulas into confusion, perfumers like Becker have increasingly been saddled with requests to reformulate old fragrances instead of create new ones. It is a largely thankless process, and when the resulting product gets to customers, it's hard to ensure they'll be happy. "We do our best to come as close as possible," Becker says. "But olfactive memories are very, very strong. You cannot fool someone who has worn something for 20 years."
Indeed, on the online forums of Basenotes.net, fans mourn fragrances they believe have been reformulated. They scour eBay for "vintage" bottles of their favorites (I have my own small stockpile of vintage Chamade, a floral from Guerlain that, to me at least, smells thinner in its current incarnation). Fans also worry that some perfumes will be discontinued altogether, particularly the unusual, artistic scents that don't sell enough to justify the cost of reformulation. In Paris, I picked up one of the last bottles of Eau du Fier, a fragrance by the niche brand Annick Goutal. It's an idiosyncratic scent that blasts onto the skin like campfire smoke, then softens with the fruity apricot note of osmanthus; the result smells like a warm cup of smoked osmanthus tea. But Goutal has stopped making the fragrance altogether; it contains a high level of natural birch tar, which is banned by IFRA except in purified forms. Goutal's perfumer, Isabelle Doyen, says that while she could conceivably reformulate Eau du Fier using a purified birch tar, its sales have not proven robust enough to justify the effort.
And yet, despite the considerable constraints that perfumers face — regulations, stingy budgets, the commercial demand for pleasing but forgettable fragrances — creative innovation continues, albeit to match changing tastes. Paradoxically, as companies race to reformulate their top-selling scents in the near term, the restrictions on classic ingredients like oakmoss are slowly changing the palates of consumers and perfumers alike. Ralf Schwieger, at Mane's Manhattan office, dreams of creating a fragrance based on clove, his favorite note, but knows that his next fragrance is more likely to smell like a trendy fruity floral. While he rues the hardships of trying to adapt existing formulas, he doesn't feel as constrained when he turns his nose to new creations: "You can adapt," he says, "and still do something interesting." Schwieger notes that younger perfumers don't bemoan the loss of historic materials and are less put off by the highly regulated, automated creation process.
Mane's airy, windowed laboratory in New York is packed with shelves of materials in alphabetically labeled bottles. The names include natural substances like citrus essential oils and jasmine absolute, aroma chemicals with proprietary names, and bases with descriptions like "fresh bread accord" that contain a mix of materials. As we sample various substances, I ask Schwieger about oakmoss. He dips a blotter in an IFRA-approved version of oakmoss absolute and sniffs. "I must say, I almost don't use it anymore," he says. As it happens, Givaudan's Becker says much the same thing: Oakmoss "is the past 50 years of perfumery. And now if you put back the moss at the level we used to have, it will smell dated." Just two years into its exile, oakmoss — a living thing scraped by hand off the bark of a tree — is on its way to becoming an anachronism, a dark scent out of a Grimm's fairy tale.
This, in the end, is the likely fate of many of the restricted ingredients. Even if these classic elements can be duplicated, perfumers and eventually customers will move on. Already, Chanel has released an impressive chypre (called 31 Rue Cambon, the address of Coco Chanel's Paris apartment) that uses no oakmoss at all; several other major brands are releasing chypre scents that emphasize patchouli rather than moss. If oakmoss slips into the past, it will go the way of nitro musks, a class of synthetic musks that figured importantly in 20th-century perfumery before restrictions, prompted by a variety of health and environmental concerns, effectively ended their use. Nitro musks were even used in Chanel No. 5, the world's most iconic perfume, which turned 90 this year; the woman who buys No. 5 today appreciates the fact that she's buying a piece of history, but in fact it's a revisionist one. Putting the musks back in might make consumers feel it was too old-fashioned. In other words, noses adapt, and even the reformulated Mitsouko will become, over time, simply Mitsouko.
Courtney Humphries (chumphries.org) is the author of Superdove: How the Pigeon Took Manhattan ... and the World.
