Brussels

I will be absent until Thursday, flying to Brussels, home of …..the Commission! The EU is quite an administrative goliath, in every aspect you may think of. Bananas, housing, you name it (maybe that’s the price we have to pay for a neatly working society, who knows?) ….it has also imposed legislation on perfumery, respectively perfumes which addresses issues such as labelling of potential allergenic compounds. Luckily, the Swiss legislation is somewhat more relaxed. Here you have to declare: perfume, alcohol, that’s it. Sometimes Swissness means easy business! But in the end you are still responsible for what you put in your perfumes and you are liable. The state just seems to trust you a tiny-winy-bit more than the EU...

The relevant EU files are all accessible on the internet but not really intuitive as far as their language is concerned. (see here for the Amendment of the Council Directive 76/768/EEC.. (pdf, beware: tough wording)) Bottom line: perfumes to be sold in the EU have to declare compounds (above a very low threshold) such as Linalool which may lead to adverse reaction if applied by sensitive consumers. Somehow, this is good, as every consumer has the possibility to check for a particular compound. On the other hand: Linalool is in Lavender oil, in Bergamot oil, in Corriander oil, …. (The labelling issue, to my knowledge, is also relevant for natural perfumers, but taken less seriously.)

Such, as always in life, there is the question of where to draw the line. For me, the line is for sure within the IFRA recommendations. Here, I am strict. As far as the labelling is concerned. I do not think it is really cared for by the consumers. I live with it, but it is a hassle and not inspiring at all.