Formerly doomed to be thrown away, gariguette strawberry scraps, clementine bark or carrot seeds are now the new perfumery palette. After fashion and cosmetics, upcycling is proving to be a new playground for perfumers who, dissatisfied with working for the good health of the planet, use waste to invent new fragrances.
Upcycling, in French ‘surcycling’, consists of adding value to objects or materials that are intended to be thrown away, with a view to reducing waste and wastage. A process that is already attractive to the fashion industry, which uses, among other things, fabric scraps and unsold items to create new collections, as well as cosmetics that use seeds, kernels and other waste partly from the food industry to develop formulas for its new collections. beauty products. The benefits of upcycling are such that it is now the perfumery’s turn to adopt this method that pushes the boundaries of the circular economy.
Reclaiming waste
Why throw away clementine bark or even strawberry leftovers from gariguette, when these can be used in the composition of the future fragrance that will intoxicate you for days? Many perfumers today turn to waste to invent new fragrances. And while upcycling may seem far removed from the luxurious and glamorous image of perfumery, it in fact embodies the future of an industry reinventing itself to become more responsible and even more virtuous.
This is the case with the TechnicoFlor family group, specialized in the creation and production of aromatic compositions for the perfumery and cosmetics industry, which has just unveiled a first perfume collection based mainly on upcycling. At stake ? No less than eight responsible fragrances developed by its perfumers, who have given themselves the challenge of integrating an upcycled raw material into each composition. And among the selected ones are some unexpected and surprising ingredients.
Pierre Flores, Marika Symard, Christine Lucas, Bertrand Duchaufour, Jeremy Sabater, Bérengère Bourgarel, Irène Farmachidi and Félix Deschamps have chosen for this collection white lees, recovered from the deposit created during the barrel maturation of the wine and champagne, cypress absolute, which comes from furniture manufacturing waste, clementine from bark or cocoa absolute from pods. These by-products and wastes, whether of natural or synthetic origin, have enabled all these noses to improve their palette of new fragrances, in addition to participating in the development of more responsible fragrances.
“Using upcycled raw materials is a real environmental challenge for the perfume industry. I think this responsible approach perfectly defines the perfumery of tomorrow”
Pierre Flores, one of the perfumers behind this collection
Bertrand Duchaufour, for his part, sees it as a way to renew itself: “Besides the eco-responsible dimension, working with raw materials from upcycling is all the more interesting because they challenge us to deal with a new product quality that is never easy to implement. This epigraph in a perfume”.
The future of perfumery
The perfume industry is gradually upcycling, albeit more slowly than the cosmetics and fashion players. Of Angel Nova, the candy pink version of its emblematic fragrance, Mugler has distinguished itself in this niche offering, combining notes of raspberry, lychee and benzoin, a damask rose born from a double extraction, the result of a combination between upcycling and biotechnology. A process specially developed for at home that allows you to enjoy a unique scent.
For its part, Etat Libre d’Orange has gone even further, and this din 2018 with the unveiling of “Les Fleurs du Déchet – I AM TRASH”, a juice developed from waste from the perfume industry. From apple essence to gariguette strawberry, bitter orange and rose absolute, the fragrance’s key ingredients are all upcycling. An achievement that demonstrates the industry’s interest in this process, which tends to eliminate, if not significantly reduce, waste and waste.
(ETX Daily Up)