A CONTRIBUTION TO THE DEBATE

New synthetic drugs have still not been classified, but we can buy them freely and legally in shops or on the Internet and these have been killing dozens of young consumers in an astonishing indifference, for years. The guilty silence is deafening.
Killed by the million, victims of insecticides, neo-nicotinoids, bees have been disappearing; the natural balance of pollination is being jeopardized by the disappearance of beekeepers.
Pesticides can be found everywhere in our food, -dangerous, carcinogenic sometimes. Parabens, biphenols are still there. Bah!

And in a joyous mess where the absurdity does not seem to bother anyone, we see and hear everywhere, in newspapers, on television, on the radio, people glorifying and promoting essential oils as natural and organic. In aromatherapy, aromacology, their benefits are listed one by one, their soothing qualities here, and there, the bacterio-static properties. How to energise the water in the baby’s bath, early-morning rubs, gels and massage creams, and everyone has to add his little contribution: We remember Egypt, Ancient Greece, the essence of rose or jasmine, used on the hair or for the body, in royal bedchambers, the water demanded by the Queen of Hungary and the use of rosemary, the Cologne water used by Napoleon and its essence of orange, bergamot, lemon, Eau de Cologne Imperial by Guerlain ...
In the kitchen, thyme, rosemary, bay leaves, tarragon, cloves, nutmeg, even worse cinnamon, lemon, orange, tangerine tarts, candy, or biscuits flavoured with lavender (can be fatal if swallowed or if breathed in...) mugwort liqueurs, lozenges with pine, eucalyptus, mint essence, etc ... what have we found? Essential oils contain allergens. They are the source of all our ills.
Allergies, of course, but also asthma, melanoma, various irritations, perhaps cancer etc ...
Endocrinological disorders, exhaust pipes and air pollution, pesticides, peanuts ... etc ?
All of these are marginal. Forget about their dangers.

So poison, then. But, of course, it is the essence of lavender: a dangerous product which must be kept far out of the reach of children (wash thoroughly after handling), distillers around their stills, perfumers and their assistants in the laboratories – can they all be wearing astronaut suits?
But then, what about the products sold in pharmacies for fumigations as treatment of respiratory diseases, or lung diseases with thyme, lavender, cinnamon, cloves, etc.,? Cream balms and massage oils with essences of thyme, lavender, melaleuca, or peppermint ... ?
Also dangerous for the skin, citrus essences with their limonene, citral, linalool, geraniol, just like the essence of orange blossom that some use to flavour cakes.
It is no longer 26 but 179 allergens that are at present covered by the SCCS. Drastic restrictions or prohibitions, there is now talk of ppm.
What is happening is serious. We have lost all sense.
Europe has become Nonsense land, The King has lost his marbles!
This new directive will announce the death of the plantations of lavender, of hybrid lavender, and the sage from the southeast of France this agriculture of the dry mountains that governments have helped in the recent past, with subsidies ... often from Europe. It will wipe from the map the orchards of Sicily, Calabria,and the Maghreb, the last rose gardens of the south of France, Bulgaria, Turkey, Morocco, the fields of jasmine, or geraniums.
It will further reduce the perfumers' palette, limiting their creativity. The tyranny of computer software will render all creative research vain by imposing uniformity, and mediocrity. Think of new fragrances without natural products, the disappearance of many old and trusted ingredients heralding the triumph of synthesis and its supremacy.
Europe has given in this area one of the greatest ever examples of destruction.It will have sealed the fate of the French luxury perfume industry and its unique reputation in the world.
But what does that matter when India and China are opening schools of perfumers, building factories, museums , planting lavender, and hybrid lavender, and buying the essences of ylang ylang we can no longer use.
Europe will have succeeded in destabilizing a thriving industry that generates millions of jobs in the world and billions of euros for our economy. Do we want 950,000 more people unemployed?
We do not understand, we are incapable of understanding such a level of inconsistency, such determination against our own side, this unfair frenzy of dismantling, but we cannot fathom either such silence, such torpor on the part of the producers and the industry.
It was in fact during the presidency of Mrs. Nicole Fontaine that the report on "ingredients of perfumes, a danger to the health of consumers in Europe" was initiated.

How is it possible that we could just stand by and accept without hesitation that essential oils could be considered a mixture of chemical molecules: limonene, pinene, geraniol, linalool, iso-eugenol, citral, coumarin, etc ... and that the distillers of lavender and other essential oils be termed manufacturers when they simply extract from flowers, leaves, fruit, etc...
Or else stop talking to us about Nature and what is natural! And is it linalool or oxidized linalool? patch-testing? thresholds used?
Is there no longer any voice to be heard?
And all this because 1%, perhaps 2% of the population might be really allergic?

The lavender growers and their fields decimated by the leafhopper fields did not need this latest trick.
Every member of the perfume, cosmetics, or aromatherapy industry must unite (how discouraging it is to have to repeat this again) to end the mass suicide organized and programmed for over 20 years, due once more to Brussels.

Raymond CHAILLAN
Ingénieur ENSIA
Honorary President of the French Society of Perfume Producers

Lire le dossier complet : dossier-reach.pdf