Jupiter vs. Humility

Some of my students ask me what are the greatest threats to natural perfumery today, and I always say the EU restrictions. Now I have to add more to that  -- sustainability of raw materials, and easy access to pure, unadulterated raw materials. Don't get me wrong, the last on the list here has always been an issue, but in the past, it has been much easier to suss out the deception. New to natural perfumery students are, by droves, buying loads of fakes because of their cheap price tags, and because they don't know any better, and because of the rise of the MLMs and their special brand of duplicity. Then these same unenlightened students hang a shingle selling their wares, or worse, begin teaching classes and courses under the natural perfumery banner. And a lot of these new teachers have egos as big as Jupiter and don't want to hear it when you tell them their boronia absolute is a doctored, lab-created monstrosity. I drill this into my student's heads over the course of their instruction, if it seems too good to be true, it probably is, and that relates to both the cost of the material and how it smells. A long, long time ago, an extraordinary 'nose' and dear friend told me, "If it smells too pretty, it's probably fake." This works especially if you're new to the game because having been here in the natural perfumery trenches for over 15 years now, I know it is the little quirks of imperfection that make the real stuff far more beautiful than the elegantly manipulated and perfectly scented fakes. 

So I should probably add that bit to the growing list of threats to natural perfumery -- new teachers teaching natural perfumery who couldn't even pass the natural perfumery course they took to learn about natural perfumery because they refused to believe they could be wrong about that jasmine, or that orange blossom, or whatever, that they added to their final perfume submission. Humility goes a long way in this business. Then again, sh*t does float.