Firstly an explainer about what natural perfume is; natural perfumery involves creating fragrances using only natural ingredients sourced from plants, flowers, fruits, spices, resins and other botanical sources. These ingredients are extracted through methods like steam distillation, solvent extraction and enfleurage and diluted with either an oil or alcohol base to create a perfume.
At Archer Farrar we believe that you can’t improve on nature, it’s as simple as that. We love the craftsmanship involved in creating bespoke scents for clients and celebrate the unique and complex scents of the botanicals, the idiosyncrasies from the growing environment and extraction process which can’t be replicated in a lab. We believe in only using ingredients with a botanical name which are an expression of the whole plant or part of the plant. We don’t use isolates, which are individual aromatic compounds extracted to capture a specific scent note or aroma molecule found in essential oils (or created synthetically in a lab). Natural isolates are used by most natural perfumers as they create consistency and tenacity in the final perfume but for us at Archer Farrar, it’s just a step too far away from the whole botanical.
Some benefits of natural perfume that our clients love are that our ingredients are sustainable, safer for people sensitive to harsh chemicals, totally unique due to the botanicals that change with season and growing environment (much like the grapes in wine) and they contain the therapeutic effect of the essential oils used. And lastly they smell gorgeous, which is really the point isn’t it?