Ok, so I didn't want this to be a long blog post with me ranting on and on so I will make this a quick one.
I have quite a few clients asking me about some beauty products and they say to me 'well it should be OK, it's fragrance free!'. Now, I am not talking about all skin care when I say this, so please don't quote me! What I find most frustrating though, is when big companies brand their products as if they have no chemicals in them - the main one being fragrance. Now, I make a lot of skin care products, including face creams and let me tell you, they all smell of something. I use natural ingredients including natural oils such as calendula, rosehip and jojoba oils. Even though these are very simple, they are extracted in some way from a plant - which will have a smell! Rosehip especially has quite a strong 'garden like' smell and there is not real way of hiding it unless you are using a lot of essential oils (or for some companies - perfumes!). Please don't get me wrong, think it's good that we are going more natural with our skin care nowadays. It is also good that companies are following suit and are trying to reduce the amount of parabens and nasty chemicals in our products, but 'fragrance free' is a load of rubbish sometimes! ALL products smell of something naturally, so when you pick up a pot of cream that has no fragrance, it is just that! It has not smell. Do not mix this up with it not having any perfume, it just has no fragrance. Some companies actually ADD perfume to neutralise the smell of a product which gets rid of the 'fragrance', but does not mean it has no perfumes in it! Please be aware of this branding technique because little companies like myself can find this very frustrating. I DO NOT add perfume, only a very small amount of natural essential oils (which do smell different to artificial perfumes as they are natural!).
I hope I have cleared up this without ranting too much and have also made you aware of something next time you pick up a product. Just because something says it has 'simple' ingredients in it, please be aware - the definition of 'simple' is "plain, basic, or uncomplicated in form, nature, or design; without much decoration or ornamentation". This doesn't mean that it's organic, made from natural ingredients or perfume free for that matter. 10/10 to them branding gods mind, but I will stick to nature thank you.
Thanks so much for reading
Emmaline x