A Sweet-Smelling Union/Cropwatch & The Perfume Foundation

Tony Burfield  has announced what appears to be a much-needed alliance and collaboration between The Perfume Foundation and his organization, Cropwatch.  This effort will certainly bring sensible debate to offset the disturbing mandates coming down from regulatory agencies, as well as give a leg up to artisan natural perfumers and aromatherapists by promoting agro-commerce in aromatic crops and supporting under-represented indigenous producers in the current legislative dialog and marketplace. Tony, a blogger here on Aromaconnection, is applauded and supported by other bloggers here for this endeavor.
      
The following is an excerpt from Cropwatch's June Newsletter announcing the alliance:

Preamble

A collaboration is announced to pursue mutual objectives for the further promotion of the Perfumery Art is announced between The Perfume Foundation & Cropwatch.

The Perfume Foundation has been operating in Brussels since 1995, and states that its mission is “to be the leading authority on environmental and health issues related to fragrances and scents, while contributing to the cultural heritage of perfume.”

Cropwatch really commenced in earnest from 2004 as an Independent Watchdog to the Aroma trade, initially to try to counter the commercial over-exploitation & bio-piracy of rare & threatened natural aromatic plants. More recently Cropwatch has tried to counter regulatory threats against the sustainability of natural product usage in everyday life.

Mutual Interest Projects:

1. To assemble, facilitate & expand the exchange of scientific information on fragrance matters.

2. To achieve a critical mass of experts in order to challenge some of the wrongheaded outcomes from deliberations of existing governmental legislators.

3. To work to launch the “Campaign for Real Perfumes” Underlying this is the belief that natural ingredients should not be unduly discriminated against by legislators. The scope and details of this campaign are still being discussed.

4. To promote agro-commerce in safe natural aromatic materials for fragrance production in order to facilitate artisan perfumery. This may include the support of producers in undeveloped nations who are discriminated against by legislation, i.e. legislation which will only allow usage of ingredients which have been subject to high technology (& therefore high investment cost) processing.

5. To create “The Perfume Embassy” office in Brussels as an ambassador of perfume excellence.
The Problems to Overcome.

Fragrance regulation in the EU unfortunately occurs within the cosmetics sector, rather than being subject to its own Fragrance Commissioner and fragrance expert advisers. Anyone working within the cosmetics sector will be totally aware that fragrance expertise is separate and non-complementary to cosmetics expertise. Because of the way the administration has been set up within the EU, a number of critical mistakes have been made in the way the Cosmetics regulatory process operates. These mistakes need to be properly identified and put right.

Proposed Events

It is proposed that a conference be held in Brussels at a date to be announced. The conference would feature speakers with views at variance with those expressed by IFRA/RIFM, the SCCP etc. etc. The conference could also include natural ingredient manufacturers adversely affected by cosmetics sector legislation, as well as strongly featuring the cosmetic industry & its problems. Interplay with other industries who are also opposed to EU policies in their own fields is also being sought, to see if lessons can be learned.