Get a cup of coffee or tea - this is a long blog post, with lots of twists and turns and surprises - good surprises!  Please see the blog post yesterday on the Guild member vote on the definition of natural isolates if you have not already read it.

Backstory

Do you ever wonder why I never taught a course in natural isolates or began to sell them on my website? After all, I was the pioneer natural perfumer who first used them in my MoonDance and StarFlower perfumes, both best sellers and award winners. Something told me that I needed to do a lot more research because a wrong move, the wrong isolate sold, could ruin the creations of lots of perfumes made by my (natural perfumer) customers. I have a duty as a trusted authority in natural perfumery, a person who heads the Natural Perfumers Guild, and who started a Yahoo discussion group on natural perfumeryin 2002, to be responsible and proceed slowly. Currently there are no regulations that address natural isolates, or even natural perfumes, except for the Guild's standards.  There are lots of perfumers claiming to be natural perfumers who use synthetics.  We are the only organization that demands 100% natural raw materials in the perfumes of our Professional Perfumers. Other than that, there are no guidelines or standards that any natural perfumer must abide by or follow to be in compliance when stating their perfumes/fragrances are natural. The Guild wants, and needs to be the standard bearer of natural perfumery, and a self-regulating association. So, with this in mind, we moved forward and heard all sides. In April, 2010 I posted a short blog post about natural isolates.  I stated my intent to teach a short course about them at the Natural Perfumery Institute.  Aided, by a perfume chemist, the more we delved into what we thought were 100% natural isolates, the more it became apparent that a lot of them were being produced by laboratory processes far outside of the definition of what I originally knew as the only process to produce natural isolates. I had often told, and coaxed, in fact, natural perfumers into stepping outside of the typical raw materials of essential oils and absolutes by informing them that the various fractional distillates of ylang ylang oil they used - Extra, I, II and III, were, in fact, natural isolates. The distiller stopped the process momentarily at specific odor profile points in the process to "isolate" the desired  fraction of the essential oil. I also had natural geraniol and some other isolates, but I needed to research further to confirm what was natural and what was not. At one point, I had been talked into believing, by two other perfume chemists that I thought was leading us to natural isolate definitions that fermentation, among other lab practices were giving us natural isolates - even microbes got into the mix.  It was obvious there was a need for a lot more research.  That's where the layers of the onion began to be peeled back.  The more folks we talked to, the more confusion arose about "natural" isolates. As mentioned, I found that what I was told were natural isolates, and the section I wrote about them in my textbook, were very problematic.  I started studying chemistry.  I didn't absorb the chemistry info very well, and got more confused, more unsure of it all. A major concern to me is that during this period (Apr. 10 to Oct. 11) was that I saw many starting to sell "natural" isolates and kits of isolates that I was concerned were far afield from "natural". Very troubling to me was the fact that many natural perfumers were buying them, using them, loving them, and that the horse was out of the barn before these isolates were properly vetted. Also, some were selling proprietary "compounds" from the flavoring industry that had fruity (very desired in the NP community) aromas, and that if the seller or the sources stopped making them, the perfumer was out of luck, that perfume either had to be reformulated without it, or discontinued. It was time to open this subject for discussion and put the matter to a vote by the members Natural Perfumers Guild. As the president of the Guild, I have put in motion steps necessary to firmly position the Guild as a self-regulating association.  This means that the Guild members will adopt, step-by-step, self-imposed compliance elements that will allow us to be viewed by governmental agencies as responsible artisans that have high standards and accountability about our products and processes.   These high standards will allow us to call our perfumes natural and to get the government off our backs in some regulatory matters.  I'll be blogging more about this soon, but in the meantime, the big concern was Guild perfumers perhaps using these isolates and compounds before we had a good handle on them. Damage could be done to the Guild's standing as self-regulating if government scrutiny of member use of these materials came after they were declared non-natural by any agency. At this point, I believe there are only two perfumers in the Guild using isolates besides myself. The best bet, I thought was to take the most conservative path, but that was not my call, the Guild members needed to see all sides and decide themselves. In November, 2011 the discussion began in the Guild Yahoo group.  There were many sides to the analysis presented by a number of Guild members. The exchanges were passionate, probably the most passionate the Guild members have ever had.  I said a little here and there, but I was just there to move the discussion along.  Several members had a much better understanding of the processes, and discussed them in the most incredible detail, down to the molecular level.  Lab processes were debated back and forth. The Guild Standards Committee took all the comments under advisement and worked over the holidays to sort through the pros and cons on both sides. In February 2012, the committee put the definition they had selected as the best one that exemplified the goals and ideals of natural perfumery regarding natural isolates and put it to a vote themselves. They voted unanimously to present the following to the Guild members for a vote: "A natural isolate is a molecule that was removed/isolated from a natural fragrance material that contains the isolate.  Processes that are acceptable for removing/isolation are: fractional distillations, rectifications, and molecular distillations of natural fragrance materials, also as defined by the Guild." After a week, the Guild members had voted to adopt that definition by a 78% majority. The members voted to adopt as acceptable isolates, those produced by methods similar to those used to produce ylang ylang(s), geraniol, menthol, citral and other distilled fractions and accept them as natural isolates (see partial list below).

What is natural in the USA and the EU?

Bruce Bolmes of SMK Fragrances was of great help in this project.  Not only was he the project manager for the Standards Committee, he has a keen understanding of the laws of the US and the EU regarding fragrance and flavor materials. When the Guild members questioned the definition of natural, Bruce copied and pasted a series of informative links and writings on the subject.  Here is a sampling of what he shared with the Guild members. =================== PART 101—FOOD LABELING Subpart B—Specific Food Labeling Requirements (a) (3) The term natural flavor or natural flavoring means the essential oil, oleoresin, essence or extractive, protein hydrolysate, distillate, or any product of roasting, heating or enzymolysis, which contains the flavoring constituents derived from a spice, fruit or fruit juice, vegetable or vegetable juice, edible yeast, herb, bark, bud, root, leaf or similar plant material, meat, seafood, poultry, eggs, dairy products, or fermentation products thereof, whose significant function in food is flavoring rather than nutritional. Natural flavors include the natural essence or extractives obtained from plants listed in §§182.10, 182.20, 182.40, and 182.50 and part 184 of this chapter, and the substances listed in §172.510 of this chapter.

EEU Natural Certificate:

The Product can be labeled according to articles 3(2)(c) and (k) of Regulation (EC) No 1334/20081 regarding natural flavoring substances. Regulation (EC) No1334/2008 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 16 December 2008 on flavourings and certain food ingredients with flavoring properties for use in and on foods https://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=OJ:L:2008:354:0034:0050:en:PDF 3(2)(c) `natural flavouring substance' shall mean a flavouring substance obtained by appropriate physical, enzymatic or microbiological processes from material of vegetable, animal or microbiological origin either in the raw state or after processing for human consumption by one or more of the traditional food preparation processes listed in Annex II. Natural flavouring substances correspond to substances that are naturally present and have been identified in nature; 3(2)(k) `appropriate physical process' shall mean a physical process which does not intentionally modify the chemical nature of the components of the flavouring, without prejudice to the listing of traditional food preparation processes in Annex II, and does not involve, inter alia, the use of singlet oxygen, ozone, inorganic catalysts, metal catalysts, organometallic reagents and/or UV radiation. ANNEX II List of traditional food preparation processes Chopping Coating Heating, cooking, baking, frying (up to 240 °C at atmospheric pressure) and pressure cooking (up to 120 °C) Cooling Cutting Distillation/rectification Drying Emulsification Evaporation Extraction, incl. solvent extraction in accordance with Directive 88/344/EEC Fermentation Filtration Grinding Infusion Maceration Microbiological processes Mixing Peeling Percolation Pressing Refrigeration/Freezing Roasting/Grilling Squeezing Steeping An isolate is simply one piece of a pie, so to speak....or a single piece of a whole. For example water is 2 parts hydrogen and one part oxygen, right.  So hydrogen would be an isolate of water. We all seem to agree that a natural isolate is a part of something, and if we can agree that it must be removed from, rather than created / man made from another material - materials then the task at hand would be a fairly simple process We would call the whole a compound in chemistry, and the pieces, are called molecules or for this topic they can also be called constituents, or isolates. Therefore we can state, hydrogen is an isolate of water, or a molecule found in water and it is a constituent of water. Now we know phenylethyl alcohol is found in rose essential oil, then we can state phenylethyl alcohol is a molecule found in rose essential oil, it is also a constituent of rose oil and it can be removed / isolated from rose oil, so it is a natural isolate.  Everyone in the guild knows what a natural perfuming material is, e.g. essential oil, absolute, etc. etc.. And everyone knows what an aroma chemical is, it could be man made molecule not found in nature, e.g. ambrox, or a man made copy of a molecule found in nature, e.g. exaltone, in other-words a synthesized molecule - a synthetic. However the term 'Natural Isolate' is not defined, at least when it applies to a 'natural fragrance material'. If we first look at the root words 'natural isolate', 'natural' denotes 'found in nature' -  'naturally occurring' 'isolate' denotes 'isolated' - 'removed from' 'isolate' from a technical dictionary: to separate (as a chemical compound) from all other substances, obtain pure or in a free state'. A 'compound' is any substance that is formed of two or more elements/molecules. An example of a compound is water, for our use, it could be vanilla absolute... So to sum that up a 'natural isolate' of vanilla abs. would be a substance that has been separated from all of the other substances found in vanilla abs., e.g. vanillin. I apologize if I have bored everyone to death so far, and I do not mean to be condescending or come across as a "know it all", but it is very important we all are on the same page moving forward. In addition, if we all agree to these definitions they can be used later on in the guild's position paper on defining natural perfumery. To continue; We know 'vanillin' is a molecule found in the compound vanilla absolute, therefore 'vanillin' is a 'natural isolate'. We also know that a natural isolate is separated from, or removed from a compound, by definition. We can then conclude that the natural isolate vanillin is not man-made/ synthesized, it was removed from a natural compound, that already contained vanillin as part of that compounds constituents. We also know that synthetic vanillin, a commonly used aroma chemical is a synthetic molecule [man made - created] and as such is not allowed to be used in the natural perfumes, as per current guild standards. Synthetic vanillin, 'synthesized vanillin' can be made very inexpensively, by a number of common organic chemistry reactions, some of which render it useless for food/flavor use. Synthetic vanillin, 'bio-synthesized vanillin' can also be made inexpensively, by a number of the so-called bio-synthesized methods, these methods have been approved by the above-mentioned regulatory bodies for use in the food/flavor industries. The bio-synthesized methods still produce a synthetic material, since it is man-made, these methods replace the dangerous chemicals used in organic reactions, with modified strains of fungus, aspergillus niger, one of the Candida species, etc..etc.. to render the products food safe. So in conclusion, if we would apply the above definition of what a natural isolate is or should be in this case, we then could conclude that a bio-synthesized molecule is NOT a natural isolate, since it was created in the lab / man-made, rather than removed from or separated from a compound. Of course this is just one example of the current approved methods that will allow the term 'Natural'(*) to be used in the label. Some Natural Isolates Ambrettolide - Isolated from: Hibiscus abelmoschus Benzyl acetate - Isolated from: Cananga odorata Carvone dextro - Isolated from: Anethum graveolens Caryophyllene beta - Isolated from: Eugenia caryophyllus Cinnamic alcohol - Isolated from: Liquidambar styraciflua Cinnamic aldehyde - Isolated from: Cinnamomum cassia Cinnamyl cinnamate - Isolated from: Liquidambar styraciflua Citral - Isolated from: Litsea cubeba Citronellal - Isolated from: Cymbopogon spp. Citronellol laevo - Isolated from: Pelargonium graveolens l'Herit. Diosphenol - Isolated from: Barosma betulina Elemol - Isolated from: Canarium spp Ester 816 - Isolated from: Vitis vinifera Estragol - Isolated from: Illicium verum Eugenol - Isolated from: Eugenia caryophyllus Galbanol - Isolated from: Ferula galbaniflua Geraniol - Isolated from: Cymbopogon martinii Geraniol - Isolated from: Monarda fistulosa menthaefolia Linalool dextro - Isolated from: Coriandrum sativum Linalool laevo - Isolated from: Mentha X piperita Linalyl acetate - Isolated from: Citrus aurantium Linalyl acetate - Isolated from: Mentha X piperita Methyl methylanthranilate - Isolated from: Citrus reticulata Blanco Nerolidol - Isolated from: Myrocarpus frondosus and fastigiatus Ocimene - Isolated from: Tagetes glandulifera Octyl butyrate - Isolated from: rectification of 100% various natural products Phenylethyl alcohol - Isolated from: Rosa damascena Rhodinol - Isolated from: Cymbopogon Terpenyl acetate - Isolated from: rectification of 100% various natural products ------------------------

Being the Captain of Your Own Fragrant Ship:

Boat on the Perfume River, Vietnam

Correspondence with A Natural Perfumer Wishing to Join the Guild Well, now that all the above has been read and digested by you, I hope that you see the logic and naturalness of how the Guild members arrived at the vote. As we in the Guild were readying the press release, I coincidentally received an email from Alex Groppe, who had previously told me of his intentions to join the Guild as a Professional Perfumer.  I have known Alex for many years, since he joined the Yahoo NP group. With Alec's permission, here is our correspondence of May 9 and 10, 2012: Hey Anya: I'm having to come to terms with the issue of isolates. I have recently begun to use (name deleted) isolates with great satisfaction and I concur that, as she proffers, a whole new world  can be opened up for us through their employ in our scent creations. I've read your most recent position article about the use of isolates - and I trust your wisdom and sense here as much as I trust (name deleted) = a conundrum. She seems, in this matter, to be boldly going where angels fear to tread; you seem more reticent in the use of the isolates. Though I'm a philosopher/theologian/historian by way of my academic journey, I believe your academic background is in environmental/botanical science - which leads me to trust your instinct. Microbes are natural yet not botanical. I get it. For me,  it is unequivocally clear that an isolate product used in 'natural perfumery' ought to be derived from a natural source - 'botanical,' 'organic,' or 'natural' - nothing from petroleum, lab-designed molecular soups, etc… Your call to inquire as to isolate product provenance is completely warranted and gravely important to the integrity of natural perfumery.  I suppose I am struggling with the thought that while (name deleted) has embraced the use of sound isolates, you seem not to have done so - it leaves me in a quandary … do I ? ...don't I? How do current professional Guild Members view the use of botanical - organic- TRULY natural - isolates? I can imagine this issue might be a perennial question of late, so, if you offer me  a link to a prior response without having to recapitulate the whole thing, I won't be offended 😉 If, however, you've not had an opportunity to either consider or address this particular sort of uncertainty, I'd hope you'd oblige 😉 Sincerely~ ...with all my hopes and best wishes~ Alex~ Hi Alex: I rue the day I convinced (name deleted) to try isolates.  I used ylang ylang as an example. She went on to also source compounds from suppliers that keep their formula secret.  Just on the grounds I'm a natural perfumer who wants to be able to replicate my perfumes with the raw materials that I *know*, I refused to try them when suppliers offered them years ago.  Then I found out more about the processes used to make what I call synthetic isolates, and well, I'll let you read the press release that will go out next week, as I decided to turn the issue over to the Guild members.  It will affect you. Anya (snipped the press release LINK HERE where in the final paragraph I describe how I'm going to reformulate my best seller StarFlower because it contains a questionable isolate). Hi Alex: I think our exchange was illuminating, logical, and really goes to the heart of one of the biggest problems I was speaking with others about, natural perfumers using the stuff that won't let them 'captain their own fragrant ships' (the compounds) or heavily manipulated isolates from sources other than a parent material that naturally contains it. Anya Hi Anya~ bedrock - solid  reasons to avoid the stuff! I wholeheartedly concur. I like the part about captaining your own fragrant ship = another great reason to garden, tincture and extract your own goodies ;)) It shouldn't be so difficult to back out the isolates and tweak my formulas - it affects two current projects and one completed product. Thank goodness I hadn't gone further than that with the materials… Thanks so much. Take care and good luck with StarFlower II ; Here's to it being even better than its previous incarnation! Alex~ Alexander J. Groppe, MA Th. ------------- I cannot tell you how delighted I was that Alex, who had invested much time and effort into perfecting his perfumes, has decided to go 100% certified natural. Delightful doesn't begin to describe it actually, ecstatic! "Captain of my own fragrant ship" - yes, that sums it up. No mysterious "fruity compounds" from unnamed sources, no dodgy isolates, just isolates that anyone with some distillation skills can create from rose, ylang ylang, lemongrass, patchouli... ah, how lovely. How natural. Bruce Bolmes has agreed to guest blog here on the subject.  I'm hoping it'll be at least once a month.  He has tremendous knowledge on this subject, and many more perfumery topics, with decades of experience. Thank you everyone for all your feedback, research, sharing and being able to steer your own fragrant ship!