"Karma" and Ethical Raw Materials: Simon Constantin on Perfume Lush

Lush is not just grocery stores. with massage tiles and bath bombs, but also a line of inventive and beautiful fragrances: many in the collection have Karma, Dirty or Exhale. The perfumery of the brand is interesting not only because of its olfactory merits - Lush makes a lot of efforts to make the production of perfumes as environmentally friendly as possible (spoiler is very difficult). Ksenia Golovanova spoke with the main perfumer of the brand Simon Konstantin about ethical purchases of raw materials, pressing problems and the secret of Breath of God.

Interview: Ksenia Golovanova, author of the telegram channel Nose Republic

I can not ask this question. When, say the same, a special place will appear in Lush stores where you can sniff perfumes normally without being distracted by smells ...

... soap, bombs and massage oils. Yes, this is a sore point. At the moment, we think a lot about the format of pop-up shops: in the summer we opened one in Milan — especially for Naked products that do not have packaging — there will soon be a store in Harajuku, in Tokyo, only with bombs. And, of course, it is logical to open special spaces for perfumery, which - let's admit - is a little poor relative in the Lush family. In fact, everything almost always rests on the sales area. And a bit of technology. Here is Frederick Mal ... Do you know Frederick Maly?

Oh yeah.

So, at Mal in some stores there are such big pipes in which they supply air flavored with perfume brand. You put your head in this pipe and feel the aroma, but the atmosphere in the boutique itself remains sterile. Unfortunately, we cannot do this - for us this is too technological.

For many, I don’t say that everyone, but many people have a prejudice against Lush perfumery. Perhaps because most of them have tried very little, except for the omnipresent "Karma", and thinks that all the brand's fragrances are like that - about patchouli, hippie, 1960s, and so on. Is "Karma" still selling well?

Yes, "Karma" is very much alive. Most likely, because it is our main fragrance, long-lived, it is with us forever. From those who buy it since the last century, it is already built into the metabolism. Personally, I do not see anything bad in Pachulee, like, for example, in a rose or lavender. But try to make and sell a pink fragrance in England - everyone will turn up their nose at once and say that they "smell like a grandmother."

In Russia, similar stereotypes.

But you see, the fact is that many people who are snooty about perfume roses with lavender, have never tried either one or the other, at least in good quality, in good percentage. Most of the so-called roses in inexpensive English stores are pretty bad chemistry. And when I give a novice a sniff of an expensive absolute or good essential oil, he does not recognize in him the good old symbol of England. Says: "Well, no, it is not a rose. It is something else."

Where do you get patchouli for "Karma"?

Oh, this is a project that we are very proud of. All of them are from the north of Sumatra, from the region with one of the last primary forests in Indonesia. There is an amazing ecosystem: old pines, citronella undercoat, wild vanilla and lemongrass grow right there. Initially, patchouli is part of the local landscape, but farmers, in order to get a greater harvest, use primitive methods of slash-and-burn farming: they cut down the forest, burn it and sow it directly into the ashes, then move on to the next site. On the land treated in this way, the rainforest is no longer restored. We show farmers how to farm differently, in accordance with the principles of permaculture - renewable, waste-free, organic farming. We teach them to make compost, we conduct canals with dams, so that water from local springs is supplied to the plants by gravity. The ultimate goal is to stop the advance into the forest.

So, you control the entire production process - starting with raw materials?

Yes. Lush is one of the few cosmetic companies that produces its own fragrances. We are big: we have enough resources not only to boycott raw materials production, which do not correspond to our ethics, but also to really change something right on the ground. As in Sumatra.

Where else?

For example, in Kenya, where almost all of our geraniums come from. Her essential oil has a very beautiful, unusual smell - a pale green, slightly metallic rose. We tell farmers about its antiseptic properties: in the neighborhood of geranium, crops are less likely to get sick, and as a result, Lush geranium grows with Kenyan beans and potatoes. On the same beds, wild African marigolds prospered, which before our arrival Kenyans considered weeds and weed, but now they are collected and taken to the distillery shop - this year they got 300 liters of marigold essential oil. Most of them hit our best-selling Dream Cream.

In your fragrances absolutely brilliant orange blossom and neroli. Where are they from?

From Lebanon. The Lebanese project for us is now one of the most important. There are several reasons: first, Lebanon is the country with the largest influx of refugees per capita, and we want to create as many jobs for them as possible. Secondly, millions of people die every year in Lebanon - this is not an exaggeration - migratory birds, including rare species: they are shot, caught in the net and metal snares, poisoned by poison. We have achieved that in an area where Lush grows oranges (trees, from which several perfume extracts are obtained, including neroli and orange blossom. - Note ed.), shooting birds banned. The project, however, is restless: we feel the proximity to the Syrian border constantly.

You don't seem to have the calmest job at all.

Happened all. In Peru, where Lush took the forest for the extraction of rosewood essential oil on concession, we constantly received threats from poachers who cut down everything there before us - just for firewood. We interfered with their plans.

How much of what you do, creativity, and how much - butting with officials, fighting poachers and so on?

I try not to interfere with the organizational processes in the field: quick-tempered, quickly boiling. All of the above are done by other, more emotionally stable people from our team. Sourcing, that is, finding suppliers and building relationships with them, is one of the most difficult, if not the most difficult thing in the production of perfumes Lush.

What is the ratio of natural and synthetic components in your compositions?

I would say 65 to 35%.

Is there any component that you especially like working with?

Rather, the group of ingredients is citrus. I'm a fan of bergamot, orange, mandarin. I love the rose that we grow in Pakistan. But I am not at all friendly with Galbanum - perhaps I have not yet learned how to work with such biting greens. And the problem with green flavors is that everyone seems to love them, but in fact they never buy. People have lost the habit of real greens and bitterness: new varieties of broccoli and grapefruit, if they noticed, are no longer as bitter as they were twenty years ago. But vanilla Vanillary is on sale with a bang, of course.

I am a fan of your fragrance Breath of God. For me, this is a perfect day concentrate in Bangkok: some incense is smoked in an open broiler in the temple, and at the corner a fruit vendor cuts heavenly apples. This is a combination of smoky-resinous and fruit-aquatic - how did you even think of it?

I quit my job for a few months — I needed to clear my head — and went to Mongolia. There, as they say, I was covered: these plains, along which the icy wind that had flown from Tibet, are walking, and right there are yurts with house altars, fragrant children under the roof, a thick, slightly rancid smell of yak milk. And once every two or three months, a person takes his yurt, his altar, his vat of milk - and just moves with all this belongings to another place. Just because it can. Since then, I live like this.

The iconic aromas of Simon Constantine

Exhale

One of the best modern vetiver - dark, smoky, smoked, carefully wrapped in a leather flap. Not "costume", like most neighbors in the genre, but, on the contrary, marching.

Breath of god

Magnum is a perfumer's opus, a complex construction, which received five stars from the critic Luka Turin: a column of fragrant smoke that goes into the cold Mongolian sky.