NY Elements Show Comes Down To Earth With Natural Scents

The Jan. 28-29 edition of Elements Showcase in New York saw a growing selection of natural and organic creations in fragrance and other beauty categories.

In a departure from last year’s sweet and sassy summer installment featuring playful cupcake- and pot brownie-inspired scents, Elements Showcase in New York Jan. 28-29 had a more distinctly “eco” vibe, with greater focus on natural and organic formulation in fragrance and other beauty categories.

The show saw the debut of Pure Natural Diva Botanical Perfumes, a brand created by natural lifestyle blogger Tania Reuben, who decided to try her hand at perfumery after fielding myriad questions about synthetic ingredients and industry regulations on PureNaturalDiva.com.

Charna Ethier, Providence Perfume Co.

“Fragrance is something I get asked about a lot,” Reuben said in a Jan. 28 interview. “People often say ingredients are a vast unknown since they don’t have to be on the label.”

The blogger’s answer to her readers’ call for safe fragrance comes in the form of four “artisan-crafted, naturally sourced, synthetic-free” scents, each packed with botanicals and priced at $100 to $150.

Featuring notes of cassia, lemon, lime, chamomile and Egyptian neroli, Pure is “sensually uplifting, like a sunny day in a field of lemongrass,” according to Pure Natural Diva. Natural is a bouquet of Moroccan rose, ylang ylang, grapefruit and clary sage, while sultry Diva contains notes of vanilla, ambrette and New Caledonian sandalwood. Finally, “sensually uplifting” Elixir blends “aphrodisiacal” vanilla with a hint of oak moss, mandarin, grapefruit and osmanthus, the brand says.

Promoting fragrance in a new form, veteran industry perfumer Sherri Sebastian exhibited Purusa Naturals, four all-natural gel perfumes made with essential oils derived from botanical petals, roots, leaves and seeds.

The non-petroleum-based line relies on technology that transforms “Moroccan Argan oil into a high-occlusivity gel, which delicately coats the skin,” according to a release from Sebastian Signs.

As a result, Purusa Naturals are “easy, portable and longer-lasting than traditional natural fragrances,” the company says.

“With other natural perfumes, in 20 minutes it’s gone and you feel cheated,” founder Sebastian said.

Touting itself as “The Lab of Luxury,” Sebastian Signs also markets the Naturals line of essential blends and the Numbers collection of perfumes, soaps and bath salts.

Berlin, Germany-based yoga teacher Tanja Bochnig traveled to Elements to introduce her April Aromatics line to a U.S. audience.

To ensure that consumers “experience the true soul of a plant,” Bochnig chose to use only natural extracts in crafting her products, which include perfumes, body and room sprays and “aroma yoga products.”

Among the eau de parfums in her offering, bestselling Bohemian Spice features orange, sandalwood, patchouli, incense, vetiver and vanilla notes, “chang[ing] its olfactory color like a chameleon” as it reveals itself “layer by layer.”

Calling All Angels, the first in a series of related perfumes, is described on the brand’s website as “a rather dark and complex angelic scent, with a sweet incense/honey-like note, implementing the elements of Earth, Ether and Air.”

Bochnig acknowledges that the perfume line, which bears price tags north of $200, may be out of range for natural stores. Instead, she envisions department stores carrying the line in the U.S.

Aveda employee turned natural perfumer Charna Ethier was on hand to promote Providence Perfume Co. and her range of scents that retail for $140 apiece at boutiques and BeautyHabit.com. The brand is dedicated to creating 100% natural formulations free of dyes, parabens and phthalates, using a basmati rice base.

The scents are vintage-inspired and reminiscent “of a time when more natural ingredients were used,” according to Ethier.

Inspired by a fairytale, Moss Gown contains boronia, coffee flower and violet leaf, along with base notes of powdered sandalwood and cedar moss. Rich, gourmand Cocoa Tuberose incorporates dark African cocoa, white tuberose, tonka beans, vetiver and wormwood, with a spritz of pink grapefruit and a tobacco dry-down.

All Providence fragrances are created by hand in small batches and use “real plants, flowers, fruits and woods, melding the ancient art of natural perfumery and the unsurpassed aroma of natural essential oils and absolutes,” the company says.

Juniper Ridge brings “the mountains into your home,” and brought some to Elements as well.

The firm harvests its fragrance materials from areas of the Pacific Northwest, as well as northern and southern California, often taking its “field lab” straight to the source.

Wild Plum Campground Backpacker’s Cologne ($85) was extracted in the field “using pre-industrial perfume techniques – juice presses, converted whiskey stills, steam, and crazy copper pipes – mixed with organic sugar cane alcohol,” according to Juniper Ridge’s website.

Noticing Sierra Cedar trees that had fallen in the northern Sierra Nevada region due to root rot, President and Head Wildcrafter Hall Newbegin competed for a contract to help clear the trees and use the tree boughs to create the scent sustainably.

“We’re often out there talking with ranchers and foresters” to obtain natural ingredients in California and the Pacific Northwest, he explained at the event.

Newbegin routinely heads to the mountains with his van, backpack and distiller for inspiration. It’s not uncommon to find the exec on the side of the road harvesting wild plants to distill on site for fresh samples, which he draws from later in formulating larger batches, he explained.

For large jobs, the company has its own distillery and 12 employees to help balance out the work.

Elements Beyond Fragrance

While built as a way to “gather the world’s greatest creators of fragrance,” Elements Showcase has opened its doors to a growing selection of cosmetics, bath, body and home products, underscoring its “dedication first and foremost to design,” according to founders Frederick Bouchardy, Jeffrey Lawson and Ulrich Lang.

Offerings in categories outside of fragrance ranged from Kaia Naturals’Juicy Bamboo natural facial cleansing cloths, soaked in vitamins and organic Canadian honey, to Amazon Beauty’s Rahua brand of sulfate-, paraben-, fragrance-, propylene glycol-, dimethicone- and gluten-free hair-care products made from ungurahua and palo santo that the firm sources from indigenous tribes in the Amazon rainforest.

Trish Alkaitis used the occasion to promote the Dr. Alkaitis collection of “holistic organic skin food.” Founded 12 years ago, all of the brand’s products are made with “edible living ingredients,” including biodynamic and wild-crafted “herbs, fruits, sea vegetables and virgin cold-pressed vegetable oils,” according to a release.

The firm’s mantra is: “If you can’t eat it, don’t put it on your skin.”

All products are created from an organic aloe vera gel base and do not contain water, the firm notes. Organic Univeral Mask ($55) is formulated with alfalfa, wheat grass, spirulina and hemp protein, as well as a 13-ingredient blend of carrots, cabbage, sweet potato and other vegetables, plus a 12-ingredient organic complex derived from pumpkin, flax, soy and sunflower seeds, to nourish and soothe sensitive or irritated skin.

At Elements’ August 2012 installment, Elements co-founder Lang suggested that the show was “opening up to fun instead of being serious for so long.” He added: “Indie scents are becoming a little less snooty” (Also see "Indie Scents At NY Elements Show Get “Less Snooty,” More Fun" - HBW Insight, 27 Aug, 2012.).