Vegan Oils

[PurpleHeather]

Hi All,

 

I'm vegan, and I know the FAQ says the following on vegan oils:

 

I'm vegan. Do your perfumes contain any animal-based products?

With the exception of our honey products, BPAL perfumes are vegan. Our 'civet' and 'ambergris' are bouquets, and thus, are composite scents created from plant-derived perfume oils combined to best aproximate the scent. Black Phoenix is entirely cruelty-free, as our four dogs, many fish, and resident cat will attest.

 

All perfumes are tested on Elizabeth.

 

With that in mind, I have been through the GC, and created this list of blends which have honey listed as a note. However, I can only do this for those scents where notes are listed, so, for example, I can't put Voodoo blends on the list as notes are not listed.

 

I was wondering if anyone has ever mailed the lab about a specific blend, and recieved a definitive answer either way about whether the blend contains honey. This will enable me to add to the list, and hopefully have a useful, up to date resource for vegan BPAL-ers.

 

Thanks for your help!

 

ETA - Mods - I searched the Chatter & Recommendations for threads specifically about vegan oils & couldn't find one - please feel free to move/merge me if needed!

Edited July 26, 2007 by PurpleHeather

[Rheliwen]

The lab is always so very helpful for things like this. You might just email them yourself and see what they say if nothing here helps completely. I have noticed, though, that those notes that can be problematic for people (allergies, veganism, etc.) are often explicitly stated. I have no way of backing that up though so it's always better to check!

 

There have been discussions about this before. And I found it here

[ivyandpeony]

I agree - the lab is really good at responding to things like this. Right now, a number of labbies are out of town at the ComicCon in San Diego, including Beth (who is probably the best source for the info) - but you should get a response.

 

I'll compile and post a list of honey-containing oils shortly. I also think there might be one or two that contain beeswax - I will check on that too. And if the lab provides the names of any non-vegan oils that aren't easily discerned from the search engine, I will ask if we can post them here.

[JennyGardener]

Why do vegans have a problem with honey and beeswax? Do they also have issues with wool? I don't know anyone who is a vegan, so I'm just curious and would like to better understand this perspective.

 

I must add that the Lab's musks and civet are amazing! And you can indulge in them with no guilt whatsoever.

[eanewsom]

Luperci and Kindly Moon list beeswax. Also, the lab search pulls up exactly what you put in, so the 'honey' search won't give you the things with honeycomb. You can search 'honey*' and get everything with honey, honeyed, honeycomb, honeysuckle, etc. The search doesn't come up with discontinued GC scents, so working on a complete list you'll need to check the scent descriptions in the 'discontinued' reviews, too.

ETA: Here's a complete Excel doc, which will do one handy search!

 

 

Why do vegans have a problem with honey and beeswax? Do they also have issues with wool?

 

Basically, it's that the bees make the honey and wax for themselves, and so it belongs to them instead of to us. Most, but not all, people who consider themselves vegans avoid honey. Yep, Wool is also an issue. For me, it's mostly because to keep large amounts of sheep results in inhumane treatment, and wool is generally not from wool-sheep, but from mutton-sheep, and so buying wool indirectly contributes to the meat industry, by subsidizing the costs of keeping them. I do buy alpaca from one particular supplier, because I have been to the farm and seen that they are well-treated (and they are not meat animals).

Word on the musks.

Edited July 26, 2007 by Ahania

[JennyGardener]

Thanks for the clarification, Ahania! I wrote about my own honey practices in the "Sweet Honey" thread, if anyone is interested. But it didn't belong here.

 

So, I'm assuming the "leather" and "milk" notes are also Beth's amazing scent creations? She can really do some incredible things.

[ivyandpeony]

I'm sure that Beth's leather & milk notes are bouquets - one, since the Lab would definitely disclose the use of an animal ingredient and two, since there could be no possible way to distill some sort of smelly essence from leather or dairy products. At least not anything that would be fit to put on your body. Yogurt absolute anyone? I don't think that the lab's honeysuckle floral note contains any true bee-derived honey components - I think that would also have been disclosed.

 

Beth is a lacto-ovo vegetarian, so she is very respectful of others' practices - that's why I think the Lab would disclose any honey-containing blends that didn't include honey in the description.

 

Here's a list I compiled by searching a Word document I have - I'm pretty sure it's complete, but please comment if I have missed something. I searched for "honey," which also found "honeyed" and "honeycomb," but I left the honeysuckle blends it found off this list unless, of course, they also contained honey. I double-checked for "beeswax" and for "mead" as well.

 

Al Aaraf

Alice

And There Was A Great Cry In Egypt

Aries 2007

Athens

Bengal

Bien Loin D'ici

Bilquis

Blood Kiss

Brides of Dracula

Chintamani-Dhupa

Cleopatra Testing Poisons on Those Condemned to Death

Cockaigne

Cupid Complaining to Venus

Dana O'Shee

The Death of Sardanapal

Delphi

Dragon's Milk

Eden

Et Lux Fuit

Eve

Faiza, The Black Mamba

Flower Moon

Freak Show

Gennivre, L'artiste du Diable

Hearth 2005

Hellcat

Hetairae

Honey Moon

Itasô Kansei Nenkan Jorô No Fûzoku

Jezebel

Kali

Khajuraho

La Fee Verte

Lady Luck Blues

Les Bijoux

Litha

Luperci

The Masque

Milk Moon - 2005 and 2007 versions

O

The Oblation

Ogun

Ostara

Osun

The Penitent Magdalen

Pink Moon 2005

Pink Phoenix

Poisson D'Avril

Queen of Sheba

Rose Moon

Schlafende Baigneuse

Sed Non Satiata

Selkie

Skuld

Spirit of the Komachi Cherry Tree

Sudha Segara

Svadhinoapatika

Thaleia (the Muse, not the Grace)

13 - July 2007 version

Tiger Lily

Trick #1

The Witch Queen

White Rabbit

[eanewsom]

I don't think that the lab's honeysuckle floral note contains any true bee-derived honey components - I think that would also have been disclosed.

 

Thanks ivyandpeony- I stuck that in there as a reminder not to cross all the results off a list before checking, but didn't really make it clear.

[ClareN]

Isn't it possible that some of the "honey" or "beeswax" or "honeyed" notes are synthetics, and thus would be OK for vegans? Because BPAL isn't all-natural AFAIK - someone please correct me if I'm wrong but I believe the scents you can create are quite limited if you restrict yourself to natural components. I've read that it's nearly impossible to derive any kind of realistic-smelling essential oil from most non-citrus fruits, for example, and therefore most perfumes with fruit notes get them from synthetics. And of course aquatics are virtually always synthetic (they usually contain calone I think).

 

I'm vegetarian, not vegan, but I'd be quite pleased if BPAL switched to a synthetic honey note. The natural one they use seems to go horribly powdery on my skin.

[ivyandpeony]

I would have to do some searching to find the posts/series of posts, but BPAL does not use synthetics. The discussion has flared up from time to time with people snarking, "There's no such thing as cotton candy essential oil," etc. (i.e. Midway), but the last statement I recall Beth making was that she may begin using some synthetic components when the Lab introduces some aldehydic fragrances she is working on.

 

The recs subforum is not the place for the discussion, but I thought I would answer the question since it popped up here. I believe the previous discussions can be found in FAQ or possibly in BPAL chatter if you're interested in reading up on it.

[ipb]

but the last statement I recall Beth making was that she may begin using some synthetic components when the Lab introduces some aldehydic fragrances she is working on

The only oil so far that's had the aldehydes is the unreleased "Toxin" prototype, too.

[ClareN]

I would have to do some searching to find the posts/series of posts, but BPAL does not use synthetics. The discussion has flared up from time to time with people snarking, "There's no such thing as cotton candy essential oil," etc. (i.e. Midway), but the last statement I recall Beth making was that she may begin using some synthetic components when the Lab introduces some aldehydic fragrances she is working on.

 

The recs subforum is not the place for the discussion, but I thought I would answer the question since it popped up here. I believe the previous discussions can be found in FAQ or possibly in BPAL chatter if you're interested in reading up on it.

Thanks for your reply. Very interesting. I've never tried to create perfume myself but I've read about it a bit, and based on what I've read I thought it was a fairly safe assumption that BPAL uses synthetics. So yeah, I personally would've fallen into the "no such thing as cotton candy essential oil" camp. I know these are trade secrets and everything, but I wish I knew more about how BPAL makes their perfumes. But I'll stop hijacking this thread now.