PuraVita, a leap forward for sustainable fragrance

18-May-2016 - Last updated on 19-May-2016 at 16:14 GMT

At the recent Sustainable Cosmetics Summit in New York City, IFF launched a new fragrance, announcing that it meets stringent certification standards and stands as a perfume industry proof of concept for sustainability.

The PuraVita fragrance is the first to receive Cradle to Cradle certification at the Gold level, and intentionally so. “To create it, IFF partnered with William McDonough and his team at MBDC [McDonough Braungart Design Chemistry],” notes the company press release.

McDonough co-authored the 2002 text “Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things,” which became the foundational text of the Cradle to Cradle Products Innovation Institute (begun in 2010). And, it’s this institute that offers Cradle to Cradle certification.

The certification is based on five categories of assessment: material health, material re-utilization, renewable energy and carbon management, water stewardship, and social fairness, according to the institute’s site.

Innovation

PuraVita is being touted as an achievement by everyone involved: “IFF's announcement of their new Cradle to Cradle Certified fragrance marks a very personal and deeply considered moment in the history of products that touch us and appeal to our senses,” McDonough tells the press. “It is literally the moment to celebrate the sweet smell of success.”

And IFF sees it as an inevitable milestone in the company’s trajectory of innovation (given current market trends). “Our new PuraVita fragrance is a clear demonstration of how we are building on our legacy of pioneering firsts, infused with a sustainable mindset, to inspire new possibilities in R&D and product creation,” says Andreas Fibig, chairman and CEO of IFF.

Inspiration

Blending a fragrance with ingredient and technology constraints adds to the challenge. IFF hopes that PuraVita, which combines notes of green apple, wood, apricot, and vanilla, will serve as an example of what intention and creativity can do.

“PuraVita is a breakthrough in fragrance creation for IFF and for the industry at-large,” says Nicolas Mirzayantz, group president of fragrances. “With our strategic vision, ambition, and desire to make a difference, our perfumers and research teams are satisfying the unmet needs of consumers around the world.”