May 5, 2026
Spring Air: Natural vs. Synthetic Fragrances 101
By Joshua Menard
Springtime starts when the breeze whooshes in. The sky is cloudless and blue; the sun is beaming down. At the start of April, a humid and warm force of relief blows through the streets, and suddenly, winter is finally over.
Why Scent Becomes More Noticeable in Warm Weather
When winter finally lets up, all sorts of things happen. But the nose is among the first parts of our body to experience the shift. This isn’t for any mysterious reason: in cold air, scent molecules evaporate less, so there are fewer volatile molecules floating in the air for the little hairs in our nose to pick up. Compare freshly cooked food to food pulled out of your fridge.
So, when the air gets warmer, more scents jump about in the air. The thawing of plants and soil, and the budding of flowers, bring everything out for our nose, as if on a platter.
Sewers and flowers, these are two extremes of ‘natural’ fragrances you’ll encounter in the city, but we want to bring you into the bathroom for a moment to look at the fragrances we put on our bodies every day.
Synthetic fragrances appear on labels under many names, namely perfume, parfum, aroma, and essential oil blends. As an ingredient, they’re designed to smell good, so you will find them in almost every cosmetic and personal care product. To be specific, if you look at any cologne, soap, detergent, sunscreen, lotion, toothpaste, shampoo, conditioner, and lip balm, just to name a few, you’re likely to find the word “fragrance”.
What’s Inside Artificial Fragrance
But if you ask, “what are they?”, few people can give you a clear answer. Legally, companies aren’t required to disclose what ingredients make up their mysterious “fragrance”. Yet, over 3,000 chemicals can be found in everyday household fragrances. Campaign for Safe Cosmetics published a list of some of their hidden ingredients, which you can find here[1].
Major takeaways include ingredients like BHA, BHT, phthalates, and formaldehyde, which also appear on the (in)famous Dirty Dozen List[2].
Fragrances can also be harmful to the environment because, when they come into contact with water, they release volatile organic compounds (VOCs). These are airborne compounds that contribute to smog, which can turn into formaldehyde. More specifically, it releases ground-level ozone and fine particulate matter, which can significantly harm plant life and stunt growth.
Natural vs Synthetic Fragrance
But enough about the concerns around synthetic fragrance. Much of what we use today is made with lab-formulated ingredients, rather than fragrances derived from plants and nature. So let’s shift to the other side of the story: natural fragrance.
Natural fragrances are made from the best parts of spring and derived from botanical sources such as plants, seeds, fruits, and flowers. When the ground thaws, these natural elements release their scents as part of their role in nature: to attract.
If that made you think of essential oils, you’re on the mark. distilling lemon peels or rose petals produces a purer, more concentrated version of the plant’s natural aroma. Cold-pressing cranberry seeds, for example, extracts their oil directly. There are many other craft techniques you can use at home or in labs to capture natural aromas, such as vanilla extract.
Why We Use Natural Fragrance at Green Beaver
That’s what we do at Green Beaver. We study the properties of plants and use a variety of techniques to extract their most beneficial components. From there, we incorporate them in our formulas so all the benefits of cranberry, vanilla, castor oil and labrador tea can be delivered to your body.
Spring is a reminder that scent is not just something we add to our lives, but something that naturally emerges from the world around us. From blooming flowers to freshly turned soil, nature has always been the original source of fragrance.
Choosing between synthetic and natural fragrance is ultimately about what you want to put on your body, and how closely you want that connection to nature to be. At Green Beaver, we believe that what you wear should come from the same world that inspires it.
[1] Camapign for Safe Cosmetics https://www.safecosmetics.org/chemicals/fragrance/
[2] Dirty dozen. https://davidsuzuki.org/living-green/dirty-dozen-toxic-chemicals-avoid/
