Your definition of 'natural' and/or 'botanical' perfumery

[Sapobubbles]

This topic's been hashed over quite a bit -- but I'll toss it out there again.

I know what my definition of botanical perfumery is; also my def of natural perfumery. For me it's like veganism  and vegetarianism.

Botanical is a vegan approach, whereas natural is a vegetarian approach (i.e. allows animal products in the form of egg, milk, cheese).

What's your definition?

[lobelia2001]

I tended to not make much of a distinction between natural or botanical or natural botanical, but the vegan v. vegematerian division is a very apt analogy.

I still don't make much of a distinction, but partly this is due to my current inability to freaking edit my website because my firewall won't allow FrontPage to do its thing (long whiny rant).

Botanical is definitely more specific and descriptive.  It always burned my biscuits that the argument 'Well, castoreum/civet/ambergris is *natural*, so...' was being made at all.  Yeah, they're natural, but they're also kinda outmoded and a throwback.

[Rosie2]

Interesting definition, and I can see exactly where your coming from with it. I'd never really thought there was a difference, other than in terminology.
An eye opener, thanks.
Liz
(Who just dropped over to burst in the forum, and not introed yet.... )

[Sapobubbles]

Yeah, there are certain factions who would have you believe they are the same thing ~ clearly, they are not. Try calling a vegan 'vegetarian' and see what happens.

The simplest explanation I heard was from Roxana Villa at the Luckyscent event with niche perfumer Andy Tauer down in LA ~ she calls herself a botanical perfumer because 'natural perfumery can mean a lot of things' <some which are not 'natural'>.

Not distinguishing between the two terms allow a lot of flies through the door.

j

[magickalrealism]

I think I fall under the same category, as well. I would be a "vegetarian" sort - I'm mainly concerned with where it began, rather than how it was treated on the way there. (Wow, that sounds oddly callous.)
For instance, while absolute extraction isn't necessarily an all-natural process, the beginning and end product are still molecularly complex enough to qualify as naturals to me. Does that make sense?

[Sapobubbles]

Makes sense to me. I suppose at some point I'll explore the world of natural isolates, taking these ideas into consideration. Or maybe not, ha!

[whitewitchzita]

I *like* both terms, botanical perfumery sounds nice but as someone mentioned it doesn't always mean all natural just no animal, might be better to say natural botanical.
Natural is what I'm used to using and I use animal stuff like beeswax, honey, propolis and africa stone tincture (which is basically tinctured poop) and I ambergris, sort of like a person that only eats natural foods and likes their bit of wild salmon and sea trout too.
I often think when I here the term natural perfumer that it implies that maybe they were born that way...a natural perfumer ....
I sort of liken it to the difference between only using natural sounds to make a song as opposed to using electronic or a mix of both.