Hello Everyone,
I was lucky enough to see Katie’s (@Katiebt) post in time to be picked to attend the Clean Reserve event in NYC. The event was held in Inscape, a meditation and wellness center, and I was quite excited to see what exactly we would get to do there.
As soon as I got there, I met the wonderful Katie who made me feel comfortable and at home. We hung out almost all the time we were there and it was a lot of fun. The event mostly had Katie and Shawn from Sephora plus a lot of other lifestyle/beauty bloggers.
The event started with a presentation/Q&A by Clean Reserve’s Marketing Head and the Head of product Development (Tara Kearns). I buy a lot of perfume and thought I was a bit of a perfume connoisseur, but I learnt quite a few things that took me by surprise. I will try and list them below so that I don’t forget anything:
1. Clean Reserve makes a true commitment to being socially and environmentally conscious. We found out that everything from the box the perfume comes in to the cellophane packaging is recyclable and sustainable. Infact, the cellophane packaging is made from corn and not plastic. The ink on the label is also natural and not synthetic.
Clean Reserve sources a lot of its ingredients from small farms and families in different parts of the world. The Neroli in Acqua Neroli is from Sri Lanka, while the Bergamot is from Italy. As someone who is interested in the impact of complex supply chains, I plan to research some more into what this actually entails.
2. Fragrance Notes: I am sure most of you are aware of perfume notes – top, heart and base notes. These notes determine how we perceive fragrance throughout its wear. Clean Reserve is one of the few perfumes with linear notes. This means that the perfume will smell the same all the time – from the time of application to later in the day.
This is something I really appreciate since perfumes tend to dissipate/evaporate very quickly on me. One of my favorites is the Elizabeth & James Bourbon Perfume, but I have stopped buying it since I end up using the whole bottle in a month. In that respect, I am really enjoying the Clean Reserve Skin Perfume since it lasts a lot longer on me.
3. Clean Reserve is also Sulphate, Parabens, Alcohol, Pthalates and Dye Free.
At the event, they had all the perfume bottles lined up in a row. That is when I noticed that some of the perfumes were clear in color, while others had a slightly yellow shade. I was told that this was due to the natural color of the ingredients and the absence of dyes. I went home and looked at my favorite Rose perfume by Jo Malone and realized that it had the Red dye added to it. I am not sure how I feel about this since it’s a bit unexpected in perfume.
Ingredients: I had a look at the ingredients in the two Clean Reserve perfumes I have (Acqua Neroli and Skin). Acqua Neroli has much better ingredients than most of my other perfumes. All of the Clean Reserve perfumes have Aloe added to the ingredients. Interestingly, the Acqua Neroli had fewer (and better) ingredients than even the Skin perfume. The Skin perfume continues to have several chemical compounds including Lilial (butylphenyl methylpropional), Lyral (hydroxyisohexyl 3-cyclohexene carboxaldehyde) etc. that are common allergens and synthetic in nature. Infact, Lyral is going to be completely banned in the EU starting 2019/2021. I remember the Clean Reserve representative I was talking to mention something about removing Lyral. I am not sure about that and hopefully Katie can have them confirm the same.
This research into ingredients does confirm why some perfumes trigger an allergic reaction. I usually get a bad migraine if I sniff more than a few perfumes in the store. Interestingly, I had no such issue after I came back home from the Clean Reserve event. Infact, I spent more than 15 minutes sniffing different combinations of perfumes with the Clean Reserve rep to find my perfect perfume pair. J
I apologize for the length of this post. But, there was just so much I learnt/researched that I had to share as much as I could. Even now, I am confident that I have forgotten to mention something.