Natural Fragrance vs Synthetic Ingredients

Natural Fragrance vs Synthetic Ingredients

At Thomas Clipper our goal is to make men's colognes that smell fantastic. And to feel confident in a TC fragrance, you want to be sure that your aftershave isn't doing harm to the environment.

So perhaps that means you should be looking for an 'all-natural' fragrance? We think not. Here's why.

1. Creativity

There have been amazing developments in scent science of the past decades that help us bring new notes, an extra level of sophistication and increased subtly to fragrances.

Using these new notes, we have the broad palette required to create transportative and inspiring men's aftershaves. Leaving them out of the mix would do you, and our aftershaves, a disservice.

2. Respect

Scents like ambergris and musks are perfect for making sophisticated modern men's colognes. But they're traditionally extracted from animals. So out of respect for animal rights, they're banned in their natural form in many markets, including within the EU.

Our fragrances are vegan, so even if these materials were available they'd be off the shopping list for us. But fortunately synthetics allow us to tap into these amazing scents while leaving the animals entirely free from the process.

3. Sustainability

In some cases, natural oils can be easily extracted from plants, flowers, barks and so on. But in others, it can require a vast agricultural operation just to create a few drops of essential oil.

This happens on land, often in developing countries, that could be dedicated to food crops or less intensive agriculture. Using small amounts of synthetics saves millions of gallons of water, pesticides and petrol. It's a small step, but one that's important.

We're not perfect, but we're doing our best to consider our impact and improve where we can. And we do have a preference for natural scents if they can be extracted with respect - indeed the alcohol blend that makes up a large proportion of our finished fragrance is 100% organic.

So where it makes for a better men's fragrance for you and a better environmental impact, we use a blend of the best materials on the market - whether that's natural, naturally inspired and completely new.

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Some of our favourites...

Handmade men's fragrances, available direct in the UK and USA.

As seen in The Guardian, Wallpaper, Monocle. Recommended in British GQ's 'favourite men's fragrances' 5 years running. Read our reviews.

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