Beauty Clinic: Please help my daughter find a vegan wedding scent
Q. My daughter is getting married in June. The food we’re serving is vegan – and she’d like to wear a vegan perfume on her big day. Any suggestions?
A. Just to explain, here: the animal derivatives that still feature in many perfumes include honey, milk, ambergris and civet – all of which are off the menu for vegans. The good news? That there are absolutely no compromises required when it comes to buying and wearing vegan perfumes.
Wearing her hat as co-founder of The Perfume Society, Beauty BIble’s Jo (Fairley) makes these suggestions for your daughter. The first brand to point her in the direction of is Floral Street, who are reinventing florals in a very exciting way. They proudly claim to use ‘no ADIs’ (animal-derived ingredients) in their portfolio of scents. Particularly wedding-perfect, Jo suggests, is Wonderland Peony, which is a gorgeous sweet floral. Or perhaps Neon Rose (rose being traditional, for weddings), which they describe as ‘like freshly-chopped jasmine and roses.’ £58 for 50ml – buy here.
You might also like to check out Prosody London, a new luxury perfume brand that’s sustainable, ethical and organic. With a gloriously wedding-y mood is Rose Rondeaux; this has a rosy heart and plenty of warmth in the lingering sandalwood and patchouli base. Neroli Nuance takes white floral notes of orange blossom – again, with a strong link to weddings (Queen Victoria wore an orange blossom crown when she married Prince Albert), which is a super-elegant, summery blend that incorporates other floral and woody notes. These fragrances are priced from £36 for 10ml (a small size – buy here – but more than enough for a wedding and/or to tell whether you want to spring for the larger bottle. Which is always lovely, as a keepsake.)
One last suggestion is the fragrance portfolio of Le Labo, a new(ish)-to-the-UK brand landed here from New York, which proudly state that ‘We believe it is more humane to test cosmetics on New Yorkers than animals’, and whose range is animal-friendly. They’ve a wide range of fragrances (which you can smell in-store at Liberty or their own boutique on Soho’s Beak Street), but again, we’d suggest Neroli 36 or Rose 31. Or if your daughter prefers something fresh and non-floral, the ultra-cool Thé Noir, perhaps? As a bit of a novelty, they’ll actually mix the fragrances before your very eyes. From £57 for 15ml – buy here.
We hope you all have a wonderful, fragrant – and animal-friendly – day.
Photo by Ishan @seefromthesky on Unsplash