LAURA SCOTT
BUSINESS
Bourjac claims that she would close her business out of principle rather than agree to labeling her products with health warnings. “We won’t put the labels on,” she declares. PPAM de France, an industry association representing 1,500 growers of fragrant and medicinal plants in France, is also fighting the labeling of lavender products. It began a campaign in July. The International Fragrance Association, a Switzerland-based body representing producers of natural oils, takes a more conciliatory tone. Commenting on its website about a meeting in April between the European Commission and fragrance industry groups from France, Italy, and Bulgaria, the association states that distillers are “willing to embrace their responsibility and comply with the new legislation, but that they require some guidelines specific to their sector.” KICKING UP A STINK
Farmers who grow lavender in Provence are pushing back against regulations requiring them to label lavender products as possibly dangerous.
THE PROBLEM WITH LAVENDER OIL An EU proposal to LABEL THE ESSENTIAL OIL as dangerous is meeting French resistance
TO THE NORTH in Brussels, where most ALL IS NOT WELL in the sun-drenched
lavender fields of southern France. The mere mention of European chemical regulations to one of the 2,000 or so lavender growers in the Provence region is likely to elicit a roll of the eyes and a reach for a bottle of pastis, the local liquor. The problem is that at least one company has notified the European Chemicals Agency that the essential oils in lavender can cause allergic reactions. As a result, ECHA is set to classify the oil as a “skin sensitizer.” And that means that under European Union labeling and packaging rules, lavender-oil-based products will have to carry health warnings starting in 2018. Although the final wording for the label has yet to be chosen, it could be along the lines of “May Be Fatal If Swallowed Or Inhaled.” Arguing that this is the kind of label more often associated with bleach or lye, lavender farmers in Provence have organized a campaign to fight it. The main application of lavender oil is as a fragrance although it also has antiseptic and anti-inflammatory properties. An example is the oil’s ability to kill the parasite Giardia, which causes diarrhea and nausea. Key components in lavender oil include the terpene alcohol linalool and linalyl acetate, the acetate ester of linalool.
EU bureaucrats are based, discussions are Farmers argue that lavender oil should ongoing between regulators and industry be classified as an agricultural—not chemigroups about how the labels must be apcal—product. They say the proposed laplied. The European Commission estimates beling would put off customers and harm the talks will conclude sometime next year. their livelihoods. Many lavender farmers in So far, though, regulators show no sign Provence have peppered their fields with of backing down. If the farmers of Provence signs proclaiming that “lavender is not a refuse to apply the labels, the commission chemical product” or pleading, could impose sanctions. OH “Help us: Save the lavender!” Doing so might seem ironic “Everyone I know who sells given that Europe’s chemical lavender products at markets is regulations were conceived to Linalool against these plans,” says René combat pollution from synGalvin, who for years has grown lavender thetic—not natural—products. But ECHA near Moustiers Sainte Marie in Provence. makes no apologies. The basis for the Amid his colorful fields, Galvin runs a tiny, regulations, the agency tells C&EN, “is to intensely fragrant shop with pots of lavenensure a high level of protection of human der flower honey, multicolored lavender health and the environment as well as the soaps, and an array of bottles containing free movement of substances, mixtures, blends of lavender oil. and articles, regardless of whether these “Lavender extract isn’t dangerous, you come from natural sources, or are synthetknow. There’s no chemical matter in the ic, or from big or smaller companies.” products,” he says. “We obtain it by distillIf French lavender farmers go through ing the flower in steam. The essence comes with threats to switch to other crops—an out of the flower, and there’s nothing else.” act that would change the identity of Marie France Bourjac, who runs two Provence—political pressure on EU legdistilleries near Moustiers Sainte Marie, is islators would no doubt intensify. Meananother local who doesn’t see the logic of while, Bourjac, the lavender oil distiller, lavender product labels. “We’ve been using reiterates her threat. Rather than apply essential oil for generations. For allergies, labels classifying her products as hazardokay, maybe there was one person once ous, “we’ll just stop our production,” she who said he was allergic to it,” she allows. says.—ALEX SCOTT CEN.ACS.ORG
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OCTOBER 13, 2014
