What you should put on your skin

...is a matter of never-ending controversy.

I created my first natural skin care product in back in 2010. As a new mom, I became passionate about healthy living, wellness, real food, and, naturally, DIY cosmetics.

I started with a lotion bar made with shea butter, coconut oil and unrefined beeswax and soon ended up creating a brand new natural cosmetics company - one of the first of its kind in Romania. So yes, I've been there. Right on top of the "only put on your skin what you can put on your tongue" band wagon. And yet, I am not going to be the artisan perfumer telling you to throw away your favorite fragrance from Sephora. 

What made me abandon that type of tunnel vision? Experience, knowledge and research. After years of constantly learning about skin care ingredients, cosmetic chemistry and legislation, I've come to understand that it's not as simple as natural = good, synthetic = bad. 

But Alex, you might be thinking, your perfumes are 100% natural! 

Indeed they are. But I will be the first to admit that my passion for pure botanical ingredients has little to do with the anti - synthetics crusade and everything to do with scent itself. It's all about scent for me. 

See, the tricky part about capturing mother nature's perfect creations is that, on one hand, you are limited by extraction capabilities. On the other, you come to understand that no synthetic version of a natural scent can ever be perfectly duplicated. In my art, I chose to self limit myself to the irreplicable. That's my personal philosophy, and it involves no judgment of value when it comes to any other types pf fragrances - natural, synthetic or hybrid. In fact, I have quite the collection of perfumes and I am sure you do as well. 

But no lab in the word will ever create the perfect rose, the ideal jasmine, the ultimate orange blossom. In their natural state, these raw materials are incredibly complex and very diverse. Once you fall in love with the authentic, unadulterated versions of these magnificent natural scents, it will be hard to go back. You have been warned!

Lastly, I wholeheartedly believe in ingredient transparency and respect the right of the consumer to know exactly what their skin comes in contact with. I take pride in every single ingredient I have sourced for my perfumes and I am more than happy to share them with you. 

Ingredients I work with: essential oils, CO2 extracts, absolutes, aromatic extracts, resists, natural isolates. All my raw materials are extracted from flowers, grasses, spices, fruit, wood, roots, resins, balsams, leaves and gums. 

My Arbore Perfume Atelier collection is a mix of oils, waxes and natural fragrance, 

Spring Juice: jojoba oil, soy wax, mimosa wax, sandalwood, vanilla, magnolia, violet leaf, neroli, lavender, mimosa, bergamot, green mandarin, lime

Narcotica: jojoba oil, soy wax, tuberose wax, vanilla, jasmine, lavender, violet leaf, tangerine, white grapefruit

Neroli: jojoba oil, soy wax, neroli, orange blossom

Magnolia: jojoba oil, soy wax, magnolia wax, white magnolia, magnolia leaf

Rose: jojoba oil, soy wax, rose wax, Moroccan rose, Otto rose, white rose 

Tuberose: jojoba oil, soy wax, tuberose wax, tuberose 

Jasmine: jojoba oil, soy wax, jasmine wax, jasmine grandiflorum, jasmine sambac.