Name: What Fake Fragrances Teach Us About Sustainability
Uploaded: 2021-06-28T06:47:38.000Z
Duration: 12 min
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

Humans love to make perfumes and fragrances from the weirdest sources,

from endangered plants, to extremely expensive marine poop,

And historically, people have gotten so excited over these strange

sources of scent that we've exploited them to near extinction.

So, chemists trying to protect the environment had to come up

with synthetic ways to reproduce natural fragrance compounds.

Because we can't just 3D print any molecule we like… at least, not yet.

It's a complex puzzle requiring just the right ingredients,

And often, the synthetic solution to one sustainability disaster

from health problems to environmental contamination.

So here are four stories of how humans exploited a source of natural fragrance,

then tried to save it through synthetics…

and then had to save themselves from the chemicals that they made.

If you take a whiff of perfumes like Light Blue by Dolce & Gabbana

or Midnight Poison by Christian Dior, you might detect a subtle musky aroma.

Some have likened it to the wood in old churches.

In addition to smelling nice, it fixes perfume on the skin so the scent lasts longer.

Ambergris looks like a yellow-gray rock that washes up on beaches.

And for millennia, people used it for medicine, incense, and perfume…

Perfumers theorized it might be anything from petrified lynx urine

Hence the French name, “ambergris,” meaning gray amber.

But we eventually figured out its true nature.

A sperm whale eats around 400 kilograms of squid per day.

Researchers think the whale produces compounds

in its gut to help protect itself from those hard, poky beaks.

And we think those anti-beak compounds are what go into making ambergris.

Once expelled, this block of feces floats through the ocean,

where it can eventually wash up on a beach and work on its tan.

But finding this highly prized poop is a pretty rare occurrence.

And only about 0.5% of the substance's mass converts into odor compounds.

Plus, sperm whales are in danger of extinction.

Meaning in some countries, ambergris isn't just expensive,

But it's still really useful for perfume.

So scientists have scrambled to make a synthetic equivalent.

But first, they had to analyze its chemistry.

an odorless organic compound that scientists think

Ambergris also contains light-sensitive substances called porphyrins.

the energy from that reaction creates super-unstable oxygen compounds

that transform ambrein into aromatic compounds including ambrox.

As the main fragrance compound in ambergris.

In 1950, a Swiss company identified ambrox's chemical structure

and developed a way to synthesize it from a plant: clary sage.

But even though it helps preserve sperm whales,

the industrial synthesis of ambrox is very resource-heavy.

It also uses large amounts of toxic substances, like chromium trioxide,

which can induce genetic defects and is highly dangerous to aquatic life.

So even though scientists had a way to make fake ambergris,

Researchers discovered that, by changing out certain chemicals,

they cut down on the chemical waste generated in the process.

And those tweaks also meant they got 20 times more stuff out of the process.

Which is great news for fans of sperm whale poop across the world.

Now, another musky-scented animal discharge is, musk.

This earthy, animalistic odor has been used in perfumes for thousands of years.

on the basis that some animals use it to attract mates.

See, undiluted musk is a pee-smelling secretion

But in the perfume industry, “musk” usually refers specifically to

secretions from a gland near the genitals of the male musk deer.

And because musk was so desirable, people hunted the deer nearly to extinction.

Clearly, chemists needed to invent an alternative.

But as it turned out, the first synthetic musk was produced by accident.

In 1888, a researcher trying to create better explosives

accidentally made something that smelled like musk.

Soon after, the synthetic nitro musk craze exploded.

And nitro musks have formed a big part of most perfumes,

But in 1981, Japanese scientists were the first to

sound the alarm about how dangerous nitro musks might be.

Synthetic musks accumulate everywhere, both in the environment,

They've been found in rivers, lakes, fish, birds and mammals,

Now, we don't know for sure that they're toxic to humans.

But animal studies show that nitro musks can

inhibit the activity of proteins that allow cells to expel toxins.

the use of nitro musks in cosmetic products has been banned in many countries.

The perfume industry has largely replaced them with polycyclic musks,

which account for 90% of all musky scents used in the perfume industry.