here was a time in my life when I literally lived
on Coca-Cola and Marlboro Lights. But then my kids were
born, and I started looking at the world through their
eyes. Before that, I really didn’t consider what went in my
mouth or what was in my environment. Then, suddenly,
like a lot of new parents, I started to read labels; I wanted
to know what was in things. That was a long time ago [20-
plus years], when, honestly, it was really hard to get infor-
mation. And my physicians were not all that helpful. They
just thought I was a kook.
Then I stumbled on Skin Deep, the cosmetics database
of the Environmental Working Group (EWG). It was some-
where I could finally go to look for safer options for my
family, at least in terms of personal-care stuff. Time and
time again, a product would be fine, but then any added
fragrance would push it into a very high hazard level.
I love fragrance; I love perfume. But I stopped wearing
it and started looking for natural alternatives. All of them
were plant-based, essential-oil-based perfumes. I really
missed that fine fragrance scent, so I just stopped wear-
ing any fragrance at all. Almost 10 years went by, and I still
really missed it. I thought, Maybe I’ll try to do it on my
own. I’ll go to a cosmetics company and see if they want
to develop something with me. If this is a product I’m
looking for, there must be other people out there looking
for it. I went to a couple of meetings, and it just didn’t go
anywhere. Everybody looked at me like I had three heads.
One company told me that they loved parabens and par-
abens were good for you. That conversation was probably- A real dead end for me.
About three years later, I decided to give it another
shot. I’m not sure why. But I was told two things: First,
you’re doing this ass-backwards. You really should do a
skin-care line. You should do a makeup line. You’re trying
to tap into the hardest space first, and you’re gonna fail,
you’re gonna fail, you’re gonna fail. And maybe they’re
right—we’ll see! The second thing: There’s no way you’ll
be able to do the kind of fragrance you’re setting out to
t
do with these [ingredient] limitations. And anyway,
nobody will be 100 percent transparent about their ingre-
dients with you. By the way, this was from the people who
were supportive of me.
I certainly didn’t want to fail because, you know, who
wants to fail? I was new in this space, and getting this
advice from a lot of people who’d done this before. It
would have been silly for me not to listen. But I didn’t.
I realized if I’m going to do this, I’m gonna somehow
do it on my own. Find my own chemist, my own perfumer,
maybe independently finance it. At that point I met with
Ken Cook, the president of the Environmental Working
Group. That’s when the real learning curve started. I
started out thinking that I was going to make something
that was purely essential oils. Then I realized that if I was
going to get the EWG’s safety verification, I couldn’t do
that—a vast amount of the population has allergies to
essential oils.
So I shifted into, no, we’re not going to make the most
“natural” fragrance that we can, which is a term that I think
is very confusing for people anyway; we’re going to make
the safest fragrance that we can. The fragrance that would
be safest for the most people.
I started working with a fragrance house, but after
about a year of work, they weren’t willing to be 100 per-
cent transparent with the ingredients. So I had to walk
away. That bump in the road felt insurmountable. Then I
met with the fragrance group IFF, International Flavors &
Fragrances. They had already been doing some work with
Cradle to Cradle, so I thought, Great, let’s get that certifi-
cation [which assesses a product’s sustainability] on top
of the EWG’s. Let’s go for broke! What didn’t fully occur to
me at the time, though, was just how restricted I was mak-
ing the task for the perfumers. They can typically choose
from around 3,000 ingredients. When we were done, their
palette was limited to about just under 300. There were
many moments along the way when I was afraid I wasTALKING BEAUTY
36 ALLURE MAY 20 19
Pfeiffer’s clean sweep, from left:
Henry Rose Last Light, Jake’s House,
Dark Is Night, Torn, and Fog. Every
fragrance is both EWG Verified and
Cradle to Cradle Certified.