Green Chemistry
Every fragrance is chemistry. The only question is whether the chemistry was designed with consequences in mind, or arrived at by whatever was cheapest and most stable.
We work to the principles of green chemistry — a framework published in the 1990s that argues hazard should be designed out at the start rather than filtered out at the end. It is a modern name for something Indian perfumery understood for centuries: work with what the earth renews, and take only what you need.
What we design out
- Phthalates — commonly used to make fragrance cling. Not used in any OpenEgo formulation.
- Synthetic musks — persistent in water systems and slow to degrade. We use botanical fixatives instead.
- Formaldehyde donors — a common preservative route we have designed around.
- Petrochemical aroma molecules — cheaper and more consistent than botanicals, and finite.
- Hydrocarbon propellants — butane, propane and LPG are the industry default in aerosols. We do not use them.
- Charcoal and synthetic binders in incense — our sticks are hand-rolled without them.
The propellant question
An aerosol is only as clean as the gas that pushes it, and this is the part of the category nobody discusses. The standard propellant is a liquefied hydrocarbon — butane, propane or LPG. It is cheap, it works, it is petroleum-derived, and it is flammable enough that every can carries a warning about it.
Our aerosols are propelled by compressed nitrogen, carbon dioxide and air. Nitrogen makes up roughly seventy-eight percent of the atmosphere; oxygen most of the rest. These gases do one job — apply pressure — and then rejoin the air they came from. Nothing petroleum-derived is released into your room.
Compressed gas systems are harder to engineer. Pressure drops as the can empties, so the spray must be designed to stay even across the full life of the product rather than relying on a liquefied gas to hold pressure constant. It is more work and it costs more. We think it is the obvious choice once you have asked the question at all.
What we design in
- Renewable feedstocks. Flowers, resins, roots and woods from sources that regrow.
- Prevention over treatment. A restricted list applied at the formulation stage, not a correction made later.
- Design for degradation. What the molecule does after it leaves your room is part of the brief.
- Atom economy. Extraction methods chosen to waste as little of the harvest as possible.
What it costs
Botanical materials vary between harvests, and we do not correct that variance with synthetics. Natural compositions are less tenacious — our reed diffusers last weeks rather than months. Compressed-gas aerosols require more engineering than hydrocarbon ones. The raw materials cost several multiples more, and our prices show it.
These are real trade-offs. We think they are the right ones, and we would rather name them than pretend they do not exist.
What we are not claiming
Green chemistry is a design discipline, not a certification we hold. Natural does not mean risk-free — botanical materials can sensitise, and we test accordingly. Keep all fragrance products away from children and open flame, and observe the storage guidance on every pressurised container.
Our commitment is narrower and more defensible than the word clean: we decide what goes in at the design stage, we can name every category we exclude, and we will tell you what we gave up to do it.