Mexican plant offers way to develop 'green' perfumes

A Mexican plant holds the key to create "green" perfumes, say researchers.

The plant provides a more sustainable way to produce a key perfume ingredient and supply it to fragrance makers around the world.

A key ingredient in perfumes called fixative - that allows a scent to linger on the wearer's skin rather than quickly dissipate - comes with a hefty price tag.

A particularly coveted fixative comes from a rare whale digestive excretion called ambergris.

"But it is cost exorbitant and its use in perfumes in the US and other countries is illegal," informed lead researcher Jose M. Ponce-Ortega.

To find out more about the plant, researchers conducted a supply-chain analysis. They found that producing the fixative using the Mexican plant would generate considerable local profits to the tune of $20 million per year and create hundreds of jobs along the supply routes.

"We did find an environmental cost to the process but that could be mitigated by using renewable energy sources to produce the fixative," Ponce-Ortega added.

The study was published in the journal ACS Sustainable Chemistry and Engineering.