The High Cost Of A Spritz - 'Perfume's Dark Secret' Documentary On The BBC

A few days ago, the BBC released a documentary called Perfume’s Dark Secret (reporter: Natasha Cox) as part of its Eye Investigations series. In footage filmed in northern Egypt over the summer of 2023, it depicts children aged 5 and 10 being woken up by their mother in the middle of the night to go picking jasmine flowers, which are then sold to local ingredient companies which in turn sell the various jasmine extracts they make to the likes of Givaudan and IFF. According to the documentary, the mother in question earns $1.50 for a night’s labour. She feels compelled to involve her children in her work because in recent years the price of jasmine has gone down, to the extent that she can no longer earn a living by harvesting on her own. The film goes on to assert that this is not an isolated incident and that several other minors are known to have been involved in jasmine picking. Egyptian law states that anyone below the age of 15 cannot work between the hours of 1900 and 0700.

As far as exposes of the perfume industry go, this one is amongst the more worrying. Seeing children being forced into hardship by a so-called luxury business is always upsetting, but in this case, the situation is especially heart-breaking. The little girl at the centre of the story, Basmalla, is shown to be suffering from eye problems as a result of spending extended periods of time amongst the jasmine plants. She says that when she grows up, she’d like to be a doctor. It’s almost too cruel to think that she might not even have her vision intact before reaching adulthood — all for the sake of a scented spritz. 

Sobering though the film may be, it is by no means flawless. For one thing, it insists on making us put up with flashy, sensationalist editing and portentous music. This is almost par for the course these days, but it’s depressing to think that even a subject as serious as child exploitation needs to be dressed up. Then again, it’s easy to dismiss the dramatic gimmicks on this occasion: here, the substance is far more important than the style. 

The documentary makes rather unconvincingly ominous statements about the fact that the creation of most brands’ fragrance production is controlled and overseen by massive, multi-national ‘umbrella’ companies, such as LVMH, L’Oreal and the Estée Lauder group. These organisations are referred to, in unnecessarily shadowy terms, as “the masters”. But this isn’t an unusual setup, and perfume isn’t the only industry where vast numbers of brands are part of larger parent companies. In addition, this information is not secret. A quick online search is all it takes to reveal that, say, Armani comes under L’Oreal and Le Labo is a Lauder brand. The fact that the average shopper may not be aware of such connections doesn’t mean some sort of deliberate obfuscation is taking place. 

Furthermore, it’s odd that, of all the perfumes launched in recent years, the three that were singled out in the film as containing the fruits of the children’s labour were a Lancome and a couple of Aerins. It would have been interesting to learn the producers’ justification for this selection. Surely if one Givaudan scent contains Egyptian jasmine, then so do many others. Or are we expected to believe that only Lancome Idole has a few drops of this particular jasmine from the particular fields harvested by these particular children?

Finally, it was disappointing to see the infographic supposedly explaining what goes into the price of a single bottle of scent: a small proportion was shown as being spent on the juice itself (which is essentially accurate), whereas huge chunks were devoted to marketing and profits. By their very nature, such diagrams tend to be simplistic, and sure enough, this one didn’t appear to leave any room for elements such as the cost — if it can be measured — of the training, development, expertise, talent and experience of the perfumers themselves. The profits to be made from selling perfume can be considerable (that’s why so many brands have a fragrance range), so there is absolutely no need to make them appear even larger by using reductive, headline-grabbing devices such as the infographic.

If some of the above sounds excessively damning, then that’s only because I had so hoped that a documentary of this sort would be completely watertight and incontrovertible. But although it isn’t without its problems, and it doesn’t grasp the complexity of the subject it tackles, let me be clear: it is an important piece of work which should be watched by anyone who claims to take an interest in the industry, and to which brands should make a meaningful and transparent response. Because no matter how some may try to explain away the situation, the fact remains that young children shouldn’t be picking jasmine at 4 o’clock in the morning, day after day — especially in a country that has had the wisdom to outlaw such activities.

For too long, the perfume industry has conveniently relied on the smokescreens that are inevitably formed when various sections of their supply chains are contracted off to third parties, which in turn commission fourth parties, which make use of the services of fifth parties and so on and so forth. This sort of structure, with branches leading to countless sub-branches, makes it too easy for the people at the top to use “as far as we were aware, everything was being done properly” as a reply to any potential indictment. Yes, they’re probably being honest when they say that as far as they were aware, everything was all right, but perhaps they ought to question the limits they choose to place on their awareness. 

If you’ll forgive the mixed metaphors, human nature tends to turn a blind eye on painful truths when greed is whispering in its ear. And as is so often the case with the most distressing issues in the modern world, the factor at the root of all this is money. If some of the players in the convoluted supply chains simply made the decision to shave a few pennies off their profits, the overall picture might look quite different. Evidently, appetites in some sectors of the fragrance world have grown to such grotesque levels that, yes, perhaps the time has come for external regulators to step in and do what many people had been trusted, and have failed, to do by themselves. 

Perfume’s Dark Secret leaves us with many questions. What is the role of the Egyptian authorities in what’s happening? Were they approached for a response to the findings? Has the plight of the family changed since the footage was filmed? Has the condition of the little girl’s eyes improved? From the gaggle of indignant voices, who will actually step up and hold people to account? And of course, perhaps the most pressing question of all: what can we do to help?

It’s interesting and telling that the lawyer at the very end of the documentary states she doesn’t believe that in this case the onus is on consumers to take action. To some extent, I’m inclined to agree with her. It’s well documented that boycotts can cause as much as harm as good — indeed, they can often be devastating to the very people they’re trying to protect — but then again, surely that doesn’t mean we all carry on with our usual buying habits as though nothing has happened. Perhaps now, more than ever, we need to be proactive and question brands about the issues that concern us — asking them to give us concrete evidence for the claims they invariably make about humane work ethics and fair trading practices.  

It would be naive to think that any multi-billion dollar, modern industry has a pristine conscience. But industries, like people, can get better. And if we believe in change and improvement and development — which I like to think I do — then we should see this documentary as a step in the right direction. It has exposed something that absolutely needed to be exposed and hopefully it will give others the courage — should similar exploitation be taking place elsewhere — to come forward and speak. If perfumery is to have a viable future, it cannot be at the expense of the health of children.

Persolaise

[In the UK, Perfume’s Dark Secret can be seen on BBC iPlayer; in the rest of the world, it’s available on YouTube.]