Ingredient Transparency

At Humble Abode, we create better fragrances because we believe that we should be able to enjoy the benefits of scent without risking our health.

This page is intended to provide detailed information about our products and their ingredients. So, read on and purchase with the confidence that better fragrance truly can enhance your world—without the catch.

 

First thing's first: where do we get our ingredients from?

We purchase nearly all of our ingredients—fragrance oils, bases, fragrance carriers, and solubilizers—from Makesy, a high-end supplier for makers and businesses.

We love Makesy—they are super professional and super personable. All of their products are part of their Made Better program, which both ensures certain standards (e.g. none of their products are ever tested on animals) and also promises to continue to work toward raising the bar on safety and transparency for both themselves and for the industry as a whole. In general, all of Makesy's products are guaranteed to be:

• non-toxic
• cruelty-free
• ethically-sourced
• paraben-free
• phthalate-free
• mutagen-free

With that, let's dive into the specifics...

 

So, what's in our proprietary products?

We currently make perfume sprays, perfume rollerballs, room + car diffusers, and candles.

Our room sprays are made of the following ingredients: Luxury Perfumer's Alcohol, Polysorbate 80, Fragrance Oil, and Distilled Water.

Our oil diffusers are made with Coco Purefuse Reed Diffuser Base and Fragrance Oil.

Our perfume rollerballs are made with Organic Jojoba Oil and Fragrance Oil.

Our perfume sprays are made with Luxury Perfumer's Alcohol and Fragrance Oil.

Below is a breakdown of what the heck these ingredients mean and what they have--or don't have--in them. Since "fragrance" varies by the product, that is broken out in its own section, farther down the page.

• Polysorbate 80: This ingredient is an emulsifier and solubilizer, which means that it brings together oil-based ingredients with water-based ingredients that on their own don't like to mix. This ingredient is necessary to create a uniform, non-cloudy mixture that does not need to be shaken prior to spraying the product each time, ensuring an even fragrance distribution and high-end experience. Polysorbate is a synthetic ingredient made from naturally-derived sorbitol. It also increases the longevity and efficacy of fragrance and cosmetic products. This particular Polysorbate was specially formulated by Makesy to be made without parabens nor phthalates. This product is also toxin-free, carcinogen-free, mutagen-free, and vegan. 
• Luxury Perfumer's Alcohol: This vegan ingredient is made of 100% natural, organic, non-GMO grape alcohol that has been sustainably sourced. Alcohol is a key ingredient in perfumes and sprays because it binds essential oils to the water in a mixture and, when sprayed, carries it into the air, evaporating quickly while leaving just the fragrance to linger and be enjoyed. This ingredient is also paraben-free and phthalate-free.
• Distilled Water: This is water that has been purified by boiling and re-condensing it into a new container. This process removes more than 99.9% of impurities including bacteria and pesticides. Water is a key ingredient to carry fragrance out into the air, and using distilled water ensures that the finished product won't become cloudy or ridden with bacteria over time. Distilled water can be made at home from tap water or purchased from any grocery store, thus making it one of the only ingredients we don't source from Makesy.
  
• Coco Purefuse Reed Diffuser Base: This diffuser base was formulated to provide an optimal fragrance throw, and we are really impressed by its performance and clean ingredients. Infused with renewable coconut oil, this base mixes with fragrance to help mobilize the fragrance compounds up into the reeds and out into the air. It is paraben-free, phthalate-free, mutagen-free, allergen-free, and vegan; it does contain trace amounts of naturally-occurring toxins and carcinogens are not considered hazardous to health and fall below Prop 65 limits.
• Organic Jojoba Oil: This nourishing oil is necessary to include in rollerballs to act as a dilutant and carrier oil for the fragrance. Jojoba Oil is known for its skin-moisturizing properties and is generally considered safe--if not beneficial---for the skin, as it is known to both improve the appearance of skin as well as treat psoriasis, eczema, and inflammation. 

On Fragrance Oils...

Our proprietary scents are made by mixing Makesy fragrance oils to create truly unique scents.

Because fragrance falls under trade secrets, businesses are not legally required to disclose each ingredient in their fragrance to the consumer. Therefore, we are only able to share as much as Makesy has shared with us.

While Makesy has chosen to keep full ingredient lists of their fragrance oils close to the chest, they do disclose the essential oils in each fragrance oil as well as the important claims that we're really reading the ingredient list to check for anyway.

Makesy does NOT use ANY parabens, phthalates, nor mutagens in any fragrance oil.

Moreover, none of Makesy's products require Prop 65 labelling, which is required labeling by the state of California when an ingredient in a product has levels of toxins greater than 1% wt or carcinogens greater than 0.1% wt. This is important to note because while some fragrance oils contain trace amounts of naturally-occurring toxins or carcinogens, none of these levels--even in their concentrated, unmixed forms--are high enough to require this sensitive labeling.

*

Makesy fragrance oils are made of a combination of both natural and synthetic ingredients. But before you shake your head at synthetic, please understand that synthetic doesn't always mean "bad" or "toxic."

Because Makesy is so committed to the quality of their ingredients, they do not cut corners with their synthetic ingredients, but sometimes it is simply more ethical, sustainable, and/or accessible to manually create an ingredient than to obtain it from nature.

Musk, for example, is an ingredient originally secreted from the glands of animals like deer, cats, and lynxes, to name a few. It is no longer considered ethical to obtain this ingredient from animals (for good reason!), so Makesy opts to make it synthetically. 

In Closing…

We hope this has been an enlightening read—maybe not the most exciting, but reassuring all the same. If you have further questions, reach out to julie@humbleabodeusa.com or hello@makesy.com as you see fit. Thx!