Why would you want to smell like everyone else? That’s one of the questions we asked ourselves when we started to learn about the dangers of synthetic perfumes and fragrances. By “synthetic perfumes and fragrances,” we mean most of the perfumes you see (and smell) when you walk into a department store.

In 2015, department stores stocked 1,165 fragrance brands (nearly twice as many as they carried in 2002). But the thing is, 95% of the chemicals in most of these fragrances are derived from petrochemicals. (In case you didn’t already know,we feel strongly around here about petrochemicals, and keeping them out of our products.)

According to an article inScientific American,  

The Environmental Working Group (EWG) reports that, while many popular perfumes, colognes and body sprays contain trace amounts of natural essences, they also typically contain a dozen or more potentially hazardous synthetic chemicals, some of which are derived from petroleum.

Traditional synthetic perfumes include benzene derivatives, aldehydes, phthalates, and a bunch of other things most people can’t pronounce, or that we wouldn’t want to put on our bodies, like acetone.  Some of these chemicals act asfixatives, which mean that they create a chemical barrier between the fragrance and your body, so the fragrance doesn’t change as you wear it.

In other words, the fixatives in a commercial fragrance ensure that you walk around smelling like everybody else wearing that same fragrance. Why would you want that?

What’s more, the EWG reports that in lab tests of 17 name brand, commercial fragrances, the average fragrance contained about 14 chemicals that were not listed on the fragrance’s label. Why would reputable companies, like American Eagle, Chanel, and Giorgio Armani, not list certain ingredients on their fragrance labels? Well, because those ingredients have been shown to be quite harmful.According to the EWG, “Among them are chemicals associated with hormone disruption and allergic reactions, and many substances that have not been assessed for safety in personal care products.”

These traditional synthetic perfumes also include in the undisclosed ingredients, chemicals known to accumulate, harmfully, in human tissues. The EWG reports, “These include diethyl phthalate, a chemical found in 97 percent of Americans (Silva 2004) and linked to sperm damage in human epidemiological studies (Swan 2008), and musk ketone, a synthetic fragrance ingredient that concentrates in human fat tissue and breast milk (Hutter 2009; Reiner 2007).”

So in addition to smelling like everyone else when you use synthetic fragrances, you also expose yourself — and everyone close enough to smell you — to sperm-damaging, breast milk polluting chemicals.

This, we decided when we set out to createour own signature scents, Myths & Legends, is not something we want.

What you won’t find in Myths & Legends are petrochemicals, solvents, secret ingredients, or fixatives. Instead, we formulate our scents with aphrodisiac essences of Indian sandalwood, Omani frankincense, and Bulgarian rose. That they are fixative-free means they respond to your body’s unique chemistry, changing as you go through your day depending on where they are applied, the temperature of your skin, and interactions with your body’s unique microbiome.

Because of these unique interactions, the same fragrance on you will smell different on your partner.It can be fun to notice this difference — for a full day, wear the same fragrance as your partner, and then at the end of the day, do a sniff test to compare.

Our essential oil fragrances areaphrodisiac means that they are designed to awaken the passionate lover in each of us.The wordaphrodisiac comes from a Greek word meaning “pertaining to Aphrodite,” the Greek goddess of love. Aphrodisiac scents and foods have been used for thousands of years to enhance intimacy.(Learn more about aphrodisiacshere.)

Our collection of personal lubricant alternatives are also gender-neutral. We think that if you like a scent, you should wear it, regardless of whether it’s “supposed” to be for you.So, rather than describe them strictly in terms of gender, we describe them like this:Myths is rooted in passionate desire, reflecting the mystery and power of the divine feminine. Alluring, intuitive, and intoxicatingly sensual. Balanced and evocative. Legends essential oil fragrances invoke a deep arousal, capturing the magnetic presence of masculine energy.  An iconic scent of the hero. Inspired, confident with enduring strength.

You don’t have to worry about any petrochemicals here — our essential oil fragrances contain natural ingredients. They interact with your body, changing as you change, instead of blanketing you in inert chemicals, like most commercial fragrances do. Myths & Legends are living scents, and you help bring them to life.