When I launched Everlasting Organics fourteen months ago, I was committed to one thing: essential oils only. No synthetic fragrance. No mystery ingredients. Just pure botanical scent the way nature intended.
And then the feedback started coming in.
It wasn't one person. It was many — customers who genuinely loved what they were using, who came back and told me the truth because they respected what I was building. The performance was there. The ingredients were clean. But the scent? It wasn't what they were used to.
And I understood exactly what they meant.
For a long time, my response was honest but firm. Natural products aren't supposed to smell like cotton candy. We have been so conditioned by synthetic fragrance — in our detergents, our lotions, our candles, our dryer sheets — that we've come to believe that artificial sweetness is what "clean" smells like. It isn't. The real world smells like earth and bark and petals and herbs, and there is beauty in that if you give yourself time to find it.
But I also knew that telling customers to recalibrate their expectations wasn't a business strategy. And more importantly — they weren't wrong to want something that smelled beautiful. They were right. I just needed to find a way to give them that without compromising everything I had built.
That search has taken a long time. I want to tell you why — and I want to share what's finally changing.
The Problem With Most Fragrance Oils
The conventional fragrance industry is largely unregulated. A fragrance oil can legally be listed on an ingredient label as simply "fragrance" or "parfum" — a single word that can conceal dozens of undisclosed chemicals. Two of the most common are phthalates and parabens — compounds linked to hormone disruption, reproductive harm, and skin sensitization.
I want you to understand something about why this matters so personally to me.
I didn't remove toxins from my life fourteen months ago when I launched this brand. I removed them years ago — from my home, my cleaning products, my laundry, my personal care, my wardrobe. I stopped wearing conventional perfume. I stopped using synthetic fragrance in any form. I did this gradually, intentionally, and over time my body recalibrated in ways I didn't fully appreciate until recently.
Even in public spaces, I notice it now. My eyes water. I start sneezing. I get a headache. Not because I'm judging anyone — I'm not — but because my body genuinely reacts in ways it didn't when I was still using those products myself. Once you remove something and your system clears, it becomes impossible to ignore when it's reintroduced.
There was no version of building Everlasting Organics where I was going to reintroduce those ingredients through the back door of a fragrance oil just because something smelled good. So I kept searching, and I kept saying no, until I found something I could say yes to.
Finding a Standard I Could Stand Behind
After extensive research, I found a supplier offering 100% plant-based fragrance oils — free of phthalates, free of parabens, and fully transparent about their sourcing. I ordered a range of scents in small quantities because I test before I commit to anything.
Some of them I loved. Some I didn't. Fragrance is personal — what moves one person leaves another flat — and I knew from the beginning that offering options would matter more than finding one perfect scent.
The first ones that cleared my standard went into our solid dish soap. That was my starting point — a product used daily, handled by real people in real kitchens. It gave me a way to observe how the fragrance performed before I considered expanding further.
Since then, I've continued testing. And I've found a few more that meet the bar.
What's Changing — and Why Now
This is the update I've been waiting to share.
I'm gradually beginning to incorporate 100% plant-based fragrance oils into more of our body and home products. Body lotions. Body soaps. Bath bombs. The kinds of products people use daily, where scent is part of the experience and a real reason customers reach for one product over another.
There's a practical reason fragrance oils make sense in these formulas in a way essential oils sometimes don't. Fragrance oils aren't heat-sensitive, which means they hold up beautifully in products like bath bombs and warm-process formulations where essential oils can degrade or fade. They also stay true longer in leave-on body products. For a maker working in small batches, that consistency matters — and for the person using the product, it means the scent you fall in love with is the scent that lasts.
I want to be clear about what this is and what it isn't.
This isn't a pivot. I'm not suddenly going to start fragrancing everything. What I'm offering is the best of both worlds — clean ingredients and a beautiful scent experience — for the products where it makes sense. Some formulas will continue to be unscented or essential-oil-only. Others will now have a plant-based fragrance option. The standard hasn't moved. The selection has grown.
And I'm still expanding gradually. I'm not going to rush it. I'm not going to lower the bar because a product line would be easier to fill out. Each new fragrance gets tested, evaluated, and approved before it ever reaches a formula carrying my name.
Why I Know This Matters
I want to share a moment that said more than any market research ever could.
While developing a vegan body butter, I made a batch using a 100% plant-based fragrance oil that smells like pistachio cake. My son walked through the living room, smelled it, and said it was the best thing I'd made yet.
He didn't even put it on his skin. He just smelled it — and that was his reaction.
That moment told me everything. It's not that people don't want natural products. It's that scent is emotional. Scent is memory. Scent is the first thing someone notices and often the last thing they forget. And when you hand someone something that smells like a warm pistachio cake, something in them just responds.
That's what I'm working toward. That's why I kept searching.
One Line That Will Never Move
I want to tell you about Kelli.
Kelli has been one of my greatest resources from the very beginning of this brand — and she continues to be. She is a trusted friend who has used nearly everything I make, and long before any product is ever listed on the website, I give things to Kelli to test. Her feedback is honest. She doesn't hold back, and she never softens it to spare my feelings. I genuinely love that about her. I don't take feedback personally — my goal is to get it right, and I can't do that without people who will tell me the truth.
A while back, I added a small amount of 100% plant-based fragrance oil to a facial cleanser. My reason was simple: I wanted it to smell good. There's no functional benefit to fragrance in a cleanser — it's purely sensory.
It stung my face. I gave it to Kelli. It stung hers too.
And that was the answer.
Not a regulation. Not a safety sheet. Two real women. A real product. A real result.
Fragrance oils — even the cleanest ones I have found — will never be added to any Everlasting Organics face product. Not cleansers. Not serums. Not face oils. Not eye products. Never. That line is permanent, and it was drawn by experience, not policy.
The skin on your face is thinner, more permeable, and more reactive than the skin anywhere else on your body. Even the cleanest fragrance compound I've sourced doesn't belong there. Body products are different. Bath products are different. Home products are different. The face stays sacred.
The Scent You Grew Up With Wasn't Neutral
I want to leave you with one thought.
The smells we associate with "clean" — fresh laundry, sweet lotion, that department store fragrance — those weren't neutral. They were engineered. And the ingredients used to engineer them were not required to be disclosed, tested for long-term safety, or approved before they ended up on your skin day after day.
Your skin absorbs what you put on it. Your lungs process what you breathe. And for decades, the fragrance industry counted on the fact that no one was asking what was actually in the bottle.
I'm asking. For every formula I create, for every supplier I source from, for every product that carries the Everlasting Organics name. And I will keep asking until the answer is one I can stand behind completely.
Because clean should smell like something. It just shouldn't cost you your health to get there.
Everlasting Organics products are formulated in small batches in a small town in North Carolina. Fragrance oils, where used, are 100% plant-based, phthalate-free, and paraben-free. They are used exclusively in soap, body, bath, and home products — never in face formulations.
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