A perfume that smells like child labor… According to a revealing BBC investigation, children are collecting ingredients used by suppliers to two major cosmetics companies.

The BBC’s investigation into fragrance supply chains last summer found that the jasmine used by suppliers to Lancôme and Aerin Beauty was being picked by minors.

All luxury fragrance brands claim to have zero tolerance for child labour.

L’Oréal, the owner of Lancôme, has said it is committed to respecting human rights. Estée Lauder, owner of Aerin Beauty, said it had contacted its suppliers.

The jasmine used in Lancôme Idôle L’Intense – and in Ikat Jasmine and Limone Di Sicilia for Aerin Beauty – comes from Egypt, which produces around half of the world’s production of jasmine flowers – a key fragrance ingredient.

BBC journalists saw minors picking jasmine – Photo BBC

Industry insiders told the British network that the few companies that own many luxury brands have particularly tight budgets, resulting in very low fees. Egyptian jasmine collectors claim that this forces them to involve children in the work.

And not only that: the BBC discovered that the control systems used by the perfume industry to control supply chains are deeply flawed.

The UN’s Special Rapporteur on modern forms of slavery, Tomoya Obokata, said he was disturbed by the BBC’s evidence, which included covert footage of Egyptian jasmine fields during last year’s harvest.

“On paper, [η βιομηχανία] they promise so many good things like supply chain transparency and fighting child labor. “Looking at this video, they’re not actually doing the things they promised to do,” he says.

Hemba – who lives in a village in the Gharbia region, the heart of Egypt’s jasmine region – wakes her family at 3am to start picking the flowers before the sun’s heat damages them.

Heba says she needs her four children – ages 5 to 15 – to help. Like most jasmine pickers in Egypt, she is known as an “independent picker” and works on a smallholder farm. The more jasmines she and her children can collect, the more they win.

On the night she was filmed by the BBC, she and her children managed to harvest 1.5 kilograms of jasmine flowers. After paying a third of her earnings to the landowner, she was left with approx $1.50 (€1.38) for that night’s work, pay that is worth less than ever, given that inflation in Egypt is at an all-time high, and collectors often live below the poverty line.

Hemba’s 10-year-old daughter Basmala has also been diagnosed with a severe eye allergy. Her doctor told her that her vision would be affected if she continued to pick jasmine without treating the inflammation.

It is difficult to say exactly how many of the 30,000 people involved in Egypt’s jasmine industry are children. But during the summer of 2023 the BBC filmed across this area and spoke to many residents who said the low price for jasmine meant they had to include their children in their work.

The British network’s reporters found that, in four different locations, a significant number of pickers working on smallholder farms – which supply the main factories – were children under the age of 15. Multiple sources also told the BBC that there were children working on farms directly owned by the Machalico factory, which reporters went undercover to find pickers who told them their ages ranged from 12 to 14.

It is illegal for anyone under 15 to work in Egypt from 19:00 to 07:00.

The factories export the jasmine oil to international perfume houses where the perfumes are produced. Givaudan, based in Switzerland, is one of the largest, and has a long-standing relationship with A Fakhry and Co.

But it’s the perfume companies above them in the supply chain — including L’Oréal and Estée Lauder — who hold all the power, according to independent perfumer Christophe Laudamiel and several other industry insiders.

Known as “the Masters”, they set the short and very tight budget for perfume houses, he said.

“The interest of the ‘Gentlemen’ is to have the cheapest possible oil to put in the perfume bottle” and then sell it at the highest possible price, said Mr. Laudamiel, who spent years working at one of the houses. perfumes.

THE L’Oréal however, he told the BBC that he was “actively committed to respecting the most protective internationally recognized human rights standards”, adding that
“never asks Perfume Houses to go below market price for ingredients at the expense of farmers. Despite our strong commitments… we know that in some parts of the world where L’Oréal’s suppliers operate there are risks to meeting our commitments,” he admitted.

He added: “Whenever an issue arises, L’Oréal works proactively to identify the underlying causes and how to resolve the issue. In January 2024, our partner conducted an on-site human rights impact assessment to identify potential human rights violations and identify ways to prevent and mitigate them, with a focus on child labor risks.”

THE Estee Lauder stated: “We believe that the rights of all children must be protected. And we have contacted our suppliers to investigate this very serious matter. We recognize the complex socio-economic environment surrounding the local jasmine supply chain and are taking action to gain greater transparency and work to improve the livelihoods of sourcing communities.”

Back in Garbia, jasmine collector Heba was shocked when we told her the price the perfume was selling for on the international market.

“The people here are worthless”he said.

“I don’t mind people using perfume, but I want people who use this perfume to see in it the pain of children. And to react.”

But attorney Sarah Dadush said the responsibility does not lie with the consumer.

“This is not a problem for us to solve. We need law … we need corporate accountability and that can’t just be about consumers.”