Founder of Abel, Frances Shoemack, is on a mission to revolutionise the perfume industry. The New Zealand-based brand is one of the first perfume houses to eschew synthetic ingredients (many derived from fossil fuels) for cutting-edge biotech that combines molecules from natural sources. This includes plant sugars, yeast, bacteria, and even fungi to create scalable, entirely organic scents with a powerful dry down.
Shoemack, who is a former winemaker, started Abel ten years ago during a time when ‘clean beauty’ was a rising buzzword for the mainstream cosmetics industry. Broadly speaking, this umbrella term is used when referring to products containing naturally derived ingredients in place of chemicals that can be harmful to the body and the environment. (Some synthetic ingredients have been found to build up in drinking water, food and even human tissue.)
