The melissa oil scandal & IFRA

In the past I wrote several notes about the restrictions imposed by IFRA on melissa oil. I do not use the oil but during the examination of the IFRA standards the "forbidden" melissa kept my attention. I wrote at that time the absurd of this situation given the use of melissa oil in the history of european medecine and perfumery (like the famous preparation eau de carmes) although now I hardly know a modern formula using it (it is also quite expensive).
I did not go further but I've just seen that other started to dig into the reasons of IFRA (the unpublished toxicology reports) on the ban of this traditional ingredient in aromatherapy.
Cropwatch has now requested Robertet to make available the evidence on melissa oil for a further study.
"Melissa oil & extracts occupy an important place in aromatherapy and herbal medicine, Melissa oil is virtually unused in corporate perfumery. Nevertheless IFRA had previously seen fit to ban it as an ingredient on the basis of undisclosed evidence. There seemed to be no such body of evidence within the RIFM data-base to support such a ban, and it is a complete mystery to many of us how REXPAN could have come to such a conclusion. "
On Aromaconnection you have the entire article.
The only modern perfume with a light melissa note that I know is the lovely Temps d'une Fête from Patricia Nicolaï, but here I did not study enough the perfume to evaluate the origin of the melissa note. Patricia Nicolaï is one of the last perfumers in the traditional style and formulation that once made the glory of France.

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Fragrance is the 8th Art - Octavian Coifan - Le Parfum est le 8ème Art