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SDA OR undenatured alcohol for selling perfumes

post #1 of 4
8/20/12 at 1:33pm
Thread Starter 
Over the years, the matter of sda and undenatured alcohol has been discussed on various boards, and it enough to make your head spin! It is hard to make heads or tails of what I've read.

Does anyone know if there is an advantage of sda vs undenatured alcohol for the small business selling perfumes...in terms of permits or licenses.

I am fairly certain one needs a permit to BUY more than 5 gal of either kind.
Is a permit/license needed for SELLING handmade perfumes (either with SDA or undenatured alcohol)? Does it make a difference if you use undenatured or sd alcohol? I am in NY.

Thanks!
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post #2 of 4
8/21/12 at 12:59am
I can't advise on US federal or state laws but I can tell you the basic principle involved, which is the same all over the world.

Governments make money out of alcohol that is consumed (undenatured) by levying duties and taxes on it. To protect that income Governments require alcohol that isn't intended for consumption be 'denatured' which usually involves having something poisonous and something foul-tasting added to it so that it is no longer potable. What that means is that denatured alcohol is then vastly cheaper - that's it's only advantage for making perfume.

In the UK no license is required to sell perfumes made either way, and you can buy as much alchohol as you like as long as you pay the duty on it. If however you want to buy denatured ethanol as such, you have to have a license from HMRC (though there are ways round that by buying Perfumers Alcohol or the like, which has other things added to it so that HMRC don't class it as ethanol but as a finished product).
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post #3 of 4
8/21/12 at 11:16am
You need a permit from the feds to buy more than 5 gallons per year of an SDA. Presumably this is because the denaturants in an SDA could be easily removed to make a drinkable alcohol and the feds want to prevent any sort of diversion like this that would cheat them out of their tax on drinkable alcohol. The exemption that allows 5 gallons per year or less to be purchased is for purchasing "sample" material, some vendors will let you do this others want to see your federal SDA permit before they will sell you samples.

No federal permit is required to purchase tax paid drinkable alcohol. Once the tax has been paid to the feds they no longer have much interest in what happens with the alcohol. So with tax paid drinkable alcohol the feds allow the states to decide how to regulate the sale. Some states want you to have a state license to buy drinkable alcohol, others don't. For New York state I have never been able to find out exactly what the rules are (in part since I am in California and don't much care). For someone in New York state it may be easiest to go to New Jersey where you can buy Everclear in Liquor stores.
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post #4 of 4
8/24/12 at 7:37am
Thread Starter 
Thanks, Chris and dcampen!
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