A Perfumer
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perfume stuff
this page is a huge work in progress
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crafting process
Perfume oils usually contain tens to hundreds of ingredients and these are typically organized in a perfume for the specific role they will play. These ingredients can be roughly grouped into four groups:
primary scentsCan consist of one or a few main ingredients for a certain concept, such as "rose". Alternatively, multiple ingredients can be used together to create an "abstract" primary scent that does not bear a resemblance to a natural ingredient.
fixativesUsed to support the primary scent by bolstering it. Many resins, wood scents, and amber bases are used as fixatives.modifiersThese ingredients alter the primary scent to give the perfume a certain desired character: for instance, fruit esters may be included in a floral primary to create a fruity floral; calone and citrus scents can be added to create a "fresher" floral. The cherry scent in cherry cola can be considered a modifier.
blendersA large group of ingredients that smooth out the transitions of a perfume between different "layers" or bases. These themselves can be used as a major component of the primary scent. Common blending ingredients include linalool and hydroxycitronellal.
The top, middle, and base notes of a fragrance may have separate primary scents and supporting ingredients. The perfume's fragrance oils are then blended with ethyl alcohol and water, aged in barrels or glass pots for several weeks and filtered through processing equipment to allow the perfume ingredients in the mixture to stabilize and to remove any sediment and particles before the solution can be filled into the perfume bottles.
top notesThe scents that are perceived immediately on application of a perfume. Top notes consist of small, light molecules that evaporate quickly. They form a person's initial impression of a perfume and thus are very important in the selling of a perfume. Also called the head notes.middle notesThe scent of a perfume that emerges just prior to the dissipation of the top note. The middle note compounds form the "heart" or main body of a perfume and act to mask the often unpleasant initial impression of base notes, which become more pleasant with time. They are also called the heart notes.base notesThe scent of a perfume that appears close to the departure of the middle notes. The base and middle notes together are the main theme of a perfume. Base notes bring depth and solidity to a perfume. Compounds of this class of scents are typically rich and "deep" and are usually not perceived until 30 minutes after application.
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perfume classifications
Floral: Fragrances that are dominated by a scent from one particular flower or a combination of fragrances of several flowers.
Green & Cyprus: includes fragrances consisting of bergamot, oakmoss, and labdanum. some have pronounced cut grass, crushed green leaf and cucumber-like scents
Oriental: features the sweet slightly animalistic scents of ambergris or labdanum, often combined with vanilla, tonka bean, flowers and woods and can be enhanced by camphorous oils and incense resins
Fougère: built on a base of lavender, coumarin and oakmoss. is characterized by its sharp herbaceous and woody scent.
Leather: A family of fragrances which features the scents of honey, tobacco, wood and wood tars in its middle or base notes and a scent that alludes to leatherWoody: Fragrances that are dominated by woody scents, typically of agarwood, sandalwood, cedarwood, and vetiver. Patchouli, with its camphoraceous smell, is commonly found in these perfumes.
Citrus: consists mainly of "freshening" eau de colognes
Fruity: featuring the aromas of fruits other than citrus, such as peach, cassis (black currant), mango, passion fruit, and others.
Gourmand: scents with "edible" or "dessert"-like qualities. These often contain notes like vanilla, tonka bean and coumarin, as well as synthetic components designed to resemble food flavors.
Aquatic: A clean smell reminiscent of the ocean and generally contains calone, also used to accent floral, oriental, and woody fragrances
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scent sources
plant sourcesWoods: important in providing base notes, wood oils and distillates are indispensable. Commonly used woods include sandalwood, rosewood, agarwood, birch, cedar, juniper, and pine. These are used in the form of macerations or dry-distilled (rectified) forms.
Leaves: Commonly used are lavender leaf, patchouli, sage, violets, rosemary, and citrus leaves. Sometimes leaves are valued for the "green" smell they bring to perfumes, such as hay and tomato leaf.
Seaweed: Distillates are sometimes used as essential oil in perfumes. An example of a commonly used seaweed is Fucus vesiculosus, which is commonly referred to as bladder wrack.
Honeycomb: both beeswax and honey can be solvent extracted to produce an absolute. Beeswax is extracted with ethanol and the ethanol evaporated to produce beeswax absolute.Bark: Commonly used barks include cinnamon and cascarilla; the fragrant oil in sassafras root bark is also used either directly or purified for its main constituent, safrole, which is used in the synthesis of other fragrant compounds.
Roots: include iris rhizomes, vetiver roots, various rhizomes of the ginger family.
Seeds: Commonly used seeds include tonka bean, carrot seed, coriander, caraway, cocoa, nutmeg, mace, cardamom, and anise.
Fruits: blackcurrant leaf, litsea cubeba, vanilla, and juniper berry; citrus such as grapefruit, oranges, lemons, and limes; fresh fruits such as apples, strawberries, cherriesFlowers: Includes the flowers of several species of rose and jasmine, as well as osmanthus, plumeria, mimosa, tuberose, narcissus, scented geranium, cassie, ambrette as well as the blossoms of citrus and ylang-ylang trees. the unopened flower buds of the clove are also commonly used.
rom terpenes: Orchid scents; most orchid flowers are not commercially used to produce essential oils or absolutes, except in the case of vanilla, an orchid, which must be pollinated first and made into seed pods before use in perfumery.
Lichens: Commonly used lichens include oakmoss and treemoss thalli.
Resins: commonly used resins include labdanum, frankincense/olibanum, myrrh, Balsam of Peru, gum benzoin. Pine and fir resins are a particularly valued source of terpenes. some amber and copal is used
animal sourcesAmbergris: Lumps of oxidized fatty compounds secreted and expelled by the sperm whale. Ambergris should not be confused with yellow amber.
Castoreum: Obtained from the odorous sacs of the North American beaver.
Civet: Also called Civet Musk, this is obtained from the odorous sacs of the civets, animals in the family Viverridae, related to the mongooseMusk: derived from a gland (sac or pod) located between the genitals and the umbilicus of the Himalayan male Musk deer Moschus moschiferus
Hyraceum: Commonly known as "Africa Stone", is the petrified excrement of the Rock Hyrax.