How To Create A Fragrance

This is the last of the five part series on perfume making. Please e-mail me if you have comments or questions. The address is at the end of this essay.

The following is a passage from my book, Love in a Small Town, which will be released this October, 2015 by Rogue Press. In this scene Lindsay, the proprietor of a small perfume shop, is making a new fragrance from perfume oils when she is interrupted by a local teenager, Sarah Graham, who is new in town and having trouble fitting in with the local high school crowd. She's taken to hanging out in Lynn's store. Neither one of them is aware that Lynn has met David, Sarah's stepdad, and is very attracted to him. 

       "She laid out a dozen narrow paper strips, about three inches long, on the counter in front of her. Both ends of each strip were bent so they stood straight up when the strip lay flat. Also on the counter were about a dozen small brown bottles, holding samples of fragrant oils.

“Hi, Lynn. What’s all that?”

Startled, she looked up to see Sarah coming into the shop. “Oh, hi. I’m working on a new fragrance. It needs something and I can’t quite figure out what.”

“You mean, like, you’re making a perfume?”

“Yeah, but this will be a cologne. Not too many people buy perfume these days. Too expensive.”

“You know how to do this? I mean, make cologne and perfume?”

“It’s a hobby of mine as well as a profession. If it turns out, I’ll bottle it and sell it in the store.”

“I didn’t know a person could, like, make their own perfume. I thought it happened in a factory somewhere.”

“There’s no mystery about it. It’s all made the same, if it’s Estee´ Lauder’s or mine. It’s like cooking. Instead of tastes, though, you think odor. You know, when you're cooking you taste and decide if it might be better with some nutmeg, or such.

"You decide on the basics first by putting it together in your head; like should it be floral or woody or citrus? When the idea is there, you begin with these scent strips.” She gestured at the narrow pieces of paper with the ends turned up.

“I moisten the end of a strip with one of the oils, and label it. That way I can smell several, in any combination, to get an idea of the finished product. When you have a possibility, you mix a small amount. If it still smells good, you add pure alcohol in a proportion of four to one part mix, if you want perfume. It’s about sixteen to one if you want cologne.”

“That’s it?”

She laughed. “I wish. You have to let the fragrance age in the alcohol, sort of like wine, to see what happens. These are mostly natural oils. When the molecules get together they interact and you might be surprised and end up with an odor like cabbage soup.”

The confusion on Sarah’s face made her decide to take it a little further, enjoying the pleasure of sharing something she loved.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              

“Look at these scent strips. Each one has an oil sample I think I might use. See? I’ve marked them. We have rosemary, lemon, rose, cedar, jasmine, and cinnamon.

“Pick up two of them and hold them together, close to your nose. You can tell if it works without actually mixing it.”

Sarah carefully picked up a rose and a jasmine strip, and sniffed cautiously.

Lynn watched her, amused. Sarah was so intent. It would be fun to teach her about perfume. Having an interest might distract her from some of the unhappiness in her life.

“Yuck, that is really sweet.”

“The jasmine is probably a bit too much. Try the lemon with the rose.”

            “That’s better, but I still don’t like it.”

“Well, you get the general idea. In a couple of hours you might work your way through all the bottles I have here and find a combination.”

“It must take a long time to do this.”

“It helps if you’ve memorized a couple of hundred scents. It’s called, ‘having a nose.’ Professional ‘noses’ can identify about two thousand different odors.”

“Could I learn to do this?”

“Sure. Like any other creative art form, it takes practice, but I’d enjoy teaching you. Of course, if you wanted a career working for a lab somewhere, then you’d need a college degree and a lot of organic chemistry courses to get hired.”

That's how you begin, using oils from your collection. Be sure to label everything and take notes if you have a combination you like. I usually start on the back of one hand with the first oil, the major note. Start simple with three drops. Add two drops of the next oil and sniff. Okay but boring? Does it need to be lighter? Add a drop of citrus. Is it too floral? Add a bit of freesia. When you reach the point where you're adding an oil to fix a mistake, start over.

When you have something you like convert the drops to milliliters and mix in your flask add alcohol at the rate of sixteen milliliters alcohol to the total mils of oil in the flask. I'm going to recommend vetiver and/or patchouli as a fixative because you can get away with using a tiny amount that won't change the fragrance. Here is how you do this:

Mix two mil of vetiver or patchouli (or one of each) in 10 mil of alcohol. Mix well. Add two mil of this mix to your fragrance. Now comes the hard part. Let it sit a week before smelling it. It will change. If you detect the fixative, use a smaller amount proportionately in the finished fragrance. If the sample loses its scent in 30 minutes, add more fixative, cautiously and wait some more. You want a fragrance that will last for an hour at least. Can you use the oil without the alcohol? Sure, but add the fixative to fix it, maybe 1 mil to 10 mil of oil.

There is so much more to this, but if you get this far, you are ready to read some books with understanding and, of course, you can e-mail me at Author@joycezeller.com with questions, anytime. I love talking about fragrance. 

Here are two suggestions to start: For a masculine type: 4 mil amber, two mil frankincense, 1 mil sandalwood, 2 mil bayleaf, 2 drops cinnamon (start with strip samples, then go to drops before going to the milliliters, or you'll waste a lot of oil before getting it right.

For a feminine type: 4 mil mignonette, 1 mil freesia or Lily of the Valley, 1 mil rose, 3 drops clove. If it needs lightening, try 1 mil grapefruit or lemon.

Assembling Your List of Perfume Making Supplies

Okay, you’ve become interested in the art of making perfume and you are ready to start your stash of oils. You are about to enter the exciting world of the collector. I’ll start you out with perfume oils because they are inexpensive and you are learning, so a wrong purchase won’t matter. They are also synthetic and predictable. There’s a good chance that what your mix smells like before you add alcohol will be the same as the finished product.

     Essentials are from living material. They have hundreds of parts and once you get them together in an alcohol solution, they begin to interact. All your formulas will need to age, like fine wine, to get the final result, but you can’t imagine how often, after six weeks, I’ve had to pour my masterpiece down the drain because it smelled like cabbage soup.

     However, soon synthetics will not be enough and you will want to move into essential oils. You think stamp collectors are obsessed? Wait until you are bitten by the “oil collector’s bug,” and will go to any lengths to get a mere dram of one you don’t have.

     We are at my next absolute rule. Write everything down. Every drop. You might think you will remember, but the creative process messes with your mind. If you don’t write it down, and six weeks later you have this to-die-for scent, don’t call me. I can’t tell you how often a distressed beginning perfumer would come into my store and ask, pleading, “What’s in this?” They didn’t write it down and now it is gone forever.

     Sometimes a fascinating thing will happen called an accord. When a combination of oils is mixed, they all disappear and become an entirely new scent. When rose, birch tar (smells like tar), and Castoreum (an oil of animal origin—beaver—which smells like caramel, are mixed the result is tanned leather. Francois Coty, the godfather of perfumery, discovered accords.  Once, by chance, I made one with lavender and patchouli. It was a heavenly floral that I’ve never been able to duplicate, because I didn’t write it down.

     If you search online under “Rare Essential Oils,” or simply Perfume Oils, or Essential Oils, you will find what you need. Some websites will allow a small sample for a price. If you are not familiar with the scent, this is a good way to start. Don’t be afraid to call for advice. Perfumers addicted to the art crave conversation. You will learn that some oils are so scarce they sell for hundreds or thousands of dollars a dram.

     There are three parts to a blended fragrance.

·      Top Notes – These are scents of short duration.  They last about twenty minutes and are what you smell first when you sample a scent.  Orange, lemon, lime, some florals, and violet—which is there, but you won’t smell it after a few minutes. Violet is always a synthetic chemical called ionone. You can’t afford real violet.

·      Middle notes – this is what you will smell for hours.  It will include the bottom notes and, if it is for men, will have woody notes, evergreen, cedar leaf, amber, Frankincense as well as light florals. For women, any flower, vanilla, maybe green tea, or one of the fruits. I’ll include some recipes later on.

·      Bottom Notes – these are the heavier resins and fixatives. They are slow to dissipate—sometimes take days to fade. They are called fixatives because they grab hold of the other molecules in your mix and hold them so they linger longer. There are synthetic fixatives, but the natural work best. The problem is they all have odor, so how much to use without screwing up your formula takes practice. Fixatives are: vetiver, patchouli, sandalwood, and some resins.

     You’ll need some supplies to start: scent strips, eye droppers, a graduated flask that measures milliliters (you can find this at a hobby store, a beaker that holds about two ounces, and some glass bottles to put your fragrance. For perfume one ounce will do, but for cologne three or four ounces. There are about 15 milliliters to a half-ounce; 30 ML to an ounce. You’ll be working with about 7 ml of oil mix to 1 ounce of alcohol to make one ounce of perfume, or about 1-16 to make 4 ounces of cologne. Toilet Water, which is a European formula usually, is 1-8.

This is a long list. You don’t need everything all at once and expect to take time searching the Internet. I suggest starting with two or three oils from each section of the following list.

I’ve highlighted with a * those you might want to start with.

   A beginning list for your collection in usually 15 ml amounts or half-ounce, ES means essential oil, would be:

            Top notes:

            Bay Leaf ES*

            Orange or Bergamot ES*

            Grapefruit ES*

            Lemon ES

            Cinnamon*

            Clove*

            Middle Notes or the body of the fragrance:

            Amber*

            Freesia

            Honeysuckle*

            Iris

            Hyacinth*

            Jasmine

            Lavender ES French

            Lily of the Valley

            Migonette or Reseda (the same thing)*

            Musk

            Rosemary

            Rose*

            Tea Rose (greener than rose)

            Vanilla

            Bottom Notes or fixatives

            Frankincense

            Patchouli ES*

            Sandalwood (very expensive might wait on this)

            Vetiver ES*

The next essay will be on how to go about building a fragrance. In my new book, to be released in October, titled, Love in a Small Town, Lindsay, the perfumer, guides Sarah, her young pupil through the process. I’ll quote from the book and suggest some possible formulas for you to try.

           

Making Your Own Signature Fragrance

I'm writing this five-part series on perfume making because perfume making will be  part of the plot of my new novel, "Love In a Small Town," to be released by Rogue-Phoenix Press this October. In the book, my teenage protagonist, Sarah, is taught to make perfume by Lindsay, the love interest of Sarah's step-father. The fragrance is called "Shakespeare's Flowers," and I sold it in my store until I retired.

Think of perfume making as like cooking. First you have to have an idea of the finished product. Cooks have a whole mental library of tastes stored in their brain. When they’re seasoning something, they taste it, then decide if it needs to be saltier, sweeter, spicy, or perhaps tart. They search their memory, remembering the tartness of lemon, the bite of turmeric, and add accordingly.

 Fragrance compounding is the same, except that you’ve memorized the odors of scent ingredients. You still combine them mentally, then go on to compounding starting with one, and adding carefully, until it smells the way you want it. You start with the oils. When you're satisfied, add pure, 90 proof alcohol--the kind you buy at the liquor store. 16 parts alcohol to one part oil mix. Perfume is four to one.

Think about what you like. Don’t worry about the odor being masculine or feminine. Many women wear men’s fragrances because they are not so sweet, and men often like a little lilac or lavender added to what they wear. Amber is good on anyone. Add a little orange and maybe a snitch of cinnamon and it’s fabulous. Essential oil of Jamaican Bay Leaf is very hard to find, but it adds freshness to almost anything. I suggest you find stores that sell oils—probably a health food store, or Whole Foods Grocers, and start smelling to get familiar. The first thing you’ll notice is a difference in quality. Every brand has a few clunkers, especially the lavenders. This oil is in short supply. Lavender officianalis is the French one we all like, but Norfolk Lavender is good. You will probably have to buy most of your oils online, so start small, and look for quality. In my experience, I have always been satisfied with the quality and purity of Kiehls, and Eden, sold through Amazon.com, and Sunrose Oils. Buy the smallest possible amount to start. ¼ ounce, or 15 milliliters is plenty.

When I was compounding a fragrance in my store for a client, the formulas were very simple—at the most, five oils, because the olfactory nerve in the human nose gets tired quickly and loses its ability to smell. We call it ‘olfactory fatigue.’ This comes in handy if you are in a room with a noxious odor, like something dead, or fermented. In a few minutes you won’t smell it anymore. Inhaling camphor will speed things along. One perfume oil, violet, contains a chemical, ionone, which will kill your nose quickly. If you use it, be sure it is the last thing you add.

I mentioned before the difference between perfume oils, which are synthetic, and essential oils, which are distilled from living plant material. You will be using perfume oils. They are cheaper, and your body will not absorb them, sometimes with unexpected results. Leave them for the aromatherapists. There are only a few essential oils that you will have in your collection: sandalwood, patchouli, vetiver, and possibly benzoin, because they are fixatives, which I will explain later, and the citrus oils.

Your first assignment is to go looking for odors. Shop for oils, but also smell what is around you. Notice the difference between grass, moss, dirt, the difference between the leaf of a flower and the petals. Leaf oils are called “petigrain.” What is orange oil? The odor of orange peels. What is Orange Petigrain? The leaf odor, which is green with a suggestion of orange. Cherry bark smells like almond. With practice you will be able to tell the difference between juniper, pine, and cedar blindfolded. Check out the Internet and make a list. The next paper will be on starting your collection and what supplies you need.

Without a Nose There'd Be No Sex. Who Knew?

      Rogue-Phoenix press will release my new novel, Love in a Small Town, in October. Learning how to make a perfume is an important part of the plot. Since Professional Perfumer was one of my job descriptions in one of my former lives, I decided to write a few blogs on perfume making and the important role scent plays in our lives. We all know about how smell protects us from fire and spoiled meat, but few know the important role it plays in human procreation.

The following quote is from my book, Accidental Alien, wherein aliens, who are plants living on the planet Agra, which contains only plants, are trying to understand animal (Earth) behavior. The whole matter of human sexual activity amazes them. As one alien, a moss, explains:

"The human male has little choice in the matter. His nose controls him, though he is not aware of it, because, although his body can detect female sex hormones, he is not aware of the odor. His hormonal makeup forces him to act at any opportunity. The female has scent glands behind her ear. When a fetal egg has ripened, she emits a scented hormone called 'Copulin.' Sex glands in nearby males are stimulated by this odor to produce another hormone, testosterone, in their saliva. He coaxes the female to allow him to put his mouth on hers, Earthlings refer to this action as kissing, and the saliva arouses the female, encouraging further male mating activity. Fertilization takes place."

We’ve never been able to incorporate hormones into commercial fragrance, but our desire to smell good to others supports a billion dollar industry. Creating a fragrance isn’t difficult. It requires scented oils and grain alcohol, available at the local liquor store. The fragrance Sarah makes in my new book is one I made and sold in my store as “Shakespeare’s Flowers.”

This week I’ll explain the different materials used as scent. Next we’ll discuss the various scents you might want to start your own collection; then we’ll go on to possible mixtures. There are three materials generally available on the retail market. The first, essential oils, are distilled from living plant material: wood, leaves, stems, and flowers. They’re generally found in health food stores or online, and are the oldest, historically. They were made by simple distillation, a process discovered in the Middle East, as early as 3,000B.C., by men attempting to discover “the essence of life.” They roamed the desert, distilling everything in primitive pots, down to the tiniest part, hoping they’d discover the key to everlasting life. The oils use for fragrance and healing became important later on. Today a similar process, called extraction, but less expensive is used. The Romans were crazy about roses and scented everything with rose oil.

Many flowers cannot be distilled, so most fragrance today uses perfume oils, which and are not nearly expensive as essential oils, and are manufactured in a laboratory. They are generally available online and are recommended.

The other fragrance source comes from chemicals that have no counterpart in nature. They are simply compounds found to have odor useful in perfume manufacture.  I’ll only mention aldehydes, which are compounds with one carbon atom and attached oxygen atoms. Aldehydes go by names such as C 12, which means one carbon atom and twelve oxygen atoms, and smells like fresh air, or C 16, which is like peach. One chemist, on the other hand, described aldehyde C 10, as “ten nights on a troop train.”

Don’t worry about these; just know that most fruit scent is an aldehyde. Coco Chanel was the first person to use one in Chanel #5. I think it was Aldehyde C 12MNA. The French, who only, at that time, used “real” oils, were scandalized.

For a complete biography and a list of my books go to: http://joycezellercom.weebly.com