Whether you are just curious or already have a kit in route, welcome! We are excited to share the knowledge to create something beautiful with you. It is very fun and when you get the hang of it, I promise you it will be worth the effort!
Ok first things first once you decide to dive into Perfumery, the next thing you need to do is purchase materials that you will need to start practicing. I am going to link where I personally shop as well as a place my partner's shop. I'm not posting it for a commission, and I'm not affiliated with them (I wish!) I just personally know that they have good starter kits and sell quality products. It does not have to be a big investment, the smallest kit will do to begin. This is up to you, but we are starting very simple and you will be making very small amounts to begin with so all you need is the basics.
Make sure to read safety precautions, the ABC'S of fragrance and about fragrance families first.
You could purchase each of the items you will need separately, but I found this to be the most cost effective way when I first started out years ago. The perfumers apprentice carries starter kits, as well as Vetiver aromatics. If I was not so impatient I would shop here a lot more Pellwall, in the UK has the best deal I have ever seen, I was checking for our overseas friends but anyone if you are patient thats a good deal and today it says 15% off also on the header you will see it. They have different options so you can find something that works best for you. Do not get overwhelmed with the aroma chemicals, I found the only resource you will ever need to search aroma chemicals fragrance profiles Bedoukian Research is another supplier but read below to see why you need to bookmark this page asap.
Before you start experimenting, you need to have a basic knowledge of how fragrances work, which materials constitute the top, middle, and base notes. You will also need a small scale, because when you are working with a mixture of aroma chemicals, you need to be more precise than drops. It is also helpful to get a basic understanding of fragrance families and when first starting, you want to stick with the tried and true combinations that are known to work well, then eventually with more practice can start getting creative with it. There are books, classes you can take, also read this. It has a lot of information regarding all of this. Save this link here it is an amazing resource for beginners in perfumery. It's a database including all the aroma chemicals and what they are for and do. The image below is actually a way to search for aroma chemicals, there is a list as well as a search by name, ect. I just found this site and it is an invaluable tool for learning perfumery for free! It's also amazing for experienced perfumers!
What is perfume?
The simplest answer is a nice smell (fragrance). The source of the English word perfume though is from the Latin "per fumem" meaning "through smoke". Rather like a "message sent through the smoke of incense". So, Perfume may have deeper meaning that relates to communication.
What is perfume made from?
1. Natural Essential Oils and Extracts - from natural plant materials such as distilled or extracted from flowers, leaves, woods or grasses. (eg. Lavender Oil, Jasmin Absolute)
2. Aroma chemicals - (chemicals with smells) either separated
from essential oils or made from chemical sources such as the crude oil industry (eg. pinene,benzene)
3. Animal products - from animal secretions. Generally only 5 used : Civet from the Civet cat, Castoreum from the Castoreum beaver, Musk from the Musk deer, Ambergris from the Sperm Whale and Beeswax from bee hives.
An Introduction to Perfumery
We can then apply The ABC's of Perfumery to any smell by simply going through A to Z, one by one and giving marks to each letter.
From this we can graphically display the odor >>>
Lavandin Oil has mainly a herb and light chemical character with a coolness (iceBerg) and a slightly fruity note.
Relative Impact
Then we give a relative strength value for the smell compared to a standard - Linalool. We call this the Relative Impact
Linalool is given an arbitrary value of 100 - anything weaker has a value less than 100 and stronger smells values greater than 100 >>>
Linalool (synthetic source) is used as its quality is quite consistent and the single most used material in perfumery (and flavors). Linalool is one of the most prolific components in essential oils including Rosewood, Bergamot and Lavender oils. (Note in the EEC Linalool now requires labelling on products)
Odor Life
We need to have a index of how long the odor lasts. For this we use paper smelling strips to give comparative Odor Life for materials.
e.g. Amyl Acetate, the fruity pear drops chemical, only lasts a few minutes (0.15Hrs). Sandalwood Oil Mysore lasts upwards of 6 months (4,500Hrs)
Perfume Structure
To explain how essential oils and aroma chemicals can be used to make a perfume lets look at the structure of a perfume concentrate or "compound". This compound may make up to 50% of a top grade alcoholic perfume or less than 1% in a perfumed product such as a shampoo. Every component in a perfume compound formula is there for one or more specific functions within the odor, falling into the main categories as follows (with the language metaphors in parentheses):
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