Ask the Perfumer - Sunday July 4, 2010

-
It's a lazy holiday weekend in the US - yay, Independence! - but I'll be around to check in if anyone has any questions about natural perfumery. Hope I can help. Take care and have fun!

Comments

  1. Ankica7/04/2010 11:40 AM

    First of all, thank you for Ask the perfumer day :) I love reading questions and answers.
    I have 2 questions:

    1. I read that you are diluting your essential oils in alcohol because it is cheaper. Can you feel scent behind alcohol? I use 96% alcohol for my scents (practice would be better word) and essential oils - and still, alcohol is way to dominant. If i would dilute EO in alcohol - I wouldn't be able to feel anything. Or is it just training of the nose? :)

    2. What are the main rules that you follow when you create perfumers? Do you follow rules of percentage of top middle base note within perfume? Do you think of perfume family when you start to make something or some you go by some theme/person/emotion/event etc? I know that perfumers have trials and errors, but did you manage, over time, to skip some basic amateur mistakes? :)

    Thank you and one big bravo for Musk project. You have no idea how I enjoy reading articles on various blogs! Soooo great!!!!!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Ankica7/04/2010 11:43 AM

    This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

    ReplyDelete
  3. AnyasGardenPerfumes7/04/2010 7:34 PM

    Hi Ankica:

    I only dilute a tiny portion of my perfume organ, just enough so that I have dropper bottles that I can use for many modifications.

    After I find the mod I wish to turn into a perfume, I use the full-strength aromatic.

    I teach my students that when they evaluate the mod, the longevity of the perfume is not as true as it will be when they create say, a 30% extrait, or an EdP. Using the 10% dilutions does save a lot of money, and give a quick view of what the finished perfume will be, since the aromatic is already "opened up" by the alcohol.

    You must always start with a Fragrance Family in mind, and "smell" and "experience" the completed perfume in your head before you start blending. Of course, you may change and modify along the way, but if you don't have a good road map - the FF, you'll get lost!

    The t/m/b percentages are a good guide, and there are many variations on them, of course. I do find that if I choose lighter basenotes, I tend to use more intense middle notes, and that can skew the percentages, and vice versa! The top notes should never exceed 20% as a general rule, often less than that. HTH.

    ReplyDelete
  4. AnyasGardenPerfumes7/04/2010 7:38 PM

    Ankica, I worded this insufficiently:
    I only dilute a tiny portion of my perfume organ, just enough so that I have dropper bottles that I can use for many modifications.

    It should read:

    I dilute my perfume organ materials, typically down to 10%, but I leave the original, undiluted bottle intact. So, for example, I'll make up 1 gram of rose oil in 9 grams of alcohol for the dropper bottle that I use to create my mods. The undiluted rose oil that is left remains untouched, until I am ready to blend with it.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Bellatrix perfumes7/06/2010 6:05 AM

    Thanks for this! I did understand that you are diluting only for trials - not all your materials... However, I fear that my nose wouldn't be able to recognize that scent (so diluted) while I make it... Alchol simply overpowers everything (in my case!). Ankica/Bellatrix

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Boxgasm - for perfumers, aromatherapists, bath and body manufacturers, chandlers. What the heck is a boxgasm? Well, read below and you may have one.

-
Image
Project Boxgasm Announcement: If you are an artisan who makes perfume, bath & body products, aromatherapy products, candles - you can now make your own custom boxes! The Natural Perfumers Guild wishes to share this discovery with everyone, so please share the link to this blog with other groups, forums and chat places you may frequent.  The more the merrier - let's upgrade our products to the next level, with lovely, custom boxes!  I am the President of the Guild, and I like to roam social media sites and check out, and "like" the various projects and announcements of the Guild members.  Little did I dream when I visited a Facebook page of one of our members, a page that only had 21 followers, since it's new, that I'd discover something that can help all artisan small business owners. But there it was, an iconic image out of South Africa - custom perfume boxes! When I called some members of the Natural Perfumers Guild and told them about the discovery th...
Read more

Natural Isolates and the Natural Perfumer - Being the Captain of Your Own Fragrant Ship

-
Image
Get a cup of coffee or tea - this is a long blog post, with lots of twists and turns and surprises - good surprises!  Please see the blog post yesterday on the Guild member vote on the definition of natural isolates if you have not already read it. Backstory Do you ever wonder why I never taught a course in natural isolates or began to sell them on my website? After all, I was the pioneer natural perfumer who first used them in my MoonDance and StarFlower perfumes, both best sellers and award winners. Something told me that I needed to do a lot more research because a wrong move, the wrong isolate sold, could ruin the creations of lots of perfumes made by my (natural perfumer) customers. I have a duty as a trusted authority in natural perfumery, a person who heads the Natural Perfumers Guild, and who started a Yahoo discussion group on natural perfumeryin 2002, to be responsible and proceed slowly. Currently there are no regulations that address natural isolates, or ...
Read more

Ask the Perfumer Sunday Oct 21, 2012

-
Image
Ask the Perfumer - and an Ambergris hypothesis Guild member Lisa Coburn posted a link on Facebook that took me to a video on how cephalopods--squid, cuttlefish and octopus, are masters of disguise.  As I watched it, I made a perfume connection, straight to the elusive, mysterious, rare and valued ambergris, a gorgeous material used in perfumery. Photo of the famed 'Yeti' chunk of ambergris. Ambergris is produced by the stomach/intestinal secretions of the sperm whale to protect its insides from the sharp beaks of the squid and cuttlefish, two main items in its diet.  The whale evacuates the chunk of ambergris when it becomes large enough to be an irritant on its own, albeit a softer, rounder irritant compared to the beak and cartilage of the squid or cuttlefish.  As a perfumer, I often have to gently remind excitable newbies ;-)  that the scent of the ambergris is secondary to its major contribution to a perfume, which is its ability to 'marry' and a...
Read more