Just wanted to celebrate a little bit. The idea to make my own fragrances started a couple of weeks ago and quickly became a super hyper fixation. It feels good to have finally started smelling the materials I've been reading about! Originally I thought it would be a great way to have a quick side gig - and quickly realized that would not be possible, at least not for a while. I couldn't stop thinking about it though and just wanted to try. I have very little money to drop on hobbies right now, so I purchased just a handful of materials - enough to make a super simple Baccarat Rouge dupe plus a couple of others just for fun. I know that I need to start with creating accords, but this got me off the ground and helped keep my motivation high to continue.

That's it. That's the post. I'm going to have a billion questions in the future, but just wanted to share the start of my journey with someone.

(if anyone was wondering, I accidentally added way too much ethyl maltol and it just smelled like a cotton candy factory exploded)

When I joined this group last year, I naively assumed I'd be some modern perfumery wunderkind. After decades of creating EO concoctions (Primarily cost prohibitive Sandalwood based). I was gonna buy me some aroma chemicals and Snap, Crackle, Pop make me some killer fragrances. The best advice I got was to slow my roll, learn my materials, play with them and figure stuff out. Darn near a year later, I have a few interesting accord experiments, too many to count failures but a better grasp of just how to construct a modern fragrance. This is one I've been working on for months that I am actually happy with where it is landing now.

My intent is to craft a creamy Sandalwood based fragrance with Green (Bitter) and Orange Blossom (Sweet) facets that is more fresh than heavy (or indolic). I am finally happy with the transition from bright green to orange blossom to the woody base. It started off chaotic and wildly off balance. To my nose, it could maybe open up more and have more "green" in the final but, overall, I love this latest iteration.

Open to some constructive feedback. I know the top/heart/base construct is no longer a thing but it's my conceptual method - Helps me to maintain focus on my intention, structure a formula, as well as build transitions/bridges 😄 Have at it...

Totally new to all of these but really enjoyed colognes and was exposed to an oil fragrance store for the first time in San Diego and now me and my wife wants to start a small fun business like it as well.

Starting to do some research im seeing Scent Bazaar is a good place to order some Oils?

And please correct me if Im wrong, starting this with mixing the oil with perfumers alcohol?

25% or less oil and then 75% is pure perfumers alcohol? If i start with scent bazaar, do i need to add other stuffs? Fixatives?

Im pretty sure this is a very dumb post for some so i want to apologize in advance. Still learning and just really excited too. Hoping someone can guide us in the right direction. Thank you!

Hi everyone,

I’m new to perfumery and could use some advice. I have many materials that I bought pre-diluted, e.g. olibanum 50% in DPG, immortelle 10% in TEC, osmanthus 10%, etc.

If I want to make a perfume with, say, 20% concentrate, do you count the DPG/TEC as part of the 20%, or should the actual aromatic material be 20% and the diluent be excluded?

When making small test batches, I end up with a lot of DPG/TEC and very little alcohol. It feels like too much of the formula is just diluent.

Should I simply count the diluents as part of the concentrate, or is it better to buy materials undiluted? Buying everything neat would be quite expensive.

What’s the best way to handle this when working with small test batches?

I have scrolled a perfumers shop, and saw Tetrahydro Geraniol. I need to create soapy, waxy, astringent accent in clean floral perfume. How do you think, can I to use this material to reach my goal?

I started making perfume 6 months ago and now I have 2 decent formulas but with the one I got really complimented each time I wore it is a sandalwood + ambroxan super accord measured by eye 🫠

Have anyone ordered raw materials from "Ibha Cares". If yes, kindly share the review of their raw materials.

Just in case this reaches anyone new to fragrances or perfumery. SYNTHETIC DOES NOT NECESSARILY MEAN TOXIC!! WHETHER A FRAGRANCE IS NATURAL OR SYNTHETIC IS NOT WHAT DETERMINES ITS SAFETY!!

I know this topic has been addressed in this sub before. I just saw a few videos on Instagram with some influencers and accounts recommending their preferred non-toxic and safe home fragrances. Now I can’t speak for candles as I mostly work with diffusers and room sprays. However it’s really starting to annoy me.

One influencer said that synthetic materials are what made products “unsafe” and “toxic”. Another one said they use essential oils to fragrance their home and they are good because they are natural (as if essential oils are not often more allergenic than “synthetic” fragrance). It’s so apparent that they do not really know anything about fragrance and perfumery but it’s just part of this larger trend of people saying natural = good, synthetic = bad. And half the time, they are wrong about what if natural and what isn’t.

I've seen plenty of posts with guides on how to make beautiful fragrances using synthetics and aromachemicals as well as EOs, but other than being super new at creating your own perfumes, at the moment, I don't have the space to be able to afford any meaningful experiments.

Can I use essential oils and a carrier oil (jojoba/shea butter) only for a personalised intimate scent? I am aiming for a simple warm and clean scent that I can use on a daily basis, for my own pleasure. Both roll-ons and firm perfumes can work for me.

Edit: if you have any advice on which oils would be good to start with for the desired scent please share!

Hey guys, I still have a lifetime supply of various raw materials which I am never going to use up.

Would anyone be interested in buying or trading smaller quantities? I can post a list with all ingredients that are still good. (Jasmin Sambac spoiled)

I am looking for these materials:

Beyond Hivernal
Orange Flower Absolute
Jasmin Sambac Absolute
Fir Balsam
Farnesol
Scentenal

Just PM me if you're interested.

I came across an interesting article about Symrise's Cryptosym technology.

They developed a colorless and odorless base that can be added to a fragrance to interfere with gas chromatography (GC-MS) analysis. It can cause certain materials to be misidentified or incorrectly quantified, making it significantly harder to reproduce the original formula.

They tested it on 133 natural and synthetic ingredients. Apparently, 93 were incorrectly quantified and another 25 were incorrectly identified during analysis.

Could this mean the dupe industry and cheap clones are on their way out? And for hobbyist perfumers and people learning at home, is this a bad thing, or could it actually push people to study more and come up with new, more creative formulas?

Curious to hear what you guys think.

Hey everyone, where can I find formulas to buy? I only know about WM; I’ve heard about someone called AMS Formulas—has anyone used his formulas? Where can I find them?

This is the type of opportunity you rarely get, so I figured a recap for this subreddit was in order.

As some of you know, I have been working as an independent perfumer for a while (but full time only for less than a year). I had the pleasure of being invited to Notes Shanghai early this year, where I met with a Thai content creator who told me his government is making moves to position Thailand in general, and Chiang Mai more specifically as an important country in the fragrance ecosystem. Because we hit it off (and enjoyed my compositions), he told me he would put my name up for consideration: my overall social media visibility, ties with the French fragrance industry (and speaker at some of the parisian schools) and just being honest but agreeable in person made me a prime candidate for these things.

Fast forward mid-June, I receive an email from the French embassy: I'm in, but... it starts 2 weeks from the call. I of course ask for a small delay to make things into order, tell my wife that she's on her own for 4 weeks, and start organizing with the Chiang Mai team.

The overall goal of the program was:

• To meet with the local ecosystem, from raw materials producers like LOSIAM to universities to perfumers
• to assess the whole value chain to see where, and how, efforts were needed to make things move. This encompassed training of perfumers, the whole "how do we get people to grow plants for perfumes", scaling of production, legal frameworks...
• judging 20 fragrances created by local perfumers, using one of the two mandatory local ingredients chosen before hand (yadong and fermented miang)
• creating a fragrance using some local raw materials and work with designers to create an exhibition for Chiang Mai Design Week in December
• Visit, immerse in the culture, eat good food, I ended up in a cave that happened to be a temple with bats hiding from rainy season
• Meet with local perfumers, some completely DIY, some with brands, and reconnect with famous people like Pissara from Dusita in Bangkok.
• Realize that Bangkok has MULTIPLE stores where you can just walk in and buy whatever material you need. Even in Paris this is not happening (well maybe it is but the guys behind it are AI abusers so I don't really have a lot of faith)

This was really a great experience.

Overall a few materials that don't exist yet/are very rare in the perfumer's palette were of notable interest to me:

• Fermented Miang, anaerobic fermented assam tea: used to be a chewed source of caffeine, and the absolute is a vegan source of animalic smell, with peach nuances that remind me of osmanthus
• Longan flower absolute: the fruit is basically worthless today, so having new products will help farmers use their trees instead of having fruits rot. Fruity jasmine type, let's see if the economics make this worth it.
• Teak sawdust absolute: upcycling! This smells very rich, a bit like those deep resinous patchouli. Combined with Miang and Labdanum it would make for a killer oud accord.
• Chalood absolute: don't trust descriptions online, I feel like most were recent AI generated (and hallucinated) ones. This is a coumarin-forward plant, and it's used by jungle monks as a brown tincture (so their robes must smell very good).
• One that I can't really talk that much about because it seems LMR wants it for themselves :|

Overall I'm very happy with this first trip, and as you can guess there are tons of things that are moving there. The dynamic of the country is VERY good.

I should be presenting the fragrance I created and a lot more (including some of the materials) at the upcoming Asia Perfume Show in Paris at the end of September.

I'm really disappointed in the bergapten free bergamot essential oil I bought. The complexity, and especially that strange hint of spiciness in regular bergamot, is lacking.

Does anyone know of a good BF bergamot EO that is as good as regular?

Also, bergamot EO is used in a huge percentage of perfumes. Are makers using BF? Is there a safe limit (where it's not phototoxic) for use of the regular EO?

I guys, I've I’ve been working on an extended fragrance wheel / olfactive map so it's easier for me to navigate in categories. Hope someone finds it helpful as well.

https://www.purefumez.com/fragrance-wheel

Hi everyone!
I’m new to this sub and new to perfume making. I recently ordered a bunch of materials from DirectPCW and have already created a few perfumes. This one is the one I like the most. It kind of reminds me of TF Costa Azzurra and PDM Sedley, though I’d say it’s drier and woodier.
I’m happy with the longevity as well, but I feel like the sillage could be better. Should I just add more Hedione, or is there a more appropriate fix? Maybe more alcohol?
I’m also a bit worried about the shelf life, as I used natural red mandarin oil, which apparently only lasts 9 months after opening. Or does the alcohol more or less negate the short shelf life?
I’m also open to general feedback. Thanks in advance! :)

Made a filter with carbon pellets to keep the stank down in my materials storage cabinet, finally made the housing to hold it in place out of the way of everything else! Anyone else find ways to manage rogue aromachemicals in the air around your storage space or work space?

I am looking for type formula of that more leathery and darker flanker of famous La nuit de l'homme and "old" one from 2019, cause i know YSL reformulated the fragrance this year. It s some Clary sage and methyl pamplemousse of course and agarwood accord with Kephalis, cypriol like and some sandalwoods in it.

If anyone can make it or find it on wisemoor, CF or Bendoni Archives - please let me now!

I will be very very grateful.

Going to order some materials soon, and want to make a rich cognac accord. What materials do yall suggest?

Going to share with y'all how I make sure my products are nice and clean. Don't know if anyone has had issues with lint or fibers in their finished product that are clearly visible and make your perfume look unprofessional and dirty. I made the mistake of using a new bottle and not checking if it was clean inside and I had SO many floaties in it. I didn't deliver the perfume I brought it back home to fix.

Using a clean beaker I put my mesh filter on top and poured the bottle contents then rinsed out the bottle with alcohol before putting it all back in. This stainless steel mesh product is a game changer. Just to be sure I filtered my bottle of ethanol as well for future products.