Just as an artist paints a beautiful picture, or a musician composes a piece of music, a perfumer creates a beautiful fragrance. Perfumery is an art and a perfumer takes inspiration from all around. Music, art, fashion and nature, thoughts, memories and emotions. The perfumer gets lost in their world of perfumery, imagining how the fragrance will smell before it is blended, creating accords, smelling different raw materials over and over again until they find the notes they desire.
As they build the structure of their fragrance, it starts to open up and bloom like a beautiful flower, then bump, back down to earth as they realise the cost price is triple that of the brief. Even if an evaluator wants to smell orange blossom because it's on trend, regulations won't allow the use of so much orange oil and the product will be filled at 45oC!
These are only a few of the issues we have in balancing creativity with suitability and commerciality, not to mention if it's right for the brand and ultimately the end consumer. What is the best way to evaluate fragrance for a particular product and how can you remove bias in fragrance selection? Also, how do you truly know when you've got the right fragrance?
To hear more from the Creative Perfumery Team at Seven and the challenges of fragrance development, register for this workshop at in-cosmetics Asia:
Formulating with Fragrances – Making Scents That Make Sense – Thurs, 3 November, 10:00-13:00
Jackie Brown
Fragrance Development & Evaluation Manager
Seven Scent Ltd
www.sevenscent.co.uk