Perfume is like a magical genie in a bottle. The fragrance swirls out and seduces our sense of smell in a bewitching spiral, enticing top notes first, then the heart reveals itself and finally the lingering base underpinning the whole scent and defining its true character emerges.
The perfumier’s art is the creation of this ethereal structure, which must be both harmonious and unique. ‘Noses’, as they are called, are olfactory experts with the ability to build and blend the perfume pyramid into a continuous ribbon, or ‘thread’, of fragrance – at times using hundreds of ingredients in quantities and formulations that are carefully guarded secrets.
What’s in a perfume?
The ingredients are either derived from organic products and chemical formulations that add a factor such as ‘sparkle’ in the case of aldehydes, or synthetic compounds that mimic natural scents, such as Calone which provides the ozone scent found in oceanic perfumes.
The most potent aromatic ingredient is an absolute, extracted from a base product such as rose petals by using volatile solvents. Once these have evaporated, the resulting waxy solid is referred to as the concrete.
Essential oils are obtained from various parts of plants by various methods, some dating back thousands of years. Oil from citrus fruits can be obtained by expression, or squeezing the rind. Enfleurage, soaking the material in oil or fat to capture its fragrance, has been used since ancient times. With maceration the fixed oil is heated to release the essential oil.
Solvent extraction uses solvents to render the oils in delicate flowers such as violets or mimosa. Steam distillation, used by the Arabs since the eighth century, is the most popular method for extracting essential oils, using steam heat to evaporate vapour from flower petals, which is collected, cooled and fed into an alembic where the separated oil floats on top of the water. After the oil is skimmed off, the remaining water can be used in beauty products, for example orange or rosewater.
Modern chemical processes have enabled the separation of the fragrant essences into components such as esters, aldehydes ketones and indoles, which can be further broken down into subtle scent molecules and reassembled in combinations.
Combining ingredients
The basic combination in any perfume is called an accord, where two or more fragrances or notes are combined to make a seamless third composition in which the originals are undetectable. This provides the skeleton of the perfume, with all the other elements added to harmoniously flesh out this fragrance framework. The process uses ‘bridges’ that connect the different notes and harmoniously add to the perfume’s character (floral, oriental, gourmand and so on) to create a balanced result. Accords are often created to evoke a scent that doesn’t produce one single odour, such as the warm, fleshly amber or heady mellis accords.
Every perfumier has their own combination of ingredients for creating an accord, although some, such as oak moss in a chypre accord, are regarded as elemental. A soliflore is a composition built around one note.
All the elements combine to create three periods of evaporation during which we can discern the different layers of the perfume. First are the top notes, usually bright and penetrating but light in character and often composed of citrus or aldehydes, then the body, heart or middle notes that can be smelled as soon as the perfume settles and which reinforce the accord and classify its type, and finally the bottom or base notes that provide depth and solidarity as well as lasting power, or diffusion.
The bottom often contains fixatives that work symbiotically with the other ingredients to extend durability. What a perfume smells like after a couple of hours is called the dry down.
The mix is referred to as a compound, which is further diluted to make the finished perfume. Perfumes with 15 to 45 percent aromatic compound in an alcohol base are called extracts. Eau de parfum contains 10 to 15 percent, eau de toilette as little as 5 percent and eau de cologne usually less.
Different types of perfume
Perfumes are classified into different types:
• Single florals are fragrances dominated by the scent of one flower, although other notes make up the perfume.
• Floral bouquets combine several floral scents.
• Bright florals fuse both categories and are characteristically modern scents.
• Amber fragrances use animalic ingredients to create voluptuous, earthy and sometimes spicy scents.
• Oriental fragrances are usually both woody and spicy.
• Gourmand fragrances smell edible, often of vanilla, tonka bean or chocolate.
• Wood fragrances are resinous and aromatic.
• Leather fragrances have a savoury complexity in the middle notes.
• Chypre evokes the scent of moss and soil.
• Fougère conjures the scent of ferns, with woody and herbaceous notes.
• Green fragrances are a fresher, more modern version of chypre.
• Citrus or fruity fragrances are sharp and clean smelling.
• Oceanic fragrances are fresh, tangy and slightly salty.
Although these classifications provide a general guide, the history of perfume making is one of innovation as well as diversity. There are always wonderful new creations being released to seduce our senses.
Accords and notes
Below are some common accords and the notes used to make them, but every perfumier creates new accords of their own.
- Amber contains balsamic notes like benzoin, tolu and labdanum as well as vanilla and spicy notes.
- Ambrein has more woody notes, combined with rose. Calvin Klein’s Obsession is an example.
- Chypre balances bergamot with oak moss, vetiver, wood and floral notes.
- Fougère uses lavender, oak moss and the fragrance of hay from coumarine.
- Mellis blends spices, wood notes and coumarine together with balsamic notes. An example is Chanel Coco.
- White floral accord combines gardenia, jasmine, orange blossom and tuberose. An example is Marc Jacobs by Marc Jacobs.
- Aromatics are mainly composed of sage, rosemary, thyme and lavender.
