The Perfumer's
Workbook® | |
Inside The Perfumer's
Workbook®
Learning New Aroma Materials
Today in the world of perfumery there are several thousand aroma materials in use. New aroma materials, developed by research chemists, are being introduced annually. Most fragrance developers work with, and are intimately familiar with, a far smaller number of aroma materials. The Perfumer's Workbook database is pre-loaded with about 625 aroma materials. (Close to 325 of these are "natural" materials and The Perfumer's Workbook allows you to work with the "naturals" database alone, if you so desire.)
| The Perfumer's Workbook fragrance creation software was developed by perfumer Stephen V. Dowthwaite, founder of PerfumersWorld and is included as part of the PerfumersWorld Foundation Course or can be purchased separately for instant download.
Also available: The Perfumer's Workbook Professional Edition, starting at $5,000. Installation and on-site training available. Inquire. |
Click on image to enlarge We open the formula for PW_JOY |
Click on image to enlarge PW_JOY Formula Seen In Column 1 |
Click on image to enlarge We click on "Edit Material Quantity" |
Click on image to enlarge Enter "S" to "suggest similar materials" |
Click on image to enlarge Brief RM Data/Image Panel |
Most of us who are not engaged in full time fragrance creation would be hard pressed to claim a familiarity with even a fraction of the 625. For the many who started out in perfumery with the PerfumersWorld Foundation Course, our aroma palate may have originally consisted of no more than the 25 aroma bases and the single solvent that, in the PerfumersWorld teaching method, represented the ABC's of Perfumery.
But brilliant as these 25 aroma bases were (and still are!), we hungered for more - for information on aroma materials - fragrance molecules - which we had heard about or read about but perhaps never had the opportunity to experience.
The dilemma is simple. While you are starting with 25 materials, you would like to expand your scent knowledge by learning many more. But with, say, over 3,000 aroma materials out there to choose from, where do you start? The Perfumer's Workbook gives you assistance.
Start with a simple formula
Again leaning on the PerfumersWorld Foundation Course for guidance, an excellent starting point is to create your first formulas using the A-Z aroma materials included in the K26 kit. You quickly discover that with just these 26 materials you can create a huge number of types of perfumes. Often you can find yourself creating an exceedingly pleasing formula with just five or six of the A-Z notes. Now the fun can begin.
Open a formula
Since I don't have your formula to use as an example here, I've started by opening a pre-loaded formula, PW_JOY, a simplified PerfumersWorld version of Jean Patou's famous Joy, once advertised as the world's most expensive perfume.
Before opening the formula we see its brief description (top screen shot) complete with Odor Impact (100), Odor Life (78 hours on a test blotter), and Odor Profile described using The ABC's of Perfumery. We now open PW_JOY in Column 1 (screen shot 2).
Now let's say we would like to explore possible substitutes for "Jasmine Fleuressence J#1.10," one of the 26 aroma materials included with the Foundation Course K26 kit. To do this we highlight the QUANTITY of Jasmine Fleuressece ((30.00 grams) and RIGHT CLICK our mouse to bring up the menu shown in the third screen shot. We now select "Edit Material Quantities." This brings up the menu shown in screen shot 4. We are now prompted to either enter a new QUANTITY of the material or select a letter: "Q" to add up to 100, "R" to remove the aroma material from the formula, or "S" to suggest a (substitute) similar material.
Jasmine scents
Since we are looking for possible substitutes for Jasmine Fleuressence, we enter S and click the menu. Now, in the upper left section of the screen, above our formula, we see a listing of possible substitutes for Jasmine Fleuressence.
It may be that we are perfectly happy with Jasmine Fleuressence. We may have it on hand already and the price is quite affordable. Still, we would like to see what might make a substitute for Jasmine Fleuressence.
With my own formulas I frequently play this game. I look for possible substitutes, often aroma materials that are new to me, and then I order a small quantity of two or three, to see what they smell like and how they behave, even if I do not really want to change my formula. This is simply a chance to increase my knowledge and store it away for future use. (It is useful to note that materials shown in the database can be purchased directly from PerfumersWorld in small, affordable quantities. This makes it easy to have them on hand for future reference and future projects.)
But what do we know
about these other materials?
To help us explore the selected substitute materials we can toggle the "Brief RM/Data Image Panel" from the toolbar and information on the highlighted material will appear in the upper right panel, above our formula (bottom screen shot.)
In the bottom screen shot we see "Jasmin Sambac Absolute" highlighted in the top left panel and information about it shown in the top right panel.
Among other features of Jasmin Sambac Absolute we notice that its cost is given as $2300 per kilo (expensive!) but when we confirm this price with the vendor we find that the cost, as of 03/22/2013, has risen to $8250 per kilo (very expensive!) If we want to use Jasmin Sambac Absolute we may want to settle for a very small amount in our formula and then "extend" it with a less expensive jasmin material. (Sure, you think this practice is a rip off - until you are confronted with the cost for your fragrance!)
Besides the price, the panel in the upper right shows us Odor Impact (145, which is relatively strong) and Odor Life (45 hours on a test blotter, close to two full days). And, of great importance, the pie graph at the right shows us an Odor Profile for Jasmin Sambac Absolute. Does it appear to meet our needs? This p[ie graph help us decide.
Going down the list
If Jasmine Sambac Absolute doesn't interest you (or even if it does), you can go up and down the list of suggested substitute materials and examine their properties. Personally even when I order several materials from the list, I'll shy away from the very expensive ones other than to add very small amounts to a formula to enrich a particular note.
Then, what you've just done for Jasmine Fleuressence can be repeated for each of the other materials used in PW_JOY.
Order this fine product directly from our friends at PerfumersWorld
Homemade perfumes generally lack commercial value, regardless of how wonderful they may be, because their creators fail to record how their perfumes were made. To profit from a perfume, to sell it, to sell the rights to it, or have somebody sell it for you, you must be able to make more of it. To make more you need the formula, the record of how the perfume was made: what materials were used and how much of each material was used. While the formula is nothing more than a recipe, a simple piece of paper, it is the key to unlocking your perfume's commercial potential. With the formula in your hand you have the ability to make a few dozen bottles more or, like the celebrities, tens of thousands of bottles. How to create an international production formula for your homemade perfume is a guide to getting you started on the right foot, correctly documenting everything you do as you are doing it, and then using these notes with some basic mathematics to write a simple, accurate, universal formula for your perfume. Writing formulas for your perfumes can change the way you think about them. With your formulas in hand your creations are no longer "here today, gone tomorrow." Now, thanks to your library of formulas, your perfumes become immortal!
While much is written about perfume – the beautiful fragrances... the beautiful bottles – little is available on the "mechanics" of perfume production – the steps that take place on the "factory floor" where a beautiful vision is turned into a finished product, a "ready to sell" perfume. Now you can experience all of these steps, hands on, by making just one quart of your own perfume. If you follow each chapter and do what you are instructed to do, you will end up with from 8 to 64 bottles of your own perfume, depending on the capacity of the bottles you select. Along this "insiders journey," each step is profusely illustrated with professional color photographs and you'll learn — • Exactly what alcohol you'll need and where to get it • Why you'll want (just a little!) water in your perfume • What type bottles you'll need and why you cannot use others • Why you will use a spray and not a cap • How to fill and seal your bottles • How to label your bottles with the correct information so they will be legal for sale • How to select a name for your perfume that will allow you to acquire powerful trademark rights free. If you are a developer of scents you are encouraged to use one of your own for this project. If you are not a scent creator yourself you'll learn how to get a fragrance oil that is exactly right for this project. Online sources are given for all required supplies and materials. Nothing can hold you back from starting your project immediately!
Perfume is famous for the markup it can achieve, even for a middle market fragrance. While "everybody knows" that perfume costs next to nothing to make (not completely true) the making of it is often considered an esoteric secret. "Creating Your Own Perfume With A 1700 Percent Markup!" details how a 3-person company with no experience created their own fragrance in response to a marketing opportunity that was too good to pass up. The book explains exactly what was done to create a fragrance for that opportunity but it is far more than a history of the author's project. "Creating Your Own Perfume With A 1700 Percent Markup!" lays out every step in the process of creating your own perfume, either as a do-it-yourself project – and without the benefit of automated equipment some compromises and workarounds are required – or full bore professional production under your supervision. Either way you will be producing a quality fragrance at a remarkably low cost. Do you have a marketing opportunity that would be wildly profitable if only you could obtain your fragrance at a ridiculously low cost? "Creating Your Own Perfume With A 1700 Percent Markup!" is the guide you need to do it.
A really great name, a special name that is just right for a particular perfume or perfume marketer (or entrepreneur with money to invest!) can be worth a ton of money. But few individuals with great ideas ever manage to cash in on those brilliant ideas. Instead they wait while others "discover" their idea, acquire legal rights to it and make all the money while they are left out in the cold without a penny having been earned for what was once THEIR idea.
If you are struggling to name your perfume and are looking for a name that will have real value, "Naming Your Perfume And Protecting Your Name" will help you weed out low value names and point you to names that have better marketing value plus the potential to become valuable assets in themselves.
If you have a great name you want to protect but no fragrance, "Naming Your Perfume And Protecting Your Name" will guide you through the simple steps you must take to acquire a legal right to that name before someone else grabs it! Best of all, "Naming Your Perfume And Protecting Your Name" shows you how to gain strong legal protection for your name without a lawyer and without spending more than pocket change.
Never had an idea for a product name? Never thought much about perfume? "Naming Your Perfume And Protecting Your Name" may stimulate your interest in a whole new game that, when played well, can make you lots of money without your having to leave the comfort of your home office.
You can build a perfume business of your own using this business plan as a guide. By following its detailed strategy you learn to identify motivated groups of potential perfume buyers. Members of these groups are near the tipping point of desire for a new perfume. You don't know these people and they don't know you but you know a marketer they trust, one who does not currently sell perfume and might never think of selling perfume were it not for your approach. Here is where you step in with a professional plan, promotion, and perfume to take advantage of this ripe opportunity for mutual profit. Before your first promotion has peaked, you will already be developing a relationship with your next marketing partner. Following this plan, you will gain more and more profit with each new marketing partnership.
Now when you make your own perfume you can make it fully "commercial" meaning you will be creating a product ready for regular, continuous sales to friends, relatives, and the public! If the fragrance you've made has already won praise, why not share it with others? Some might pay you for it and want it for their web stores or retail boutiques! Creating your own perfume from dropper bottles: Methods, mechanics, and mathematics guides you through steps that can turn your hobby project into a perfume business. Discover how close you are now and how little more you must do to take what you made with essential oils and dropper bottles into a business of your own! For an introduction to this book, watch this video.
When you name a perfume you create a valuable asset – the name itself. To sell your perfume you want the most effective name possible. But a good name can have value beyond the edge it gives your sales. In naming your fragrance you are creating a trademark and a trademark can have value independent of the product. The value of that trademark can vary. Much depends on how well, in naming your perfume, you follow the trademark "rules." How To Create A More Valuable Name For Your Perfume first helps you develop a name that will be effective in selling your perfume. It then prods you to make use of certain techniques that can turn a good name into a great trademark, strong and valuable. If you have questions about how to protect a name, How To Create A More Valuable Name For Your Perfume will answer many such as:
- Can you protect your name yourself or do you need a lawyer?
- Can you register a trademark without a lawyer?
- What does it cost to register a trademark?
- How do I enforce the rights I have established?
How To Create A More Valuable Name For Your Perfume covers both state, federal, and international protection.
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Philip Goutell
Lightyears, Inc.
