Perfumery seems intimidating at the beginning. There is a dizzying array of ingredients, complicated recipes, and equipment that can seem very distant for the beginner. But, as we all have started like that, the truth is that anyone can start making their own perfumes with patience, the right ingredients, and a little bit of time. You need not know everything to begin. You will learn it gradually and step by step.
What You Should Know Before Creating Your Fragrance
To know what you are working with before you even begin to formulate is necessary before you make your first scent. Each perfume is composed of aromatic elements that belong to different categories like fresh, floral, woody, oriental, or spicy. It has different nuances in every category.
However, you do not need all the thousands of ingredients to begin. In fact, I would recommend you use only a few at first so you can learn them and how they work with each other. Perfumery is not a question of having many materials, but of knowing what and how to use them.
Training Your Nose to Smell Like a Perfumer
Perhaps the most crucial ability to learn before creating is the skill of smelling. While the amateur often begins mixing without realizing what they are mixing, the perfumer has been practicing how to smell for years before he began composing. This does not mean you have to smell every ingredient to know their nuances. You must learn to recognize them one by one, learn which smell evolves with time, and learn to know how it fits with other notes. This will be the basis of being able to make more accurate choices in the future.
The Easiest Formulas
When you begin to formulate for the first time, it is important that you keep your formulas as basic as possible. It is not about creating your first perfect fragrance, but about learning to organize your fragrance. Even with only three or four components, you can make simple formulas and learn a lot.
You must combine one or two fresh notes with other aromatics or florals and base notes. Observe how it smells. Then, you can create new combinations, adding notes or changing the percentages you are using. This is how you learn to formulate.
Errors in Perfumery
Many new perfumers get upset that everything they make will sound “bad.” This is not the case. In perfumery, everything we have done wrong is an error that must be corrected, but it does not mean that your first perfume will smell wrong. Everything is part of the process, from the mistakes to the errors, as it helps us to learn and to get closer to our goals. It is about knowing how your perfume behaves and how much the ingredients affect each other.
Consistency
You must do it again and again. Perfumery must be practiced daily until you get familiar with it. As you practice, you will see your formulas become better. The more times you work with perfume materials, the easier it is to predict how it will smell when blended even before you start mixing it. In fact, there comes a time when you begin to formulate in your head.
Final Comments
The first step in creating your perfume is learning, just like any other craft you have chosen. You should not think of it as just trying something out; it is a process you can always learn from, improve on, and get closer to your ultimate goal. Once you understand that your creations can be improved upon in many different areas, you can make your own perfumes much easier than you might think.