Do you remember that one trip to your local perfumer’s store and looking at the best-selling section of perfumes and asking yourself what makes those perfumes different from the rest of the perfumes on the other aisles? As we will get into later, you will see what sets great perfumes apart from well, perfumes. But let’s not get too far ahead of ourselves, shall we? Let’s start with how perfumes are made.
Before you even begin making your own perfumes, you need to collect the prerequisite ingredients. Though the basic principles of perfume making are the same, it’s the minor things that truly sets great perfumes from good perfumes. Companies tend to play their cards closer to their chests than you think, and the materials they used for their perfumes are one of those things. Despite this, the basics remain the same; a mixture of essential oils and base oils along with alcohol and water should do the trick for most, but as the usual spy movie trope would want you to believe, which, in this case, is true, nothing is ever as it seems.
Now, once you’ve decided on your selection of materials, it’s time to start the manufacturing process. This is arguably one of the most important stages of the process, with an even higher level of emphasis to pay attention to every minute detail. Anything from the extraction process, blending and aging process needs to be done properly to ensure a great end-product. A single misstep in this process can and will result in a failed product which means that you will need to start the whole process all over again to rectify this error. But we’re getting ahead of ourselves, let’s start with extraction. In this part of the process, the materials that you have decided on in the previous part are about to be exposed to a set of processes to extract the necessary compounds to create the intended fragrance. There is a myriad of ways to extract the so-called fragrance from the ingredients such as using steam, solvent, maceration, and expression to name a few.
Next is blending. Once the necessary compounds have already been extracted, it’s time to mix them together. One thing to keep in mind in this part of the process, however, is to not go overboard. As a great rule of thumb, remember that less is more and that cutting back on certain scents can greatly highlight another scent, this is something that great perfumers have gotten right time and time again. After this part is over, comes the next part; aging. Most great perfumes are often aged for a certain period. Why do perfumes need to be aged? Well, for one thing, aging a fragrance is a great way to mellow out certain fragrances that you might have deemed a little too sharp, further emphasizing yet another feature that great perfumes have; subtlety.
The world of perfumes can be a very daunting world to navigate where every single detail matters. But remember that as long as you ensure the consistency of your products, you’re already one step closer to creating a great product that is sure to be among other great products decorating the best seller aisle.