Perfumes

"Part of the 'romance' or 'thrill' in perfumery work lies in the fact that, not only are all the materials different in odor, but hardly ever will two perfumers give identical descriptions of the same material. An odor is not 'woody' just because someone else says so; it will always have a particular print in your mind." --Perfume and Flavor Materials of Natural Origin by Steffen Arctander

Perfume Fragrances

In this section we want to help you understand the type of commercial synthetic perfume you are wearing and help you identify the essential oil notes in your blends so that we can help you create your own natural signature perfume.

Perfume fragrances are divided into categories of similar types of aromas much the same as Botanical Families indicate the type of plant. However, not all perfumers can agree upon what is the best way to arrange these aromatic characteristics. One commercial perfumer I know can describe 90 distinct types of fragrances. Here we are going to stick to the basic 14 plus unisex blends.

Feminine Fragrances

The fragrance types most often referred to in commercial perfumery include:

Modern perfumery with the availability of all the synthetic fragrances has gotten even more complex. Now you can purchase combination fragrances like spicy- orientals or fruity-florals, or florientals, etc. For example, this year's top men's cologne is Acqua di Gio by Georgio Armani, and is a floral-aquatic that has sweet pea and marine top notes supported by fresh floral and fruity middle notes of hyacinth, jasmine, freesia, and Muscat grape. Musky woody notes complete the dry out. If you can imagine a fragrance combination some fragrance house has probably already created something similar. Also, today it's not uncommon for women to try some of the men's scents and unisex scents have become very popular.

Of the commercial fragrances there are five that we natural perfumers have difficulty duplicating with pure essential oils:

1. The floral family is by far the largest scent category and the most popular. We can do some extraordinary florals with jasmine and rose. However, there are no essentials oils available for these very popular florals: lily of the valley, carnation, narcissus, gardenia, tuberose, and violet.
2. Fruit scents have a clean, fresh citrus-like quality and a smooth, warm bottom note and we can do offer fruity-citrus blends with essential oils like mandarin, neroli, and bergamot. But fruity fragrances like apple, apricot, melon, passion fruit, pineapple, and fruit combination you could imagine can only be accomplished by using synthetics.
3. Oceanic-Ozone is also created with synthetic materials that remind people of sea spray, fresh mountain air, and the fragrance of just-washed linen. Good examples of perfumes in this family include Dune (Dior), L'Eau d'Issey (Issey Miyake), Sunflowers (Arden), and Acqua di Gio by Armani was the number one selling floral aquatic cologne.
4. The Modern perfumes, which are all aldehydes, synthetic aroma chemicals, are designed to resemble true fragrances found in nature. The first such fragrance was Chanel No. 5. For the last couple of years the most popular are Estee Lauder's Beautiful and Pleasures, and Clinique's Happy.
5. Leather is something we are working on but are not close to perfecting it.

Nowadays, almost all modern perfumers contain 70%-95% synthetic aldehydes, so in most cases it is not possible to absolutely duplicate the best-known fragrances with only essential oils. Many of the notes that smell like essential oils are synthetically derived and the commercial perfumers enhance what is most attractive in that oil and limit what notes consumers don't want to buy.

What we can do is to find out what essential oil notes are named in any perfume blend and include some of those in their natural form into your blend. Remember, the natural oil may be significantly different from its synthetic counterpart.

All this is a long way of saying if you expect your own blend made from only pure essential oils to be exactly like your favorite perfume--you may be a little disappointed. My challenge is to help you discover a natural perfume that is even better.

I feel essential oils are like fine wines--you have to develop an appreciation for them. The first time I tasted an expensive wine I thought "what's the big deal"? Nowadays, I just won't drink the cheap sweet wines I was accustomed to. With essential oils, my nose is now trained so that I prefer the pure essential oil perfumes to similar smelling synthetics. I feel that even smelling the same essential oil by different producers reveals significant differences.

Overall, everyone I've helped to create a personal blend for has found the ultimate reward of integrating essential oils into their daily lives is a profound but gradual improvement in lifestyle. You can restore your emotional and mental balance by the daily choices you make and one choice you can make is to integrate essential oils and limit your exposure to synthetics.

For each of the perfume or fragrance types offer one very simple natural blend that you could mix to get a feel for the types of fragrance. We choose oils that could be worn 'neat', i.e. without any carrier but test for skin sensitivity first.

The blends that we would design contain more oils and would be more complex. We have also prepared a couple of our most popular blends, which we offer in the section Aroma Essentials. For some really beautiful blends look at the section Celebrating Natural Perfumers where we have enlisted the genius of the most talented natural perfumers we could find and asked them each to share one of their favorite blends.

In the section on Chinese Five Elements we offer ten basic blends to help you tonify or sedate your primary constitutional tendencies. You can learn to refine these by adding other essential oils that will result in an enjoyably scented blend, and is suited to you constitution.

Florals

There are two main types of floral perfumes the 'Single florals' in which the predominant scent note is of one particular flower and the 'Floral bouquets', which are usually characterized by a variety of combined floral scents. These can be further differentiated as having green notes that add a woody base with a top grassy note from lavender, basil, chamomile or galbanum; fresh citrus top notes; or ambery base with fruity/spicy top notes.

It is possible but very expensive to create essential oil blends that have Rose or Jasmine supported by Ylang Ylang as significant natural notes. It takes about four thousand pounds of Bulgarian rose petal to produce one pound of pure non- organic essential oil and we pay $2500 per pound. Likewise, Jasmine absolute costs us $800 per pound. We only mark these up enough to pay for our shipping and labor. We do not make a dime of profit of these three oils but hey! otherwise none of us could afford to use it. Our reward is we can dip into them from time to time. And our wives love them too. Just having these rare oils around makes me feel very wealthy. It is often said that fair skin and blond hair are enhanced by these floral bouquets but since florals are by far the most popular blends in the world it's truly a matter of preference.

My favorite commercial rose is Perfumer's Workshop's Tea Rose and my favorite Gardenia is by Sara Hororwitz at the House of Creative Scensualization.

Single Rose Floral

Top notes
1 drop of coriander

Heart notes
6 drops of Bulgarian rose
2 drops of geranium or rose geranium
2 drops of litsea cubeba

Base notes
3 drops of sandalwood

We have made a number of synthetic candle blends to capture some of our favorite floras, Amairge by Givency, L'Air du Temps by Ninni Ricci, Machael by Michael Kors, and L'Eau d'Issey by Issey Miyake (see Aroma Essentials). Last years two of the best selling perfumes were by Estee Lauder Beautiful, and Pleasures and the third was a citrusy floral Happy by Clinique. The top selling men's floral was Eternity by Calvin Klein.

Fresh Floral Bouquet

Top notes
3 drops of lavender
3 drops of bergamot

Heart notes
4 drops of Bulgarian rose
2 drops of Jasmine abs.
3 drops of neroli
1 drop of ylang ylang
1 drop of Roman Chamomile

Base notes
3 drops of sandalwood

Green

This family includes fragrances such as pine, juniper, galbanum, lavender, and like basil, sage, and rosemary. They are sharper than florals, more sport and outdoorsy. They try to capture the fragrances of the outdoors, freshly cut grass, rainy nights, early morning meadow dew, and leaves. Some good examples of synthetic perfumes in the green family include Vent Vert by Balmain , Chanel No. 19 and Aliage by Launder.

I'm not talented with grassy notes so I went for something woodsier with just a hint of citrus.

Top notes
9 drops of silver fir
2 drops of juniperberry
2 drops of tangerine
1 drop of coriander
1 drop of cedar
1 drop of rosemary verbena

Middle notes
2 drops of Bulgarian rose, or rose geranium

Bottom note
3 drops of sandalwood

Spicy

The family includes the heavier and more pungent scents of cinnamon, cloves, ginger, and cardamom plus flowers such as carnations and lavender, which have spicy notes in them. They are often worn to make one more alert or accent the darker hair and skin type and flashy personality. Spicy perfumers include Nahema by Guerlain, Dioressence, and Cinnabar by Lauder.

Top Notes
1 drop of cardamom

Middle Notes
2 drops of allspice
5 drops of lavender
1 drop of rose
1 drop of cinnamon (but test it because it can cause skin irritation)
1 drop of ginger abs.

Base Notes
1 drop of diluted vetiver
3 drops of sandalwood

Oriental

This is the heaviest fragrance group and is most appropriate for eveningwear and captures the attention of those who desire the subtleties and mysteries of the orient and it's arts. They are composed of their most intense spices, coupled with exotic flowers, woods, resins, amber, and vanilla. The oriental scents are usually fortified with the animal like fixatives of musk, civet, which we do not use. Some of the finest oriental perfumers include Bal a Versailles (Desprez), Opium (St. Laurent), and Obsession (Calvin Klein) Shalimar (Guerlain). In Aroma Essentials* we do offer a natural version of Shalimar.

Amber can be worn alone or used as a base note for any Oriental natural blends.

1 drop of Bourbon vanilla
5 drops of labdanum
20 drops of benzoin
(I like to add a drop of sandalwood or vetiver.)

Florientals

There is also a subcategory sometimes referred to as floriental which includes scents that are lighter than those found in the oriental family, appropriate for daytime as well as evening wear. Spices, balsams, and resins combine with exotic floral essences to produce floriental blends. Perfumers in this subcategory include Chanel's Allure, Tresor by Lancome, and we offer an amber oriental synthetic fragranced candle inspired by Samsara from Guerlain.

Top Notes
3 drops of Jasmine Abs.

Middle Notes
2 drops Ylang Ylang

Bottom Notes
I drop of Bourbon vanilla
5 drops of labdanum
20 drops of benzoin
2 drops sandalwood

Citrus

These light, fresh scents include the aroma of lemons, limes, grapefruit, mandarin, and bergamot. Some classic citrus perfumers include Eau d'Hadrien by Annick Goutal, and Eau de Cologne Imperiale still sold by Guerlain.

Top notes
6 drops of lavender
4 drops of rosemary
2 drops of palmarosa
4 drops of bergamot
2 drops of Bulgarian rose
2 drops of petitgrain
2 drops of tangerine

Middle notes
6 drops of geranium or rose geranium
4 drops of neroli
3 drops of litsea cubeba

Chypre

Francois Coty inspired this family of scents when he introduced a perfume by this name in 1917. They are noted for their contrast between oakmoss and bergamot. They often have a woodsy-mossy bouquet that can also include notes of lavender, patchouli, clary sage, with top notes of citrus and resinous base notes. Examples of chypre perfumes are Ysatis by Givenchy), Miss Dior, and Jolie Madame by Nettie Rosenstein Perfumes.

Top Notes
8 drops of lavender
4 drops of fir needle
4 drops of cedarwood
2 drops of bergamot

Middle Notes
8 drops of Jasmine
2 drops Ylang Ylang

Base Notes
6 drops of oakmoss

Men's Colognes

Some share similarities to the fragrance families for women but are unique for men. Men's fragrances fall into six different families or classifications.

Citrus

The citrus family is often described as fresh and brisk. Scents in the citrus family are made from the oils of lemons, limes, oranges, and the fruit of the bergamot tree. Examples of citrus fragrances for men include Eau Sauvage by Dior, Eternity by Calvin Klein, and Polo Sport by Ralph Lauren

Top Note
6 drops of Tangerine

Middle notes
6 drops of Litsea
4 drops of neroli

Bottom Note
6 drops of Frankincense

Spicy

This highly popular scent family for men incorporates nutmeg, cinnamon, cloves, pepper, bay oil, basil, and olibanum. Examples of fragrance in the spicy family for men include Egoiste by Chanel, and Jaguar. Old Spice by P & G Prestige Beaute was introduced in 1937 by Shulton and is still one of my favorites, perhaps because my father wore it.

Top Notes
3 drops of tangerine
3 drops of bay
3 drops of bergamot
2 drops of pepper

Middle notes
1 drop of sweet basil or allspice
1 drop of litsea cubeba

Bottom Notes
1 drop of cinnamon
1 drop of patchouli

Leather

This fragrance family is based on a smoky, pungent, somewhat sweet scent that is very potent. Leather scents are created from cade oil, which comes from juniper trees, and birch tar, a resin extracted from birch trees growing in Finland. They have an intense 'tar-like" smoky-leathery, woody dry but warm note, probably most similar to oak moss. Examples of the leather family of fragrances for men include English Leather by New Dana Perfumes, Pour Lui by Oscar de la Renta), Bel Ami by Hermes. Again this is a difficult blend to do without synthetics but this will give you a feeling for the type.

1 drop of Juniper
1 drop of clary sage
1 drop of vetiver
1 drop of oak moss

Lavender

This is one of the oldest scents in the fragrance world, made from oils extracted from the lavender and lavandin plants grown in France as well as spike lavender grown in Spain. Examples of fragrances in the lavender fragrance family for men include Old English Lavender by Yardley but only available in Europe, Pour un Homme by Parfums Caron. It.s very frsh lavender with a base note of musk, vanilla, and amber that's difficult to reproduce with only essential oils. Le Male by Jean Paul Gaultier which we made a synthetic fragranced candle (see Aroma Essentials) This blend is a relaxing blend:

Top notes 8 drops of Lavender 3 drops of Bergamot

Middle note 1 drop of clary sage

Bottom notes 1 drop of helichrysum 3 drops of sandalwood 1 drop of fir

Fougere

In addition to anchoring a fragrance family of its own, lavender is a key accord in fougere fragrances. Fougere, pronounced Fooz-hare, is French for "fern," which has no noticeable scent. However, the fougere family depicts a fresh, erotic woodland mossy scent with herbal notes of lavender, oak moss, sometimes geranium oil.. Examples of the fougere fragrance family include Equipage by Hermes, Insatiable by Pierre Cardin. We offer a Drakkar Noir by Guy Laroche,

Top Notes
4 drops of ginger
10 drops of lavender
4 drops of cedarwood

Middle Notes
4 drops of geranium

Bottom Notes
6 drops of sandalwood
2 drops of vetiver

Woodsy-Mossy

The classic scents in this family are based on vetiver, cedar, rosewood, and sandalwood and more woody than Fougeres. Examples include XS (Paco Rabanne), Aramis (Aramis), Boucheron (Boucheron), and Safari (Lauren).

Top Notes
6 drops of juniper berry
6 drops of cedarwood

Middle Notes
1 drop of Roman chamomile

Bottom Notes
drops of myrrh
6 drops of sandalwood
4 drops of pine needle
1 drop of rosewood
1 drop of vetiver