The news from the perfumers course - Unit 13 so far

Russian version - click here

If I remember it good, I have promised to share about my perfumery course sometimes. Nothing has happened yet and I have the third (actually the 13th) lesson of ten.

The subjects for the Unit 13 are:

1. The raw materials in perfumery – Aroma Chemicals.
2. Basic perfume composition (the famous fragrant pyramid).
3. Formulating by function (basic stages of perfume creation and taking into account the subsequent application of fragrance).
4. Odour prediction from Chemical Structure (neither Ouja nor Tarot cards are allowed – pure analysis).

Assignments:

1. Essay about the methods of producing aroma chemicals.
2. Improvement of fragrant pyramid model.
3. Test the structure with odour prediction model. First I have to sniff through my perfumery organ for aromachemicals, describe their fragrance, compare with their odour predicted according to a chemical structure and make conclusion. Later I have to smell the naturals and try to analyse what chemicals I recognize in there.
4. To work on perfumes: Eau de Cologne, Chypre, Tobacco.

Very interesting assignments. In the first one I have to think about not writing another schoolbook of organic chemistry – an exercise in generalisation, getting the essence and keeping it simple. Not easy for someone who really loves chemistry.

The second one – well, just give me a minute and I’ll give you the fragrant pyramids models in any shapes and smells… I was really scared by this one – to improve something simple, nice and generally accepted – wow… But after thinking a bit I understand – well – the model has its positives and negatives – I can think about it and see if there are possibilities to keep the pos and avoid the negs – just give it a try. It did help – I have some ideas now.

The third one. I have to start early enough – there are about 160 raw materials to smell and describe. It would be nice to see if my nose is grown up and if I can recognize more nuances.

The fourth – the most pleasant one. Don’t forget to start early too and make it relaxed – make the basic formula, let it maturate, evaluate, think about possible improvements, make a first version and all over again till the version 1.5 ;-) Actually I see that a kind of inhibited assignments allow a lot of interpretations. It makes me to learn to apply a methodical approach – very important in perfumery.