The day of whispering to orange blossom

When making a perfume, you can do it according to the laws of chemistry or choose an alchemical path. He made it both at the same time.

Image source: http://hersacredcauldron.com/

Today he was making a fleur d’oranger cologne. He kneaded the thick leathery skin of green bergamot and mixed it together with bright sunlight concentrated on the surface of sweet orange skin. He seasoned them both with green coldness of shadow from under the orange blossom tree. It was not enough, so he grabbed the rest of the citrus fruits, mixed them with one single ray of sunlight and squeezed them in a firm grip. He opened his hand and found a shiny drop of concentrated essence of summer which he carefully put into a cauldron. He distilled the essence of white flowers, bergamot and lavender, thickened it and filtered. He separated freshness from sweetness and collected them into flasks. He picked up some tender rose petals, lend a drop of sweetness and left the rest to dry out to collect the rustle of dry petals. Later he was catching warm sweet breeze playing between the orange blossoms. Doing that he picked one of them to ooze a small drop of warm dark honey that warmed a mixture and colored it deeply vermilion. What next? Jasmine of course… He took just a small handful of fragrant jasmine flowers and filled them up with sunflecks reflected from the dew drops on white petals and invisible aura from the depth of the flower. He needed a twist, do he took a carnation flower and put his fingers between the petals right to the core. He found a kernel and pulled it out in one elegant move. More twist. What can give some magic? He opened a dusty bottle of Hungarian Queen water. He smiled as he remember the night when he got it. At night he was secretly sneaked into the Queen’s room to dip some water out of her bath. He had to stand still behind the screen for a long time fighting the sleep. And he was almost caught in the garden when he stopped at the twinkling blossoms of Queen of the Night. He measured a sip from the bottle and gently stirred the brew. Later he smirked and added some cold green jasmine tea from his cup. Just a spontaneous silly move lead by the chance. Than he was sitting near his cauldron and whispering to his perfume till he started to notice bright orange sparkles in the darkness of depth…

Of course I can describe it much easier: Bergamot oil, Sweet orange Oil, Petitgrain Bigarade Oil, Neroli oil, Orange Flower Absolute, Litsea Cubeba oil, Linalool, Linalyl Acetate, Nerol, Neryl Acetate, Nerolidol, Methyl Anthranilate, Oranger Crystals, Hedione, Ylang Ylang Oil, Jasmine Absolute, C-12 Lauric aldehyde, Clove absolute, PEA, Rosemary tincture and Green Jasmine Tea tincture as a twist.

Either way, the result is an eau de cologne with fleur d’orange note, sparkling bright citrusy start and floral aura leading into dark depth. A kind of cologne with a dark twist.

Vacation! Finally!

Well, the coming two weeks I’ll spend near a small French town La Chapelaude in Auvergne (well, actually it’s Bourbonnais above the Auvergne). Tranquillity, space and nature are the key words to describe this place.

Mas des Tilleuls – a former farm house under the Linden trees and re-decorated as a manor house will be my pied-a-terre. It’s funny how the owners gave a twist to this house. There is a drawing room with an open fire place, a big dark kitchen combined with an eating room with a small stove, Master bedroom with a canopy bed. If you have vivid imagination you can easily think you are in a castle.

But there is one thing I always miss in any vacation house – the perfumery lab. So, I always take my aromachemicals with me and create a perfumery lab on place. Sometimes I think if I am slightly mad to take all the staff with me. But imagine – it’s France, the Mecca of perfumes and a very quiet and picturesque place that gives a lot of inspiration. And you have a lot of time to experiment. Aren’t they not the best circumstances to play with fragrances? Here is an example of a temporary perfumery lab I created in Mas des Tilleuls.

And of course as any perfume addicted I take a part of my collection. In Mas des Tilleuls there is a spare room with a big table, so I could create a fragrant table.

Wine and cheese – both Dutch’s and French’s favourites taste perfect in the evening under the Linden trees by a candle light. As well as a cup of good Earl Grey in the morning while listening to the birds songs and the sough of the wind.

Cooking in water is not the way to make a natural pefume

Internet is a nice thing – you can find a lot of surprising, unique and rare information there. But you don’t always know if what you found is true. On some blogs and websites (and may be even in some books) you can find a receipt for making of natural perfume from fresh flowers.

You are advised to collect fresh fragrant flowers, cook them in water, filter and bottle. Let me explain why you can’t make perfume this way.

Technically, natural perfume is a solution of pleasant smelling essential oils of flowers (and other plants) in a suitable carrier. This solution should be preserved from decomposition. Essential oils are extremely volatile and evaporate easily when herbs or flowers are heated or boiled. So, making natural perfume by cooking of fresh flowers is impossible – because of three main reasons:

1. Essential oils are volatile – they easily evaporate from fresh flowers by cooking. Remember – distillation is the process of yielding of essential oils from plants based on volatility of essential oils, but to get fragrant material you should be able to catch and condensate the water vapour and not the decoct of flowers. So, when you are cooking of fresh flowers in an open pan, you have all the essential oils evaporated and decoct without any fragrant materials left.

2. Water is not a suitable carrier for making perfume, as almost all the essential oils, their components and other fragrant materials of flowers are not water soluble. It’s not possible to saturate water with fragrant materials enough to make a perfume. Of course, there are rose water, orange water etc, but they are the products of distillation and not just cooking.

3. A decoct of fresh flowers without any preservatives in it can easily get decomposed by mean of mould or bacteria in a couple of days.

So, a strange smelling brownish liquid with the greyish green mould lumps would probably be the result.

Rose III: the finishing touch

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Image - a small red rose from Wikimedia

The introducing or rose alcohols to the first rose formula, hopefully made it softer, more floral and more rosy. But may be also more citronella like – depends on the quality of the rose alcohol used. There are some other important aromachemicals that might give this rose a finishing touch.

Rose oxide – is a very important aromachemical. Naturally less that 0.5% of this chemical can be found in a rose oil, but because our nose is 80 times more sensitive to it compared to citronellol, the influence of Rose oxide is comparable to that of citronellol. Commercial product consists of different isomers and may vary in purity grades. If you smell it even in 10% dilution you probably never link this gassy smell to a rose. Books says that the rose or geranium like odour can be noticed by extreme dilution or when used in a rose accord in low concentrations. The change rose oxides makes to a rose accord is subtle but noticeable. Use 0.5% or less in the rose accord and try to smell the difference.

Rose crystals or Rosone – is an nice fixative for a rose. It has a very difficult chemical name – trichloro methyl phenyl carbinyl acetate that you can find in some rose formulae. Also known as Rosatol, Rose acetale, TCMBA (guess where this comes from), Rosacetate, Rosalina etc. This one has a weak rosy odour with green nuances. It smells like “another variant of PEA” and you tend to underestimate this material as at first it may seem to have little or no influence to the rose compositions. The best is to compare the smell of pure PEA with a smell of PEA with 5% of Rose crystals added. Comparing two smelling strips I found that Rosone enriches the smell of PEA making the rosy smell more prominent and powerful. So, 2-4% of the rose crystals in the formula can give power to the rose and make it more long lasting. As I already have mentioned before – Vetiver oil, Guaiacwood oil and Cedarwood oil may also be used as fixatives in rose accords.

Beta-Damascenone – another very important rose chemical. Naturally it occurs in a rose oil at about 0.14% concentration. But the human nose is 55 times more sensitive to beta-damascenone compared to the rose oxide. Or 4400 times compared to citronellol. Thus, beta-damascenone makes almost 70% of the rose smell. This is an expensive aromachemicals that restricts it use in perfumery. You don’t find it in often in the rose formulae. A similar aromachemical Damascone (especially beta) may also be used, but it’s still expensive. It has a pleasant fruity floral odour recalling the smell of plum or a bit blackcurrant. I never compared damascones and damascenones, so, I don’t know if beta-damascone reaches the same effect in a rose as beta-damascenone, but 0.05 – 0.3% of it brings a nice fruity nuance to a rose accord.

Aldehydes and alcohols – waxy fatty notes of aldehydes finishes the top note of the rose smell giving some nuances of fatty rose petals of the fresh flower. Different aldehydes or alcohols might be used for that purpose (C8 – C12) in concentration of 0.01 – 0.2%.

Rosalva – is an unsaturated alcohol with ten carbon atoms (but don’t confuse it with Alcohol C10). This is an aromachemical with a rosy odour and fatty waxy nuances. Good to combine with aldehydes. To my nose possesses a harsh metallic note, but I haven’t found it back in a rose accord. Nice finishing touch to a rose.

Green notes – are also very common in rose accords. The simplest two are the leaf alcohol (cis-3-hexenol) and PADMA (Phenyl Acetaldehyde Dimethyl Acetal). The first one has a green fresh smell of a grass and the second one recalls a more sharp radish-like smell of arugula (rucola, rocket). One of them or both can be used to give some fresh nuances of green notes. Leaf alcohol is stronger than PADMA and should be used in lower concentrations – 0.1-0.3% for leaf alcohol and 0.2-1% for PADMA.

Naturals – are the best enhancers of almost any perfume. Rose oil and absolute are widely used in the rose accords. But a cheaper Geranium or Palmarosa oil is also a common natural constituent in a rose formula. Should be used up to 1-2%. Sometimes less sometimes more.

Well now our rose formula consists from about 15 ingredients. And this is a nice number for a good rose base. Enough space to play. Enjoy!

Introducing the rose alcohols

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Image: a picture of a nice rose alcohol from http://www.craftdistillers.com

Rose alcohols are Citronellol, Geraniol and Nerol. They are major constituents of the rose oil and important aromachemicals in making of a rose accord (commonly used together with phenyl ethyl alcohol). A rose oil contains about 30-40% of citronellol, 20% of geraniol and 5% of nerol.

A rose accord formula may contain various proportions between PEA, citronellol and geraniol. Nerol is less common, but still widely used in rose formulae. Even the natural raw materials contains those materials in different proportions. The rose oils contains about 1% PEA, 35% of citronellol and 20% of geraniol that brings us to 1:35:20 ratio. And the absolute contains about 40-70% PEA, 6% of citronellol and 3% of geraniol that makes the ratio looks like – from 13:2:1 to 23:2:1.

If I see the 13:2:1 ratio I get an idée that the previous formula consisted of 15 druppels PEA can be enriched with 2 drops of citronellol and 1 drop of geraniol. And the amount of those alcohols can be gradually increased till I get the more rosy smell. In general the average amounts of those aromachemicals used in rose accords are – 20-60% PEA, 5-35% citronellol and 5-20% of geraniol. But the problem is that when you use rose alcohol you can get an unpleasant citronella nuance that you don’t really smell in a rose flower. Let’s have a closer look at those chemicals.

Citronellol – its smell is described as a fresh floral clean rose. But wait – I do smell citronella undertone. It’s time for some chemistry. Citronellol is a molecule that has different isomers (the compounds with similar chemical formula, but different structure). Citronellol has alpha and beta isomers and also so called stereo isomers. The first ones are a bit less important, but stereo isomers are much more interesting in perfumery – because of their structure they look like right and left hand – almost the same, but still not superposable – they are a mirror image of each other – they are called d-citronellol and l-citronellol (you may also find them as (+)-citronellol and (-)-citronellol). If you like more information on stereo isomers, please, visit a Wikipedia link - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enantiomer The d-citronellol is found to be a natural compound of citronella and ginger-grass oil. l-citronellol is a major compound of a rose oil. Both occurs in geranium oil. As aromachemical you can buy either citronellol (that contains of both l- and d- isomers and called racemic) or l-citronellol. Although the most properties of stereo-isomers are the same, the perfumery books say that l-citronellol is sweeter than racemic, has clean rosy top note and has no “mint” notes. But there is another factor that is responsible for the smell variations of different citronellols bought by different suppliers. Citronellol can be obtained by different ways – some of them gives a better quality products containing almost no impurities and other ways give citronellol of a lower grade with more impurities contributing to the smell. For example, racemic citronellol can be obtained from citronella oil by hydrogenation of geraniol component. If it’s not purified properly, you may get some other citronella constituents in citronellol. The purest citronellol is obtained chemically by reduction of citronellal. So, if you can get citronellol from different supplier – it’s important to compare the quality of their products and to choose the good one.
Citronellol can be used in rose (red and white), lily, lily of the valley and other floral accords.

Geraniol is another rose smelling aromachemical with fresh mild sweet rosy odour and dry rose-petals undertone. To my nose it reminds a bit of dried rose hips. Sometimes you can also catch some citronella notes. Geraniol occurs naturally in many essential oils like Geranium, Rose, Palmarosa, and Citronella and can be isolated from the last two oils. But it can be also made synthetically from Citral. Thus, the quality of Geraniol may also vary depending on impurities. For examle, Geraniol from Palmarosa oil is preffered to the one from Citronalla oil.

Rhodinol is the most complicated aromachemical as the word Rhodinol is used to describe a whole group of chemicals. In the first place this name was given to an impure compound isolated from rose otto. Latter it becomes a kind of synonym to the rose alcohols derived from essential oils. For example, l-citronellol isolated from Geranium oil can also be sold under the name of Rhodinol. Rhodinol C or Rhodinol ex Citronella mostly refers to a purified Citronellol from Citronella oil. Rhodinol coeur or Rhodinol ex Geranium refers to a mixture of rose alcohols from Geranium oils. Rhodinol can be found in various rose formulae – it’s used as a substitute of rose otto, geranium oils or as citronellol or rose alcohol mixture. It’s very important to collect information on Rhodinol from the supplier and figure out what kind of Rhodinol he is selling. And of course – it’s useful to compare the quality from the different suppliers.

If I compare my Rhodinol ex Citronella from the Perfumers World with Citronellol (also from the Perfumers World), I’d say that I definitely smell some Geraniol in Rhodinol, so it’s not a higher grade of citronellol, but a mixture of rose alcohols. And they both has unpleasant citronella nuances to my nose. So, I think I need to compare the suppliers and to search for a better quality.

Making of a rose accord: the beginning

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Image - dried roses to illustrate the PEA odor found on http://www.your-healthy-gardens.com/drying-roses.html

Phenyl ethyl alcohol (PEA) is one of the most famous and important aromachemical possessing the rose odour – soft sweet rose with green notes recalling a smell of dried rose petals. It naturally occurs in rose absolute (making 40-70% of it). However the rose oil has almost no phenyl ethyl alcohol – just several percents. Phenyl ethyl alcohol in perfumery is widely used in many floral compositions – rose, lily of the valley, jasmine and many others. A rose formula can contain a huge amount of PEA – in some cases it can be the only rose-constituent like shown in a formula below.

The foundation perfumery course form the Perfumers World suggests a simple rose formula based on phenyl ethyl alcohol:

PEA – 15
Methyl ionone – 3
Clove oil – 0.5 (or Eugenol - 1)
Cedarwood oil – 1

This formula is a part of the foundation perfumery course - you can follow it free of charge at the Perfumers World.

Let’s see the role of other ingredients.

Methyl ionone is an iris or violet smelling chemical. It doesn’t occur naturally in rose, but there is another aromachemical with a similar smell that is a natural rose oil and absolute constituent – beta-ionone. There is only 0.03% of it found in a rose oil, but even such a tiny amount of beta-ionone contributes significantly to the rose odour. Our nose is very sensitive to beta-ionone almost 100 000 times more sensitive than to phenyl ethyl alcohol. Because of that even 0.03% of beta-ionone makes about 20% of the rose odour. More information on that interesting fact can be found at http://www.leffingwell.com/rose.htm
Methyl ionone and alpha-ionone can be used in rose formulae instead of beta-ionone. Methyl ionone has a woody undertone that makes it a perfect bridge between the woody notes and florals (especially red flowers).

Eugenol or clove oil (can contain up to 90% of Eugenol) gives the rose a spicy note. A similar aromachemical – methyl eugenol naturally occurs in a rose oil together with eugenol itself.

One drop of Eugenol can be used instead of 0.5 drop of Clove oil. Both are used to bring a spicy note to the rose accord. Too much eugenol makes the rose smell not only spicy, but also old, dry and a bit dirty – think of dried roses and cloves.

Cedarwood oil is a fixative for the rose accord. Another woody notes can be used like Sandalwood, Vetiver, Pathouli or Guaiac oils.

When I made a rose accord by this formula I was very disappointed by its smell. Nothing like a real rose. Of course I could expect that a rose accord made from four aromachemicals can not smell like a real rose consisting of about 350 ingredients. But it still can be a part of a more complicated rose accord. And some formulae shows that a nice rose base can be made of 10-20 ingredients. So, the next step is using of the rose alcohols to give some freshness to a drying rose.

Rose is in the air

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Image - a rose found on http://www.kunstflora.com/

Well, sometimes it's just in the air and you can see its influences... Like you read how Andy is busy with his rose or you read the discussions in a perfumer's group about the quality of citronellol and the use of damascones instead of damascenones in a rose accord. Or someone shares his rose formula and you get inspire to try it out and figure out why those components are used. Roxana has made a wonderful post about the roses and the yummy things you can make with it. The rose is definitely in the air.

Inspired by all of those I decided to make a rose too. When you are an experienced perfumer you get an idea in your head and try to recreate that idea in the smell. When you are less experienced you mix things and later try to figure it out what direction your mixture is going :o) Sometimes you get the picture and begin to enhance enhance and modify it. I am not that experienced yet. I wanted to make a rose, but I didn't know what rose I'd get.

First it was just a rose accord experiment. I took a simple rose formula from the Perfumersworld based on phenyl ethyl alcohol. Later I enhanced it with rose alcohols. They gave some unpleasant citronella like nuances. To get rid of them I continued blending and using of another rose chemicals. At the certain point I got the picture - I was making an Old English style rose - a bit dirty recalling the smell of drying petals. So, I added some galbanum - wow - it was wonderful to see how it makes rose old with its sharp green note - like a flower from a herbarium. More eugenol to enhance this effect and a touch of lemon. A woody base of Patchouli and Cedarhout with a non-sweet amber accord and a touch of animal notes.

The perfume I made smells from a bottle like an old fashion eau de cologne - as if you made an infusion of rose petals with a citrus peels. On the skin the rose becomes stronger and sweeter - a mixture of a fresh rose with dry petals - a smell of an old herbalist cellar, old fashioned eau de cologne and a single rose standing somewhere in the corner. The dry out was surprising reminding me of Rose Poivrée - with its dirty underpants undertones (not unpleasant though).

What I am not satisfied with is a citronella note coming from the rose alcohols. Well, it contributes to a herbarium smell, but doesn't really allow the fresh rose to come through. I think I should get better quality of citronellol and geraniol or try to use less of them and may be to try some modern rose aromachemicals.

Mostly when I am obsessed with happy blending I can forget to write the formula down. But this time I did it. And I also described the process of making of a rose accord that I shall place here in the following entries. So, if you are interested you'll be able to make a rose accord too.

Hyacinth: the way it's made

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Image - a nice hyacinth close-up view from http://commons.wikimedia.org

A Grand Damme asked me if I knew a chemical formula of hyacinth. Her question made me curious and I looked into the wise perfumery books as I found it time to make acquaintance with hyacinth. Its freshly green floral scent is what everyone needs now when spring is on its way. I haven’t complete my jasmine series yet there is no harm to start something new in between.

First of all it was interesting to find out that there is a natural source of hyacinth smell – unlike the lily of the valley, it’s possible to yield a hyacinth absolute by solvent extraction from fresh flowers. Although the pure absolute seem to posses a sharp unpleasant smell that becomes reminiscent of hyacinth only when diluted up to 0.1% and lower. Of course it’s nice to have a bottle of this curiosity for some experiments, but it’s not really easy to get one. Wise books mention Netherlands as one of the important producers of hyacinth absolute (as well as the most important hyacinth bulbs supplier). But I couldn’t find any Dutch supplier by searching for “hyacinth absolute” in goole. I couldn’t find it in assortment of two another reliable foreign suppliers – Liberty and White Lotus. Of course I’ve got some links where I could buy the hyacinth absolute, but adulteration of this product is very common and that is why it’s important to get a reliable supplier. So, if you know one who sells hyacinth absolute for a reasonable price, please, let me know.

According to the wise perfumery books the synthetic hyacinth is one of the easiest formula in perfumery. Technically you get a reminiscent of hyacinth when you mix rose, jasmine, lilac and lily of the valley components with some green notes. That is why I got a hyacinth note in my previous experiment almost automatically. The formula I was working with contained Lyral (lily of the valley), benzyl acetate (jasmine), phenyl ethyl alcohol (rose) and terpineol (lilac) and I mixed it with green notes of leaf alcohol, galbanum and other components.

I’d like to make an important notice here. Although I juxtapose aromachemicals and the floral smells in a previous paragraph to simplify my story, but it doesn’t give a good image of how those aromachemicals really smell. Terpineol doesn’t really smell like lilac flowers, benzyl acetate has a sweet pungent smell reminding of a solvent and phenyl ethyl alcohol smells like a decaying rose petals you’d like to throw away. But still those aromachemicals are the main building blocks for the corresponding floral smells when surrounded properly.

And to make it more complicated and to intricate it all (in the best traditions of perfumery) I should add, that there are eight basic aromachemicals that you can mix together in different proportions to get a skeleton of several different floral formulae. So, by mixing of phenyl ethyl alcohol, hydroxycitronellal, benzyl acetate, hexyl cinnamic aldehyde, citronellol, terpineol and indole you can get either jasmine or rose or lilac or lily of the valley. I think you can even get a rose (especially white rose) if you don’t use too much of benzyl acetate and indole.

The very first main components of hyacinth were bromstyrol and phenylacetic acid. Nowadays the phenylacetic aldehyde is the most important one. Its other name is Hyacinthin for it’s a little sharp green and fresh smell reminding of hyacinth flower. It is used in combination with cinnamic alcohol, benzyl alcohol and terpineol. Styrax, heliotropin and galbanum are used as fixatives. As I already mentioned the synthetic components of jasmine, rose, lilac and lily of the valley also may be used in hyacinth formula as well as natural oils or absolutes of jasmine and rose. One of the favorite naturals used to enrich the hyacinth formula is a precious and expensive narcissus absolute.

In a perfumery book I found two simple formulae of a hyacinth bases suggested to be used in a hyacinth perfume. The bases are simple, but the perfume suggests using amber and musk tinctures together with jonquil (narcissus) absolute. I have ordered the last one together with cetalox – one of the nicest modern amber substitute. Let’s see what I finally get.

By the way – if you have a good picture of hyacinth to illustrate this entry, please, let me know – I’d like to use it instead of a random goolge image.

Nostalgy on vernal flowers

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Image - hyacinths from http://hayefieldhouse.com/

February is a tricky month. You think the winter is almost over when you see the first snowdrops coming from the ground or buy the first hyacinth bulbs from the local florist. But February is still a cold winter month with its night frost and cold wind striking into the marrow. Warm and fresh florals is what we all need during those cold grey days.

I have to think of Mitsouko – a light, but deep fruity chypre created just after the war – a peak point when need for something light and beautiful was drawn to a head during the post-war devastation. Inspired by experiments of flacon007 I also decided to create this perfume following the formula presented on Linda Andrews’ website. I have got almost all the ingredients. It was interesting to start with mixing of two main contrasting components of almost any chypre – oak moss and bergamot. Only two components, but they make a recognizable core of a chypre fragrance. A couple of drops of peach aldehyde and the skeleton of Mitsouko is ready. Of course there is still a long way to make it a recognizable Mitsouko. I still can’t smell the “cookies” (it’s my personal olfactory association to recognize a chypre character). It was very interesting to discover a lot of herbs in this formula – tarragon, lavender, celery, coriander and chamomile. All together they brought a bit strange note to the fragrance that I recognize neither in a modern EdT nor in an old perfume. But there is a magic of maturation. Five days farther and this strange note is combined with a citrus freshness that is not that strong in any vintage perfume touched by time. I do recognize the “cookies”. Now the only thing I need is a suitable atomizer, dilution till EdP concentration and more maturation for another couple of weeks. And I am ready to meet the spring. There is still a strange note of plastic amber that I recognize in the base. Let’s see how it behaves on skin after the dilution and maturation.

There is one more thing I need to honour the spring – a smell of fresh verdure and hyacinths that are so popular in Balmain’s creations. On the website of a local supplier of ingredients for making of perfume, soaps, shampoo’s and other happy staff at home I found a simple formula of Des Fleurs Blanc:

8 ml alcohol
20 drops Lyral
18 drops fenylethylalcohol
12 drops benzylacetate
6 drops alfa terpineol
5 drops alfa ionone
5 drops benzyl salicylate
4 drops ylang ylang III oil

Des Fleurs Blanc are rich with benzyl acetate and gives a very concentrated sultry fragrance. To fixate the white florals I added some Peru balsem (it’s a perfect fixative for white florals next to Benzoin Siam), some vanilla and synthetic musk. The fragrance was reminding me a hot summer instead of soft fresh vernal breeze. Fortunately there are many green notes to bring freshness to a floral fragrance – I added some leaf alcohol together with it’s salicylic ether, a couple drops of galbanum and helional. Some calone and cyclamen aldehyde gave it some acquatic transparency. Modified Des Fleurs Blanc is a fresh fragrance with green notes of hyacinth that turns into sweet white florals with tender green nuances by the dry down. Well – all it’s need now is a suitable atomizer, dilution till 10-12% and some maturation.

Jasmine: another couple of formulae

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This is a practical illustration of a previous entry

I found a couple of jasmine base formulas (N1032 and N1033) and also a jasmine perfumes made from those bases (jasmine N1034). Unfortunately I don’t have all of the listed compounds. But improvising in perfumery is something you have to learn from very beginning.

Forlmula 1032. Colourless jasmine (bye-bye indole).

The core is amyl cinammic aldehyde and benzyl acetate (the jasmine radish) is diluted with linalool (making jasmine more fresh), phenyl ethyl alcohol (making it softer) and hydroxycitronellal (making the jasmine whiter and more watery). Diluted jasmine was smelling more lily or muguet like. But fortunately there is geranyl acetate (strong rosy pear) that can restore the strength of jasmine. A couple of drops of creamy fruitiness from peach aldehyde makes a modest sweet fruity jasmine with lack for indolic narcotic depth. But no indole in this formula – it should stay colourless. Ylang and cresol ethers should give some narcotic nuances. But para-cresyl phenyl acetate is used in the formula while I have only para-cresyl methyl ether. They are not really interchangeable and the aromachemical I have doesn’t posses the phenolic honey note, but I can compensate it with a drop of pehnylacetic acid – a famous phenolic honey note in perfumery. Ylang-ylang oil and para-cresyl methyl ether gave narcotic depth, but I still prefer the way indole would have done that. A finishing touch is a spiciness from ethyl cinnamate. I don’t have it, so I’ll use methyl cinnamate. That’s all.

As a result I get a clear almost colourless liquid (as it was promissed). This jasmine scent has striking fruity nuances and some lily-muguet elements. This jasmine posseses some fresh nuances, but in general it’s really heady and intensive. A drop of vanilla and amber and another floriental is born. There is a narcotic note, but less obvious as in live flower. I do miss indole here. The fruitiness of benzyl acetate is not sharp, but very sultry – it enfolds you like a doft warm shawl that can almost suffocate you. Let’s call it oriental lily of the jasmine.

Jasmine 1033.
I do have even less compounds or alternatives for this one. Improvising again. Or better say – always improvising. This formula uses some expensive naturals such as orris concrete and jasmine absolute.
The core is again a mixture of amyl cinnamic aldehyde and benzyl acetate. The jasmine radish it is. To dilute it the phenylethyl alcohol is used together with hydroxycitronellal. No linalool this time. And I’d say that without linalool this jasmine at this stage is much more muguet than the previous one. Methylionone is used here. Wow – adding a violet-iris component to jasmine sounds like something add and forbidden. And the result is also strange – meet the jasmine violet. Orris concrete does not help. But I remember, that the oil of ylang is very good in taming of ionones. And yes, after a couple of drops of ylang-ylang oil it finally smells jasmine. This formula uses indole that I have added with pleasure enjoying its narcotic depth. But than I had to use benzyl phenylacetate. I don’t have it and neither have heard about it nor smelled it. A book told me that it possesses a faint floral aromat and is used as a fixative. The only more or less close alternative I can think is benzyl alcohol. And may be a drop of honey again in form of phenyl aceteic acid. As a spicy component this formula suggests a carnation base. Well, eugenol with iso-eugenol would do the job. And unfortunately I did put too much of them – needed a better calculation work. Sorry, jasmine, you’ll become a spicy one.

The result is a spicy (be careful with eugenol next time) jasmine with a striking fruity note again and some lily and muguet elements. The deep indolic narcotic nuances are present, but they can’t compete with the strength of jasmine fruitiness.

Both of those jasmine formulas are suggested to be used to make a jasmine perfume 1034 by adding some naturals like absolutes of jasmine, rose and orange blossom. Natural tinctures of musk, amber and a drop of civet are used to create the base for this perfume. Unfortunately I don’t have the last naturals – only synthetic substitutes.

Jasmine: meet ACA

The further development of jasmine formula with amyl cinnamic aldehyde

Russian version: click here

Creating of jasmine scent in perfumery was no longer an attempt to recreate a natural jasmine absolute since the new aromachemicals were found. Most of them were purely synthetic and not found in nature.

In 1922 amylcinnamic aldehyde (ACA) was synthesized. At first it was not recognized as aromachemical. Its smell was not unpleasant, but it was not really a pure jasmine. Later someone found that the smell of diluted ACA has a jasmine character. Under the name of Flosal amylcinammic aldehyde entered the perfumery. It’s also known as Jasmonal or jasmine aldehyde. Its other names are Buxine (Givuadan) and Mahonia (Firmenich).

The smell of ACA is described as oily-herbal with floral nuances of jasmine, gardenia or tuberose. In its pure form it reminds me of a soap because of its waxy aldehydic smell with a kind of mushroom nuance (oh yes, there are also mushroom nuances known among the jasmine-gardenia-tuberose family). I do recognize its floral character, but rather the one of gardenia than of jasmine (may be because of mushrooms on the background).

Amyl cinnamic aldehyde has a smaller brother – hexyl cinnamic aldehyde (HCA, Jasmonal H). They have a similar smell, but HCA has more prominent floral nuances and is more pleasant than ACA.

Amyl and hexylcinnamic aldehydes are considered to be safe for use in perfumery as they didn’t cause any problems by a skin application on volunteers in the concentrations of 6% and 12%.

The combination of amylcinnamic aldehyde with benzyl acetate (the highly concentrated jasmine fruitiness) is used as a core of numerous formulas of jasmine compositions. ACA is not only taming the sharpness of benzyl acetate, but also fixing the jasmine smell. But the jasmine character of ACA comes out only in a diluted aldehyde. That is why it should make not more than 10% of the formula. In its pure form the mixture of benzyl acetate and ACA smells like a kind of jasmine radish.

To “dilute” the jasmine core the “all floral extenders” like linalool and linalyl acetate are used together with hydroxycitronellal (“all white floral extender”) and phenyl ethyl alcohol (a rose smelling aromachemical that reminds of dried rose petals). Modern muguets like Lyral and Lilial are used now instead of hydroxycitronellal.

Methyl ionone (violet-iris) may also be used to tame the sharpness of benzyl acetate. It sounds a bit strange to use the violet within the jasmine formula. Eugenol or Carnation base are used to give some spiciness. Either peach or strawberry aldehydes are used to give some creamy fruitiness to jasmine. Indole or methyl anthranilate are giving a narcotic note to jasmine, but they are not easy to use. First of all, because they are relatively active compounds and because of the possibility of discoloration. Cresols might be used as alternative. Ylang-ylang is the most popular and almost irreplaceable natural component of jasmine scent.

Those are know-how to create jasmine scent in perfumery in the middle of XX century. Before the times of Hedione when jasmones were still too expensive. But this is just theoretical knowledge. But perfumery is an art of creation. I am very curious what kind of jasmine scent can be made following those guidelines. Tomorrow I'll tell you what it was to make a jasmine following the formilae based on those recommendations.

Jasmine: chemistry of smell II

Russian version - click here

Image - illustrates that indole is found in jasmine buds in a binded form releasing after the opening of the flowers.

Of course I was joking when promising to describe all of more than 300 constituents of the jasmine fragrance in detail. Nobody would be interested in a boring list of chemicals. Only experienced perfumers might find some fun in going through all those materials searching for some new solutions for the jasmine formulas. But the components I have described previously are already giving a good view on the chemistry of the jasmine fragrance. But perfumery didn’t stay still since 1912 and it might be interesting to mention some more compounds of jasmine absolute discovered since than.

First of all it’s interesting to notice that the chromatographic analyse data vary and sometimes show the significant dispersion. For example, the content of benzyl acetate may vary from 2% to 30% (and never reaches the 65% mentioned in a formula from 1912); linalool varies from traces to 9%. Other compounds may also vary depending on the variety of jasmine, place of growth, harvest, method of yielding etc. It’s amazing that nature can play with the different formulas and still make the variety of the same jasmine fragrance.

The presence of indole in jasmie was questioned for awhile as it couldn’t be always found by analytical methods. Finally it was found that indole in jasmine flower is present in a binded form and is released after the buds are open. This process continues also after the flower is picked. That means that you can’t find free indole in the jasmine buds, but you can smell it when the flower is open. It also means, that the jasmine absolute yielded by mean of enfleurage would be the richest in indole as the flowers are releasing it for the whole 24 hours period while placed in a frame. But when extraction is applied, the flowers stop to release indole as soon as they are covered with solvent.

Phytols (phytol, isophytol and their esthers) are another interesting compounds. As benzyl alcohol, they are odourless, but found to work as fixatives in jasmne fragrance. Experienced perfumers are aware of this property and use it in their creations sometimes.

Another interesting component is a phenylacetic acid. It’s content varies from 0% to 16%. This aromachemical is also widely used in the honey accords. In a diluted form it possesses a warm honey note with animalic nuances of civet.

A spicy clove smelling eugenol (common compound of clove oil) and fresh green grass smelling cis-3-hexenol (leaf alcohol) and its ethers are also found in the jasmine absolute.

It’s also interesting to mention the presence of cresol – a compound with a chemical smell of phenol. Its ethers are used in perfumery in narcotic tropical flowers accords. There are also quinolines found in jasmine. Famous as a components of leathery accords they are also used in some floral formulations.

Well – those are another components of jasmine absolute and they all might be used in the modern jasmine formula to give nuances or to achieve desired properties. But the perfumery is an art and not the science. Perfumery didn’t follow the way of chemical reconstruction of absolute. But the were some aromachemicals made that possessed the jasmine odour but were not found in nature. Those chemicals are now used in jasmine formula next to the ones found in jasmine absolute.

Jasmine: first formula

Russian version - click here

Image: a sample jasmine formula made from synthetic components by AromaX

It’s interesting to notice that the first formula of a jasmine base seemed to be an attempt to reconstruct the jasmine absolute. It has was build from the same components in the similar proportions as it was known about hundred years ago. Here is the formula I found in a perfumery book. Its name is Jasmine base No.1:

Benzyl acetate – 130 (65%)
Benzyl alcohol – 40 (20%)
Linalool – 20 (10%)
Methyl anthranilate – 10 (5%)

There are some reasons why you can’t see cis-Jasmone and Indole there although they make a part of jasmine absolute formula as it was known in 1912. cis-Jasmone was synthesized in 1932, but it was a very expensive synthetic material. Even now it’s four times more expensive than ylang-ylang oil or ten times more expensive than lavender, bergamot or basil oils.

The biggest problem of Indole is discoloration. Exposed to light it acquires reddish brown colour and is often substituted with other components. Without Indole this jasmine base has a larger application spectrum.

So far I don’t have any suggestions why linalyl acetate is not used there.

The Jasmine base No.1 is not really a jasmine – it’s a jasmine giant. Smelling it is like standing in the middle of a giant jasmine flower covered with a sticky and acrid nectar. The sharpness of benzyl acetate is almost hurting the nose’s mucous membrane. The base has recognisable fruity floral character of jasmine, but recalls an urge either to dilute it or to smell it from far far away. It still can be used as a jasmine component of a complex fragrance.

To me it was a challenge to experiment with this base and to try to make it more close to the jasmine absolute formula from 1912. I did noticed that:

Linalool increases the freshness of the base, but can’t beat the sharpness of benzyl acetate unless you take too much of linalool. But than it totally kills the jasmine character of the base.

Linalyl acetate in combination with Linalool gives an interesting fresh note reminding me of the tannic bitterness of green tea. Is also easy to overdose, because at the certain concentration it becomes an independent note that doesn’t makes a part of jasmine anymore.

cis-Jasmone – is a nice material that tames the sharpness of benzyl acetate. But not its strength. The base loses its acridness and the giant jasmine becomes smaller. Although it still remains to be a mutant jasmine, it’s not the raptorial flower anymore that stupefies you with its smell and digest your flesh with its acrid nectar.

Indole – it was interesting to notice, that small quantities of indole couldn’t really compete with benzyl acetate. And it was easy to overdose. Although this aromachemical gave some idolic properties to the base, it couldn’t really blend with the rest into give a dark narcotic note of jasmine.

After a small make-over the base became more tempered. Although it still wasn’t a real jasmine flower, but rather a decaying mutant flower as big as my hand. The notes of linalool with linalyl acetate as well as indole were not completely blended into the jasmine smell.

Some synthetic materials could help me to tame the beast of benzyl acetate, but I did want to stay close to a jasmine absolute formula from 1912. So, for some finishing touch I decided to use some naturals.

One drop of Bergamot oil was a nice blender for linalool and linalyl acetate. And two drops of Ylang Ylang oil helped Indole to feel home and also tempered benzyle acetate. I am satisfied with the final result. Of course it’s not a jasmine soliflore, but it is similar to some jasmine perfume oils and it can be a jasmine base in a floral heart of a complex perfume giving it a fruity floral jasmine nuances. Of course, the use of some modern aromachemicals could help to improve this formula in a much easier way.

Coca-cola: The perfect accord.

Russian version - click here

Accord is a basic concept in perfumery. In fact it’s a well-balanced mixture of two or more notes (or fragrant materials). But when is accord well-balanced? Well, if you have an idea of a certain smell in your head than “well-balanced” means the combination that gives you the closest match to your goal. But you can also search for a point of “olfactory balance”. The last one is a proportion when neither of two (or more) components dominate and the resulting smell differs from the “sum” of smell the components. Such an accord smells like an individual note and it becomes difficult to recognize what notes it’s made of.

A famous classic example of a well-balanced accord is a mixture of benzylsalicylate and eugenol in 4,5:1 proportion. A deep balsamic and sweet benzylsalicylate and sweet spicy eugenol mixed together yield a sweet spicy floral impression of carnation. This is a main accord used in L’Air du Temps by Jean Carles. Filled up with Ylang and iso-eugenol this accord makes almost 20% of the formula.

But the fact that olfactory point of balance between those two materials is found at 4,5:1 proportion doesn’t mean it’s always used this way. Various carnation bases uses those materials in different proportions that depends on the idea of carnation in the head of perfumer – the goal to be achieved.

One of the example of the perfect accord is Coca-cola. The major part of its smell is based on citrus oils like lemon and orange. But Cola doesn’t really smell citrusy. Here we deal with a perfect accord between citrus notes and spices (cinnamon, nutmeg, coriander). Together they form a new smell that is neither citrusy nor spicy. There are different recipes of Coca-cola in the Internet like this one or that one. I did try one of them and I can say that those recipes are just guide-lines. You still need adjustments to get the olfactory balance between the citrus and spicy notes. Otherwise you get just spicy Fanta lemon. I seem to need more trials to achieve the goal.

Ethyl maltol (&Co) in making berries

Image of ethyl maltol formula from Wikipedia

Russian version - click here

After reading that Alex consider to sign his future fragrant creations with raspberry accord I wanted to play with its main components: vanillin, beta-ionone and raspberry ketone. The last one is not an easy thing to understand – it doesn’t smell “the promissed” raspberry there as the name would suggest. So, I think I’ll have to smell fresh raspberries one time and try to understand what aspects the juicy red berry it’s reminiscent to. Now I smell rather a slightly bitter green leave scent (that could be a raspberry leave altough).

Ionones – very unique aromachemicals with various applications. They smell is more likely to violet or iris with a fruity and woody note. I don’t have a beta version, so I decided to use a gamma one (alfa-iso-methyl-ionone). The fruity note of ionones makes them suitable for use in various berry-like compositions.

The raspberry I got from the mentioned components was a poor creature. It was rather a cheap candy flavouring reminding on raspberry after you read an etiquette. And I do understand why. First of all I have just mixed a couple of drops together without making an effort to get a balanced accord. And I haven’t used a proper ionone. But when balanced properly, this raspberry accord might be very promising. But balancing might be a good goal for the future experiments.

Later I added a drop of ethyl maltol to the raspberry. This is a very nice molecule smelling of burned sugar. A very pleasant and balanced note that doesn’t need any modification or imrovement. Just a drop of it gives a perfect sugary note to any gourmand base from canned fruits to Butterschotch chocolate. I think it’s ethyl maltol, that was used in Angel perfume.

Adding a drop of ethyl maltol to my poor raspberry made a… strawberry. Not a perfect one and it was in need for some further balancing. But it was very close to a strawberry perfume oil I bought once. May be if I substituted methyl ionone with beta (or even alfa that is less woody and more soft and floral) and used less of it…

A drop of so called “strawberry aldehyde C-16” turned my potion into a candy made from sugar and milk called “Strawberry cream” (like the one I know from my childhood). And the drop of so called “peach aldehyde C-14” was very good in taming too prominent ionones. And even a drop of 10% solution was powerful enough almost to “kill” all the fragrance. This peach aldehyde is a real beast – use with caution. And it’s the same peach aldehyde that was used to tame the dominant smell of the oakmoss in “Mitsouko”.

After all that fruity and sugary staff it was nice to put some freshness. I decided not to use a famous “leaf alcohol” (cis-3-hexenol), but one of its ethers – salicylate that combine a green note with a sweet medicinal one (like a bit of an anti-cough syrup). The strawberry turned into a pineapple guava berries (feijoa – a green berry).

It was like a magic where each drop called another creature to appear on the smelling paper.

It’s very interesting to mention the strength of ethyl maltol. When I was awake I smelled a weak and pleasant scent of burned sugar. It was coming from a smelling paper left on the table with a strawberry mixture on it. Ethyl maltol was strong enough to “separate” itself from the mixture and reach my nose.

Coffee tincture: happy blending and wise lessons

Russian version - click here

Sometimes get en urge just to blend things following only a vague idea in my head. Than I don’t work this idea out or make a formula. This Sunday I had finally opened my coffee tincture that a made a couple of weeks before. It smelled lovely – a combination of burned notes, coffee and less pleasant, but not very prominent “sour” note (I know it from a coffee aftertaste in the mouth). The vague idea was to make a delicious kitchen scent.

Well from about 30 ml of coffee tincture I made 100 ml spray (alcohol/water/emulgator). The oils I use were – a couple of drops of Cinnamon, Clove, Vanilla (tincture), Ginger and a couple of dozen drops of Orange-Mandarine-Grapefruit mixture. From synthetics – two drops of Dairy Fleuressence from the PerfumersWorld (a mixture of lactones with butter and milk smell).

Guys, it became a really delicious kitchen spray – it smells spiced cookies like the one you bake for the Xmas (or St. Nicolas so popular in Netherlands) ;-) Coffee (I think with vanilla) gave it the necessary “something baked” smell and Dairy Fleuressence a drop of butter (“used in cookies”).

What perfume wisdom can I draw from this situation? Well – happy blending is fun, BUT – if I had measured the amount of coffee and alcohol as well as written down the amount of essential oils added I could get a formula and work it out. So, MEASURE and WRITE DOWN and later you’ll be able reproduce and improve. That’s the lesson I take when I go to make my second coffee tincture. And now I just enjoy the delicious cookies smell – so suitable for the becoming darker evenings ;-)

Pefume assignment - eau de cologne

Russian version - click here

Well – the first perfume assignment I had to make was Eau de cologne as I already have mentioned.

Eau de cologne is not really a perfume, but more a refreshing water consisting of citrus, herbal and floral notes. Eau de cologne is not used to perfume ourselves, but to cool and refresh. That is why it doesn’t have to be tenacious or strong, but it should be light and have a fresh smell. Nowdays eau de cologne is also a synonym to a low concentrated perfume. There are also perfumes called eau de cologne (like one made by Chanel) – they possess the citrusy fresh smell of eau de cologne and qualities of a real perfume.

The formula I got to make was consisting mostly of citrus oils mixture – bergamot, lemon and mandarine natural oils made almost 60% of the formula. Some synthetics were used to enrich the citrus scents. An interesting aromachemical widely used in modern perfumery is dihydro myrcenol. It’s a fresh citrus smelling chemical with a distinguished lime note. It’s used as a lime oil replacement and it also gives a kind of noble masculine citrus accent. Another aromachemical used is citral. It gave it a barley sugar sweetness reminding of lemongrass oil (containing sometimes up to 90% citral). The use of citral and lemongrass oil is restricted by IFRA as they may cause skin irritation. Funny to mention the severity of IFRA. As I remember from my student period citral was a medicine. For inner use it was prescribed in much higher concentrations than IFRA forbid to put on the skin. I also remember that I read at Octavian´s blog that IFRA forbid the use of lemon balm oil at all – even for non skin applications. So, the next time when you drink a lemon balm tea, please, be careful not to smell any. And of course, avoid any skin contact ;-)

A drop of menthol is used to enhance the freshness and a drop of C-10 aldehyde gives some sparkles. Both are modifiers that mean you can’t easily recognize their smell in a final product, but they do have effect on a total composition.

The herbal part of the formula consisted of a couple of drops of lavender and rosemary oils.

Another interesting part was the use of linalool and linalyl acetate combination. Those are two chemicals are widely found in numerous flowers and herbs. In perfumery they are also used in numerous floral bases. Linalool smells a fresh, but chemical with a woody undertone. Rosewood oil consisting mostly of linalool might give a good idea about how linalool smells. Linalyl acetate shares the fresh chemical note with linalool, but differs by its fruity note reminding of pear and more bergamot like freshness. Mixed together they do smell fresh, but not pleasant enough to be used alone.

To fix the eau de cologne a drop of synthetic musk was used.

To test the formula I mixed all ingredients and made a 5% solution in the alcohol. Actually the most of eau de colognes has about 3% of fragrant materials. After a couple days of riping it was ready for a first test.

What did I get from the vial? On the blotter – a nice fresh citrusy smell sweetened with Citral giving a note of barley sugar and refined with lofty dihydro myrcenol. Unfortunately it doesn’t stay long on the skin – the citrusy freshness disappears in a few minutes and the only scent you smell is a camphorous note of lavender-rosemary supported with linalool chemical note. The problem is that the longevity of citrus oils mixture is shorter than the longevity of lavender-rosemary-linalool-linalyl acetate mixture. The only drop of synthetic musk seem to be not enough to make the smell more pleasant.

It looks that the improvement in this case should be pointed to the top to middle note. What materials could be used to cover the campharous note of lavender-rosemary combination and to lift up the chemical accents of linalool-linalyl acetate accord. I was thinking of using of ginger oil as it would nicely blend with barley sugar note of citral, ommiting of rosemary if needed and the use of hedione – a nice fresh long lasting chemical mostly used to give freshness to jasmine compositions. I was also thinking to use some materials to simulate a neroli odour (as linalool and linalyl acetate are also the components of neroli bases and neroli is widely used in eau de colognes). And of course I can enrich the base with some resin components.

Roxana has also made a nice blog entry about eau de cologne.

Red Poppy and the Queen Akbar

Russian version: http://aromax.livejournal.com/5229.html

Recently I’ve been to the garden centre to buy some new flowers for my balcony. And they had a poppy – a nice red bunch of fire on a hairy stalk. A simple, but very attractive flower. I couldn’t resist its charm.

The perfume I am wearing today is a Queen Akbar. Please, don’t grasp for the Turin&Sanchez guide to find it there. It's a perfume I made following the formula and using fleuressencesb (ready to use perfume bases) from the ABC-kit of the perfumersworld (http://www.perfumersworld.com/).

Top notes: fresh citrus

Middle notes: jasmine with a touch of orchid and spice

Base notes: wood, amber, vanilla

A nice blend reminding me of Opium pour homme by YSL. Mostly based on heavy dark jasmine with spice notes just breaking through. Amber is a combination of Benzoin based balsam and vanilla. Dry out – vanilla. It’s a heavy, oriental, spicy, sweet fragrance.

There is a green note in this perfume that seems to “be looking for its place” on the skin making the scent a bit soapy for a while, but disappearing later. May need some more maturation – it’s only a week ago I’ve made an alcohol dilution.

Making of rose scent

Nederlands: http://aromax-mijnparfum.blogspot.com/search/label/maken%20van%20rozengeur

It’s very simple as 1, 2, 3 – 1 drop of geraniol, 2 drops of citronellol and 3 drops of phenyl ethyl alcohol. The proportions can be varied. This simple formula can be even used in a perfume as a part of a complex flower accord. The scent of a real rose is much more sophisticated – it consists of hundreds of ingredients (there are about 350 identified).

The natural rose fragrance is mostly made of rose alcohols – phenyl ethyl alcohol (PEA), geraniol, citronellol and nerol. There is a difference in PEA amount between rose oil (only 1% PEA) and a rose absolute (about 40-70 % PEA). From the rest of rose alcohols are geraniol (3 % in absolute and 20 % in oil) and citronellol (6 % in absolute and 35 % in oil) the most important and used in a rose fragrance base. Nerol (1% in absolute and 6 % in oil) is less popular and use in a few formulae to give a fresh citrus accent.

Pure phenyl ethyl alcohol smells like dried rose petals with some green note. I also smell an undertone that reminds me of bitter almonds or cherry stones. I don’t like that undertone and because of that don’t like the smell of PEA alone. It’s ok when combined although. Citronellol has a soft rose scent with an accent that reminds me of citronella oil (but not as harsh as citronella oil self).

Citronellol has a soft rose scent with an accent that reminds me of citronella oil (but not as harsh as citronella oil self).

Geraniol is a rose scent with a soft fruity accent that reminds me of dried berries (or let’s say rose hips).

That’s it – phenyl ethyl alcohol, geraniol and citronellol in varied proportions form the base of the rose fragrance. Some other important components are rose oxide and damascones. The natural rose scent has very small amount of a rose oxide (about 0,5 %). But because of the intensity of the smell it forms a part of a rose scent even in such a small concentration. It has a harsh gassy scent and diluted gives a green flowery note. Beta-damascone is also used in some of the rose formulae. In a natural rose scent it occurs at the concentration of 0,1% and gives a fruity plum-like note.

The base can be extended with essential oils of rose and geranium and rose absolute to increase the naturalness. 1 to 3 % of this precious oils is enough.

Clove bud oil can give a rose a bit spicy character.

Ionones, like methyl ionone and alfa-ionone in concentration of 1-10 % give a nice flowery accent with a violet or iris nuance. Alfa-ionone is more flowery and methyl ionone is also a bit woody that makes it a perfect bridge between flowery and woody notes.

Woody oils like guaiacwood, cedar wood or verivert could be used as fixatives.

To give some green freshness it’s possible to use cis-3-hexenol (fresh cut grass or smashed green leaves) and/or phenyl acetaldehyde dimethyl acetal (harsh green, rucola like).