“Smell is a potent wizard that transports us across thousands of miles and all the years we have lived” . Helen Keller
Ah yes Helen, you couldn't be more right. Nothing takes you back to a moment in time so quickly, automatically and completely as your sense of smell. It is primal and instinctive. It stimulates pleasure and alerts us to danger. It can dictate our mood, happy, sad, relaxed,excited. It is the one sense that is most closely linked to our memory.
Smell is a silent invisible force. It’s our internal GPS system. It can provide us with clues without any other sense coming into play. Your mind's eye is instantly able to visualize, recall a place, a time, a person, a sound, an experience. It can also signal "danger Will Robinson, danger".
Just as we choose our clothing to reflect on our very own style that says to the world "You hoo, look at me", so too do we select a perfume that is our signature scent. The difference between the two statements is that perfume is a hidden signature. You don't need to see it to form an opinion.
While we might recoil in silence at the way someone is dressed with a blank, expressionless stare or perhaps making eye contact with another person who, like you, has picked up on the same thing, it is often difficult to hide one's opinion of the person who has a) o.d. them self in their favourite perfume or b) you're just not into petunia oil anymore. The brow furrows, the nose crinkles, the lips tense. All unintentional of course. It's instinctual, automatic.
Perfume has been recorded as far back as 4000 years. In 2005 in Pyrgos, Cyprus an ancient perfumery was discovered. Sixty stills, funnels, mixing bowls and perfume bottles were among the artifacts found. Fragrances have been used over the centuries for everything from burials to attracting a mate. Nothing much has changed there! In the beginning they used flowers, herbs and resins. Today they use everything from ambergris expropriated from the sperm whale (rare and very expensive!) to tobacco leaves. Yes I did say tobacco.
A perfumer is the alchemist, the wizard who concocts elixirs to entice, tantalize and titillate. They must study and commit to memory thousands of scents. There is only one way to do that I'm afraid, practice, practice, practice. In building up their repertoire when first learning the "perfumer in training" is given ten oils to study and memorize. Once these are solidified in the olfactory then another set of ten are given and so on until a menagerie of oils are at their recall. Much like a wine writer records their notes on a particular wine so as to be able to revisit at a later date, so too does a perfumer catalogue their thoughts and affiliations each scent has for them in order to build a foundation on which to draw upon when designing a perfume.
When building a scent a perfumer must be able to distinguish between what is an inexpensive version of particular odour and what is the real McCoy! In the fashion world this would be the difference between a knock-off versus haute couture. Obviously which ever is used will dictate the commercial market value.
The next phase of learning would be to understand the volatility of each oil and how they will interact with each other in the blend. There are a number of methods of extracting aromatic compounds. In order to determine what method of extraction is appropriate one must consider its components. Some methods of extraction may be too harsh for a particular plant material or for the desired house style. Mmmm sounds a bit like wine making.
Steam Distillation is similar to that of whisky distillation. The raw material is put inside the still, water is put into the bottom and heated to boiling. The steam passes over the raw material capturing the oil which then makes it way to the top of the still towards the condenser. As we know, oil and water do not mix......can you say Gulf of Mexico.....I digress. Passing through the condenser the steam returns to its watery liquid state and the oil and water are forever parted. Et voila we now have what is known as an essential oil. The water retains a small amount of scent. The most famous would be rose water. Nothing goes to waste.
Solvent Extraction uses benzene and hexane to extract the oils. Using this method results in an oil that is the truest to the smell of the plant. The benefit of this process is that the stainless steel vessels are able to contain anywhere from 3000 to 4000 litres. Are you seeing the similarity to sparkling wine and second fermentation taking place in tanks? Volume!
The solvent(s)are mixed with the raw material i.e. a flower or a wood that you are using to extract oil from. The raw materials are placed on numerous trays with many holes throughout to allow the solvents to pass over them. As the oil and solvents mix, the remaining used raw materials are removed. I'm thinking spent lees in wine!
The mixture is then decanted ( there's that wine language again) and will go through a partial distillation under reduced pressure. This produces a thick, wax like paste which will either be called a "resinoid" if for instance a wood is the raw material, or a "concrete" if a flower is used. The paste will then be processed to extract the oils.
The mixtures are cooled to between -10 and -15 degrees Celsius to solidify. Concretes must undergo further treatment as the oils contain waxes that are insoluble in alcohol. Concretes are repeatedly washed with alcohol resulting in the wax separating from the oil and alcohol. The oil and alcohol is then heated at reduced pressure in order to protect the oil from possible damage. The alcohol evaporates and we are left with a substance which is now known as an "absolute". Are you absolutely confused yet!! Whew I need a drink. Scotch anyone?
Expression extractions is strictly used to remove the oils from citrus fruits. The rinds are mechanically pressed to remove the precious cargo from the skins. Juice is sometimes part of the equation which is then removed with the use of a centrifuge. Wine, I'm thinking wine. That was an easy one!
Enfleurage extraction. In a word....Fat! Yes, refined fat is used....fat, fat, fat, not a word we like to hear these days...fat, we all need fat.... I love the FAT cookbook. I'm feeling very Monty Phythonish at the moment. Ah yes, back to perfume. Glass plates held in a frame are covered with refined, odourless fat. Flower blooms are spread out onto the fat plates and left to unleash their scent. This can take days depending on the bloom. Blooms are removed and replenished continuously until the fat is inundated with a copious volume of scented oil. Now called "pomade" it is washed with alcohol and mixed with the oils and the fat is discarded. This is then heated resulting in "absolue de pommade".
All work is done by hand hence this makes for a very labour intensive and time consuming process. You can see why Solvent Extraction would be the extraction of choice.
Tinctures are produced by macerating the raw material in alcohol extracting the oils, scenting the alcohol. This is then heated producing a tincture.
And just as in wine, what may be considered a fault, as in noble rot which produces the most treasured dessert wine Sauternes, just such a fault can manifest also in the perfume world. For instance Agarwood is the result of an infestation of mold in heartwood. In response to the infestation, heartwood fights back by producing a high quality resinous substance that embeds into the wood, darkening it. This resin is rich in organic compounds which are then removed by CO2 extraction. Are you starting to see a commonality here with wine and perfume?
And like the world of wine the perfume world has what is called a Fragrance Wheel. It was created in 1983 by Michael Edwards a perfume consultant. Like the aroma wheel the Fragrance Wheel serves to unify the language used when speaking to the terms of scent. It classifies and categorizes families of scents that are relative to each other. The five families are floral, oriental, woody, fougere and fresh.
When nosing a wine we first experience the aroma which is your first initial impression. The next stage would be the bouquet which would be a deeper experience of the aroma. For instance citrus would then become a bouquet of perhaps lemon rind, lime, orange peel. In perfume you have the top note which would be your first impression of the scent, the middle note or the "heart" which is the main body of the perfume, and the base note which brings depth and cohesion to the perfume.
Perfume has many concentrations levels. Concentrations dictates the style from Perfume, Eau du Parfum, Eau de Toilette, Eau de Cologne. The more concentration as in Perfume, the longer it will remain on your skin.
There are literally thousands upon thousands of possibilities for the perfumer to create magic. As a sommelier my sense of smell is always on alert to different odours whether I like it or not. I can only imagine what it must be like living the life of a perfumer on a daily basis. I have only touched the surface of this world.
Bartender........where's that scotch I ordered?
