- Joined
- Jun 22, 2016
- Location
- Sydney
This is going to be a very basic tutorial for people that want to learn a little more about perfumery for the purposes of making perfumes for their shaving soaps or such like. I make no secret that I have 'skin in the game' with AP Reserve and obviously I will not be giving any of my secrets away.
I smell a lot of 'artisan' soaps and aftershaves too and to be fair a majority of them are just bloody terrible, they mean well and often use great Essential Oils but they are a complete dogs breakfast when it comes to the design and composition of the fragrance they use.
So Accords...An accord is simply 2 or more oils that when mixed in a ratio forms something harmonious that is greater than the sum of it's parts. It is not mixing two oils and strongly smelling one or the other once mixed, or smelling two mixed oils that are bloody horrific, no. An accord reflects an ideal olfactory balance and they are beautiful.
We might make an accord with all the base-notes, then one for the heart notes and then one for the top notes or we might just make one for the base notes and work up our design from there using only one base-accord and the rest individual oils for the heart and top. We record everything keeping exact records of what we mixed and how.
Measurement
I use two pairs of fairly expensive scales to weigh out my materials, but for the purposes of this explanation guide I am going to use ml (milliliters) to keep it simple therefore I will be using 1ml plastic pipettes to accurately measure the oils.
Just so people know - Using volume in perfumery is inaccurate, you need to weigh materials if you get serious using digital scales that run to 3 decimal places, the scales are calibrated every time using an ideal weight.
It is very important that all your measurements are accurate, an error in measurement renders any accord you create completely useless as you will never be able to recreate it with any accuracy. Get a notebook and record what you do - write down the numbers, label all the bottles and keep notes.
I buy these at 5000 a time, they are single use pipettes you can buy packets of 10 or 100 etc from ebay and many other places. They are around $4-$5 for a packet of 20 or so, maybe cheaper.
They are called single use pipettes as you never use the same one twice, it introduces contamination, inaccuracy and errors. When you are making an accord, if you make a mistake the whole effort is a complete waste of time as the odds of reproducing the accord are infinitesimal as you don't know the exact quantity of material.
Don't use the same bloody pipettes twice, you can almost be certain you will bugger things up!
In this example I am using 15ml brown boston bottles as when I formulate for AP Reserve I make 12.5ml solutions. It is much cheaper for most people to use the 5ml brown boston bottles (.35cents each) or even the small plastic perfumers vials from ebay etc.
Dilution
When I am formulating accords to use in a fragrance, it often takes a lot of trial and error to get something that smells just right so rather than waste expensive oils needlessly I take the Essential Oils and dilute them to 10% strength (you can also dilute them to 1% strength if you prefer or they are expensive).
The point is you know exactly what concentration you are working with so when you get the right accord you can just multiply it out to make larger batches and reproduce it countless times.
I dilute my oils when I am making accords because oils are expensive and so are trials, but I also do this as diluting the Essential Oils makes them much easier to smell and appreciate when I am testing out what 2 oils work well together.
There are a number of Essential oils you simply must dilute in order to smell them as they will eventually be, smelling them in pure form is misleading and of little use as they are so concentrated. This is a very important point, try not to forget it.
The bottles in this guide are all empty, they are for visual aids only. You will notice they are labelled, always label every bottle you use prior to experimenting and always use clean bottles. Do not reuse bottles for making accords and do not reuse pipettes - you will get nowhere.
Sandalwood and Oakmoss are for examples only. I have never worked up an accord using just Sandalwood and Oakmoss.
Who knows though, Sandalwood and Oakmoss may be fantastic if you hit the right combination!
On the Left 10ml of Sandalwood Essential Oil with 90ml of Alcohol
On the Right 10ml of Oakmoss with 90ml of Alcohol
These are in 10% dilution, if you wanted to do 1% you would simply add 1ml of oil to 99ml of alcohol.
An example of making a Base-note Accord
I will be making a very, very simple base-note accord but the principal is used for all of the accords you can imagine, base notes, heart notes and top notes. You don't have to use accords for the whole fragrance, but you can if you want and are skilful enough to make it work.
Just because you have 3 different accords (base, heart and top) it does not necessarily follow they will work together when mixed, please don't make the mistake of thinking it's automatic!
We use ratios when making accords, I will give a 5 bottle example for simplicity but I tend to work with 8 or 12 these days. We label 5 bottles as follows....
You can work in drops (bit tricky sometimes) 1/2 ml or whatever, to keep it simple I will be using whole milliliters for this tutorial.
The numbers below represent the 5 individual bottles, each bottle has a different ratio of Sandalwood to Oakmoss....
Sandalwood 9 8 7 6 5
Oakmoss 1 2 3 4 5
Bottle 1 on the left has 9ml of Sandalwood and 1 ml of Oakmoss
Bottle 2 on the right has 8ml of Sandalwood and 2ml of Oakmoss
We repeat this for the 5 bottles using the ratios given above, we can reverse the percentages if we like or even increase the number however this does introduce complications I am not going to cover in this tutorial. The 5 bottle accord method is comprehensive, and can and does produce great accords.
When we have made up our 5 bottles using the ratios provided, we give them a good shake and then we rest them for 72hours in a nice cool dark place.
The mixtures must rest, there is no way out and no speeding the process up. You can smell them once they have been shaken and mixed, but they will change over 72hours. If you pick one straight away you have the potential to lose something really incredible because you didn't wait....
Watch out Guerlain! I hope you are ready CREED! Bottle number 4 is pure olfactory devastation!!!!!11111
After 72 hours we take our bottles out and uncap each one in turn and smell (if we have perfumers papers we use these to smell) but the nose alone is a great guide. We smell all 5 and we pick the one that we like, we are designing a base-note here so we want a uniform smell that is different to both of the parts individually as this is the key to an accord.
If you can smell a spiky note, or a prominent note then you do not have an accord. You are smelling for pure harmony and something different than the two oils you have used. Don't mistake something different as an accord, no harmony = no accord.
Good luck
I smell a lot of 'artisan' soaps and aftershaves too and to be fair a majority of them are just bloody terrible, they mean well and often use great Essential Oils but they are a complete dogs breakfast when it comes to the design and composition of the fragrance they use.
So Accords...An accord is simply 2 or more oils that when mixed in a ratio forms something harmonious that is greater than the sum of it's parts. It is not mixing two oils and strongly smelling one or the other once mixed, or smelling two mixed oils that are bloody horrific, no. An accord reflects an ideal olfactory balance and they are beautiful.
We might make an accord with all the base-notes, then one for the heart notes and then one for the top notes or we might just make one for the base notes and work up our design from there using only one base-accord and the rest individual oils for the heart and top. We record everything keeping exact records of what we mixed and how.
Measurement
I use two pairs of fairly expensive scales to weigh out my materials, but for the purposes of this explanation guide I am going to use ml (milliliters) to keep it simple therefore I will be using 1ml plastic pipettes to accurately measure the oils.
Just so people know - Using volume in perfumery is inaccurate, you need to weigh materials if you get serious using digital scales that run to 3 decimal places, the scales are calibrated every time using an ideal weight.
It is very important that all your measurements are accurate, an error in measurement renders any accord you create completely useless as you will never be able to recreate it with any accuracy. Get a notebook and record what you do - write down the numbers, label all the bottles and keep notes.
I buy these at 5000 a time, they are single use pipettes you can buy packets of 10 or 100 etc from ebay and many other places. They are around $4-$5 for a packet of 20 or so, maybe cheaper.
They are called single use pipettes as you never use the same one twice, it introduces contamination, inaccuracy and errors. When you are making an accord, if you make a mistake the whole effort is a complete waste of time as the odds of reproducing the accord are infinitesimal as you don't know the exact quantity of material.
Don't use the same bloody pipettes twice, you can almost be certain you will bugger things up!
In this example I am using 15ml brown boston bottles as when I formulate for AP Reserve I make 12.5ml solutions. It is much cheaper for most people to use the 5ml brown boston bottles (.35cents each) or even the small plastic perfumers vials from ebay etc.
Dilution
When I am formulating accords to use in a fragrance, it often takes a lot of trial and error to get something that smells just right so rather than waste expensive oils needlessly I take the Essential Oils and dilute them to 10% strength (you can also dilute them to 1% strength if you prefer or they are expensive).
The point is you know exactly what concentration you are working with so when you get the right accord you can just multiply it out to make larger batches and reproduce it countless times.
I dilute my oils when I am making accords because oils are expensive and so are trials, but I also do this as diluting the Essential Oils makes them much easier to smell and appreciate when I am testing out what 2 oils work well together.
There are a number of Essential oils you simply must dilute in order to smell them as they will eventually be, smelling them in pure form is misleading and of little use as they are so concentrated. This is a very important point, try not to forget it.
The bottles in this guide are all empty, they are for visual aids only. You will notice they are labelled, always label every bottle you use prior to experimenting and always use clean bottles. Do not reuse bottles for making accords and do not reuse pipettes - you will get nowhere.
Sandalwood and Oakmoss are for examples only. I have never worked up an accord using just Sandalwood and Oakmoss.
Who knows though, Sandalwood and Oakmoss may be fantastic if you hit the right combination!
On the Left 10ml of Sandalwood Essential Oil with 90ml of Alcohol
On the Right 10ml of Oakmoss with 90ml of Alcohol
These are in 10% dilution, if you wanted to do 1% you would simply add 1ml of oil to 99ml of alcohol.
An example of making a Base-note Accord
I will be making a very, very simple base-note accord but the principal is used for all of the accords you can imagine, base notes, heart notes and top notes. You don't have to use accords for the whole fragrance, but you can if you want and are skilful enough to make it work.
Just because you have 3 different accords (base, heart and top) it does not necessarily follow they will work together when mixed, please don't make the mistake of thinking it's automatic!
We use ratios when making accords, I will give a 5 bottle example for simplicity but I tend to work with 8 or 12 these days. We label 5 bottles as follows....
You can work in drops (bit tricky sometimes) 1/2 ml or whatever, to keep it simple I will be using whole milliliters for this tutorial.
The numbers below represent the 5 individual bottles, each bottle has a different ratio of Sandalwood to Oakmoss....
Sandalwood 9 8 7 6 5
Oakmoss 1 2 3 4 5
Bottle 1 on the left has 9ml of Sandalwood and 1 ml of Oakmoss
Bottle 2 on the right has 8ml of Sandalwood and 2ml of Oakmoss
We repeat this for the 5 bottles using the ratios given above, we can reverse the percentages if we like or even increase the number however this does introduce complications I am not going to cover in this tutorial. The 5 bottle accord method is comprehensive, and can and does produce great accords.
When we have made up our 5 bottles using the ratios provided, we give them a good shake and then we rest them for 72hours in a nice cool dark place.
The mixtures must rest, there is no way out and no speeding the process up. You can smell them once they have been shaken and mixed, but they will change over 72hours. If you pick one straight away you have the potential to lose something really incredible because you didn't wait....
Watch out Guerlain! I hope you are ready CREED! Bottle number 4 is pure olfactory devastation!!!!!11111
After 72 hours we take our bottles out and uncap each one in turn and smell (if we have perfumers papers we use these to smell) but the nose alone is a great guide. We smell all 5 and we pick the one that we like, we are designing a base-note here so we want a uniform smell that is different to both of the parts individually as this is the key to an accord.
If you can smell a spiky note, or a prominent note then you do not have an accord. You are smelling for pure harmony and something different than the two oils you have used. Don't mistake something different as an accord, no harmony = no accord.
Good luck
