Perfumes

Discover what perfumes are made of, how they are produced, and the fascinating world that surrounds them.

July 12th 2024

What are perfumes made of?

The main components of a perfume are:

The base, consisting of:
- Essential oils of natural origin
- Synthetic compounds
- Fixatives
The solvent

Essential oils are substances composed of volatile molecules obtained from plants or certain animal glands through physical and chemical processes like extraction or distillation.

Synthetic compounds are created through chemical synthesis without using natural products. This process can produce substances similar to natural products that mimic their scent or substances that are identical to them.

Fixatives are typically nonvolatile organic compounds that can dissolve various fragrances, preventing odor-emitting substances from evaporating quickly from the perfume.

Adding fixatives is one of the most important steps in perfume manufacturing.

The solvent simply dilutes the base and is not essential. It is usually ethyl alcohol or water.

Grenouille’s Definitive Perfume

In 1985, Patrick Süskind published his famous novel Perfume: The Story of a Murderer, which tells the life of Jean-Baptiste Grenouille, a character gifted with a prodigious sense of smell who seeks to create the “definitive perfume,” leading him to commit atrocious murders. To make this “definitive perfume,” Grenouille embarks on a killing spree targeting virgin girls, intending to extract their essence, the key ingredient of the perfume. Although the protagonist of this novel can recognize and dissect thousands of perfumes, he, unlike other humans, lacks his own scent.

Patrick Süskind’s *Perfume: The Story of a Murderer*

Theory of Smell

The theory of smell states that there are seven primary smells: camphoraceous, musky, floral, minty, ethereal, spicy, and putrid. Other smells can be considered derivatives and combinations of these. For example, the fruity smell results from a combination of the floral, minty, and ethereal scents.

Distillation
A procedure for obtaining essential oils

Distillation is one of the most commonly used techniques for extracting essential oils from plant tissues. Essentially, it is a physical process in which a liquid is heated until its most volatile components, the essences, evaporate. The vapors are then cooled through condensation to recover the essences in liquid form. The perfume industry has traditionally used stills for distillation. The still is the container where the liquids are boiled and is equipped with a cooling coil to condense the vapor. The essences are collected in a container at the outlet of the coil. Here are some examples of essential oils: