Get a boost in your perfumery abilities by learning from these formulas for fine fragrances.
Bertrand Duchafour is my favourite living perfumer and in particular I love his Or Du Serail for Naomi Goodsir. One weekend I was bored and decided to play around with a bunch of formulas and see if I could make something as sweet and beautiful as the opening of this brilliant scent. I was somewhat successful and while I have not spent any time editing this formula, I thought it might be fun to publish something that is a work-in-progress.
This is the first fragrance I ever created! Well, it’s the nth iteration of said fragrance. The very first instance was just three ingredients: patchouli acetate, Dorinia SAE, and hydroxycitronellal in the form of Firmenich’s Cyclosia base. I had mixed the three together in the proportions found in this fragrance and dipped a smelling stick into it. Hours later I walked into the room I had left it in and was met with the most magical and profoundly beautiful scent.
First and foremost, this is not a modern tuberose fragrance. This is much more akin to Chanel No. 5, or other strong aldehyde bombs of the past. Because of cost reasons on my end, this fragrance does not actually contain any real tuberose absolute but I feel like it does a great job regardless. To incorporate the style and format of vintage fragrances, this formula contains three Louis Appel bases which are fantastic at what they do. Because of this, there is quite a lot of extra work involved in this fragrance if you do not already have these bases mixed up! Anyways, I believe it to be worth it as this is a lovely and very powerful formula.
Chypre by Coty is one of the most important works of fragrance art in history. It inspired thousands of new fragrances and continues to do so today, and it was a nod, in its own time, to the long-lost scent of powdered wigs and the drawing rooms of the European Gentry of the 17th and 18th centuries.
This fragrance has been one of the oldest and most edited fragrances I have made so far. I would go as far to say that it is my favorite creation to date and that there really isn’t anything on the market today that compares. It’s something that performs well in hot and cold weather and though it is strong it is not cloying or aggressive in nature.
I happen to be a huge fan of Ylang Ylang and had a great love for the fragrance Sublime by Jean Patou which is built around an Ylang Ylang and Mandarin accord. Rather than analyzing and making a clone, I wanted to come up with my own version so I could be more playful. And so while this formula is called Sublime Ylang and follows the notes and much of the style of the Patou fragrance, this is created without any GCMS analysis of the original.
Twilly is a tuberose bomb which opens with a blast of bright fresh ginger. It features an interesting tuberose based around lactonic notes (rather than medicinal notes) resting in a sultry bed of vanilla and amber. Today we have launched the formula for purchase!
The content of M7 encompasses assorted trees and raw, odorous plants. The composition begins with elegant citrus notes of Italian bergamot, Sicilian mandarin and rosemary. The warm heart contains an excellent replica of one of the most expensive components: Agarwood, followed by vetiver. The perfume closes with a soft ambergris trail and musky notes.
Patou Pour Homme Privé is my signature fragrance, I have spent untold hours wearing this scent and considering its many nuances. I have bought numerous bottles at great cost (of both the eau de toilette and aftershave) and have had more than one GCMS analysis performed. This “clone” formula of Patou Pour Homme Privé is out of this world and, should you wish to play around with the data yourself, it makes a great starting point for experimentation.
Maurice Roucel is the nose behind the skanky and outrageous fragrance Musc Ravageur. In an interview discussing the fragrance, he admitted that despite its name, it ironically had no musk in it. His true musk fragrance was Eau de Cologne for Helmut Lang presented here. This has amazing diffusion and is a graunchy animalic musk bomb; it is unlike anything else you’ll have smelled before (unless you’ve smelled the original).
