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The science of alluring scents

Wendy Zukerman, Asia Pacific reporter


(Image: Roy Botterell/Getty)

"Go forth and smell," says John Lambeth, a perfume designer for the international fragrance house, Drom.

At the Art of Perfume, a masterclass in perfumery run by the Mulberry Institute in Sydney, Australia, I'm prompted to dust off my olfactory receptors as I learn the chemicals and techniques used to design today's top perfumes. Despite my initial impressions, I quickly find perfume design is no flowery profession.

In the past fifty years, inexpensive gas and liquid chromatography equipment - which breaks down the chemical composition of substances allowing them to be easily re-engineered - has meant that perfume designs are no longer constrained by the expense or ethics of obtaining certain fragrant ingredients.

For example, musk, once extracted from the glands of male musk deer, and ambergris, originally found in the innards of sperm whales and often obtained after it's been vomited up, can now be artificially devised for a fraction of the cost - and without the ethical issues.

Plus, beguilingly smelly things found in nature only in trace amounts, can now be synthetically mass produced. Back in the 1950s, for example, Chanel generated copious amounts of aldehydes - copied from those found in rose and citrus oils - to develop Chanel No. 5. This move was a "game changer," says Lambeth. "It created a totally new and fashionable scent."

Chemical advances also heralded the introduction of completely new scents such as Iso E super, a hydrocarbon with a pleasant, amber odour now used ubiquitously in laundry powder, soaps and fine fragrances.

At Drom, there are more than one thousand bottled scents - and new aromas are developed every year. So, how does one mix them to create the "perfect" blend?

According to Lambeth, there is a classic perfume formula. Each fragrance is based on three "notes" or chemical mixtures.

The top note is "the first impression," he says. It's made using volatile chemicals that quickly evaporate in the air, and is generally a citrus or fruity scent. The middle note is the "heart of the fragrance", which is often based on floral odours, and lasts about eight hours from when first applied. And finally, the base: a robust smell that lingers for days. A common example is musk, the deer's pheromone.

The real secret to perfumery, I'm told, is juxtaposing disparate scents. Perhaps, a touch of moss, or even ambergris from the whale's innards, with something floral - like rose?

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