Ask Fashion Girl

Dear Irina,

Good for you for thinking out of the pre-packaged perfume box! Creating perfume is a very special art... how cool that you want to pursue it. Perfume creators study in Europe's finest schools for six years to learn this ancient art. By the time they are ready to work in the industry, they can identify thousands of individual scents and have developed an expert sense of what scents do or don't complement each other. Here's a quick description of some perfumery basics. Most people wonder about the natural vs. synthetic fragrances issue. We've come a long way since the days of Cleopatra, and technology has made the perfume process a lot easier! Count on science to figure out how to clone Mother Nature's own scents. These synthetic concoctions are called "Aldehydes" and can smell like anything from familiar roses to new artificial smells like "Bananaberry." Some of the world's best perfumes use Aldehydes; think Chanel No. 5. Aldehydes are cheaper than pure essential oils and herbs, which you can buy at health food stores. Before you start mixing scents, it helps to understand the structure of a perfume. Think of your favorite musical composition...and I mean Bach, not Beck. The oils in perfumes are divided into three categories: top notes, middle notes, and base notes. Top notes are light and lifting. They are what first attracts someone to the fragrance, but they fade...think of the sound of a flute. The middle notes are the main scents that make you love or hate the fragrance...think of these as the melody. The base notes create resonance which give it staying power and depth...like the bass. Top notes are light fruits, flowers, and grasses. Middle notes are medium and heavier flowers, and base notes are spices, mosses, herbs, barks, and resin. Combining these notes is where the highly specialized art comes into the science of perfumery. It's crazy - some perfumes are made of hundreds of scents, while others are so simple in structure. Some ways to dive in nose-first and play with these concepts: 1) Refine your sense of smell. Get outside, smell everything around you. Make a conscious effort to log those smells to memory. 2) Let one of those persistent perfume girls entice you to smell all the scents at the perfume counter. Ask them to describe the notes of each one, even if it means reading the description off the box. 3) Research aromatherapy. It will teach you lots about the olfactory system (how our body receives scents and uses them). Also check out the "Stony Mountain Botanicals" website for some great aroma info: www.wildroots.com/aromathe.htm. You can also go to http://www.parfumsraffy.com/instructions.html for step-by-step instructions on making your own perfume. Hope this answer gets you started on your own perfume path!

Sincerely, Fashion Girl