October 23
Perfumery Is Not Paint by Numbers: How to Understand Ingredients and Create Your Own Fragrances
Sometimes I feel that many people approach perfume creation like a paint-by-numbers kit. You find a ready-made formula, buy the ingredients, mix them in the exact proportions, and get a fragrance. Just like filling in numbered spaces with the right colours. But for me, perfumery is something completely different.
Of course, formulas are important. They help us understand how fragrances are built, how ingredients work together, and how different accords can be created. But if learning perfumery is only about following existing formulas, at what point do we actually start creating something of our own? I believe the most interesting part of perfumery begins when we stop looking for the one correct combination of ingredients and start trusting our own sense of smell.
One Ingredient, Many Different Facets
Let's take rose as an example. At first, everything seems quite simple: rose smells like rose. But when you start studying rose essential oil or rose absolute carefully, you discover a whole world of different facets. You may notice green, fruity, honey-like, spicy, and balsamic notes. Some are very clear, while others are almost hidden. A lot depends on the material itself, where it comes from, how it was produced, and the concentration in which you smell it.
For me, simply recognising rose is not enough. I want to understand what kind of rose it is, which facets I can smell, and how I could use them in a composition. For example, today I may want to create a fresh, green rose accord, so I will choose ingredients that help me highlight this particular side of rose. Tomorrow, I may want a warm, honey-like, slightly spicy rose, and that will require a completely different selection of materials.
We can create the same scent idea in many different ways. Even I may choose different ingredients depending on which facets I want to highlight at that moment. This is one of the reasons why I don't see a formula as the only correct answer.
How I Explore a New Perfume Ingredient
When I receive a new ingredient, I don't immediately add it to a perfume formula. I don't even start by reading the manufacturer's recommendations about which materials to combine it with. It's not because those recommendations are useless. I simply want to form my own impression first, without limiting myself to someone else's ideas about how the ingredient should be used.
The first thing I do is prepare a dilution, usually at 5% or 10%, depending on the strength of the material. Some ingredients smell so strong in their pure form that it becomes difficult to notice their more delicate facets. When diluted, they can become much more interesting. Then I start smelling and taking notes, writing down everything I notice: familiar smells, memories, associations, textures, and the overall character of the material. Sometimes I return to the ingredient at a different concentration or after some time to see how it develops.
A good example is immortelle. It is an incredibly complex ingredient, and it took me quite a long time to learn how to work with it effectively. One of its most recognisable facets reminds me of curry. This note can be so strong that, if you use too much immortelle, the curry effect can take over the entire composition. But curry is not the only thing I find interesting in this material.
I really love its maple syrup facet. It smells warm, honey-like, and slightly caramelised. This immediately makes me think about combining it with tonka bean to create something that reminds me of cane sugar, even without using ethyl maltol. I also notice dried fruit facets in immortelle, which gives me another idea: using a small amount to add depth to accords inspired by alcoholic drinks and cocktails. And then there is its slightly bitter, earthy side, which suggests something completely different, such as petrichor accords, wet earth, or moss.
Notice that we are still talking about the same ingredient. But if you only think of immortelle as something that smells like curry, you may never discover most of its possibilities. That is why I prefer to explore a material first and only then decide how I want to use it in a formula.
Why the Same Ingredient Can Smell Different to Different People
Our sense of smell is closely connected to personal experience. We recognise smells through familiar images, memories, and associations. What reminds one person of dried fruit may remind another of jam or a warm fruit pie. Someone may smell dry bark in a woody ingredient, while someone else may think of old furniture or a walk through the forest. This does not necessarily mean that one person is right and the other is wrong.
I think it is important not to force your own impressions to match a ready-made description. If a manufacturer describes a material as woody, ambery, and spicy, that information can be useful, but it should not stop you from noticing something different. Sometimes an unexpected association becomes the starting point for a very interesting accord. Of course, as perfumers, we need a shared language to describe smells and understand each other, but this language should not replace our own perception.
How to Learn and Remember Perfume Ingredients
One of the most common questions beginners ask is how to remember so many perfume ingredients, especially when some of them have names like dodecalactone, ambrettolide, or cis-3-hexenol. Remembering the name is only part of the challenge. You also need to remember the smell, its different facets, and how it behaves. This is why I recommend creating a clear learning system for yourself.
1. Study ingredients by olfactory families. Start with floral, citrus, woody, fresh, spicy, and other groups. This will help you gradually build your own olfactory palette. You will not only learn to recognise individual materials but also compare them, noticing similarities and differences.
2. Explore both natural and synthetic ingredients. Don't limit yourself to essential oils or, on the other hand, only synthetic molecules. It is important to understand what both types of materials can offer. For example, a natural floral absolute may have many different facets, while a single synthetic molecule can help you study one particular facet more closely.
3. Start with commonly used ingredients. You don't need to buy hundreds of rare materials straight away. It is much more useful to become familiar with the main ingredients widely used in modern perfumery. Your palette can be small at first. What matters is how well you understand it.
4. Explore every ingredient from different angles. Don't stop at one simple description, such as "woody" or "floral". Write down the different facets you notice, your personal associations, and how the smell changes over time. Little by little, you will begin to notice much more.
5. Practise blind smelling tests. After studying a group of ingredients, try to recognise them without looking at their names. Repeat the exercise a few days later. This helps you check whether you really remember the smell rather than simply recognising the name on the bottle.
6. Learn to recognise familiar facets in finished perfumes. This is a more difficult step because smelling an ingredient on its own, on a smelling strip, is very different from recognising its character inside a complex composition. It is also important to understand that noticing a familiar facet does not always prove that a particular molecule is present in a formula. Still, learning to recognise these facets is a great way to develop your ability to analyse fragrances.
7. Start creating your own accords. Once you know several ingredients well, try combining them. Change the proportions and notice how one material highlights or changes another. Pay attention to the new effects that appear when ingredients are mixed. This is the moment when knowledge starts becoming a practical skill.
Step by step, you develop more than just a memory for smells. You begin to understand what each ingredient can do and how you might use it in your own compositions.
Four Ingredients, Two Completely Different Accords
I love showing the possibilities of perfumery through simple examples. Imagine we have only four ingredients: lemon, vanillin, cinnamon, and patchouli. It seems like a strange combination at first, but let's try to create two completely different scent ideas with them.
The first one is lemon pie. We make lemon the main note and add more vanillin for a sweet, dessert-like effect. A little cinnamon brings a spicy touch, while a very small amount of patchouli can add a dry, woody, slightly earthy facet that reminds us of a baked crust.
Now let's take the same four ingredients but change their proportions. We keep the bright citrus note, adjust the balance between cinnamon and vanillin, and use patchouli to add a darker depth. This time, we can move towards a completely different association: the familiar sweet, spicy, citrus smell of Coca-Cola.
Of course, these are only possible directions for experimenting. The final result will depend on the exact materials and their concentrations. But I think the idea is very interesting because we haven't added any new ingredients. We have simply changed the proportions and shifted the focus, and now we have two completely different scent ideas.
For me, this is one of the most enjoyable parts of being a perfumer: understanding materials well enough to discover unexpected combinations on your own.
One Ingredient Can Create Very Different Effects
There is another interesting side to understanding the many facets of an ingredient. Let's take damascenone, for example. It is a very expressive molecule with fruity, rosy, dried-fruit, and wine-like facets. Depending on the ingredients around it, damascenone can play very different roles.
In a rose accord, I may use it to highlight the rich, fruity side of rose. In a red wine accord, it can bring a deep, berry-like, wine-like character. In a tobacco accord, it can add warm dried-fruit nuances, while in a fruity composition, it can help highlight the character of cherry or plum.
Of course, one molecule cannot create the complete smell of rose, wine, or tobacco on its own. The surrounding ingredients and their interactions are essential. But when you know its smell well, it becomes much easier to imagine where it could be useful. This is how ingredients gradually stop being just names in a catalogue and become tools for expressing your own ideas.
Why I Don't Recommend Starting with Hundreds of Ingredients and Complex Formulas
Many beginners believe that to create interesting perfumes, they need to build a large collection of ingredients as quickly as possible. But having a lot of bottles does not mean you know how to use them. You can own hundreds of perfume materials and still depend on other people's formulas because you don't fully understand your own palette. Or you can know a relatively small number of ingredients very well, recognise their many facets, and create different accords using them. I would start with the second approach.
Take a few familiar ingredients and try to use them for different purposes. Create a fresher or warmer accord, highlight the fruity facet of a floral material, or add dryness, softness, bitterness, or sweetness. Then change just one proportion and smell the result again. This simple exercise can teach you much more than copying a complex formula made of dozens of materials.
And I am not saying that studying other people's formulas is unnecessary. Quite the opposite. They can be excellent learning tools because they help us understand how fragrances are built, how ingredients interact, and how proportions influence the final result. But for me, a formula should be something we explore and learn from, not simply a set of instructions to copy without thinking.
How to Move from Studying Ingredients to Creating Your Own Fragrances
When you want to create a fragrance, try starting with a scent idea instead of a list of molecules. What exactly do you want to express? For example, a rose. But what kind of rose? A fresh, green rose that smells as if it has just been cut? A warm, honey-like rose? A juicy, fruity rose? Or something drier and more powdery?
Then think about which ingredients in your palette could help you create those facets. Choose a few materials you know well and make your first small accord. Smell the result and ask yourself what you notice, what is missing, which ingredient is too strong, and which facet you would like to highlight. Then change one thing and evaluate the composition again.
I find this approach much more interesting than trying to find the perfect formula straight away. This is also how I enjoy working myself. First, I decide what kind of smell I want to create. Then I divide that idea into different facets and gradually look for ways to bring them together. Sometimes I find the solution quickly, while other times I need to create several versions and return to them later. There is no single answer that works for every perfumer or every creative idea.
Perfumery Begins with the Ability to Smell
For me, perfumery is a combination of knowledge, practice, and creativity. It is important to understand ingredients, work with proportions, know the properties of materials, and follow safety guidelines. But none of these things can replace your own sense of smell.
This is exactly why I teach perfumery the way I do. I want my students to do more than recognise ingredients or reproduce existing formulas. I want them to develop their own olfactory palette, discover new possibilities in familiar materials, and learn to create the scents they imagine.
Over the years, I have built a large Russian-speaking perfumery community and my own perfumery school, where I share this approach to learning and creating fragrances. Now I would also love to share more of my knowledge and experience in English with everyone who is curious about perfumery, wants to understand ingredients more deeply, or dreams of creating their own fragrances.
Because for me, perfumery is not paint by numbers. The more deeply you learn to smell, the more freedom you have to create.
Valerie Nesterova
Chemist & Perfumer
Of course, formulas are important. They help us understand how fragrances are built, how ingredients work together, and how different accords can be created. But if learning perfumery is only about following existing formulas, at what point do we actually start creating something of our own? I believe the most interesting part of perfumery begins when we stop looking for the one correct combination of ingredients and start trusting our own sense of smell.
One Ingredient, Many Different Facets
Let's take rose as an example. At first, everything seems quite simple: rose smells like rose. But when you start studying rose essential oil or rose absolute carefully, you discover a whole world of different facets. You may notice green, fruity, honey-like, spicy, and balsamic notes. Some are very clear, while others are almost hidden. A lot depends on the material itself, where it comes from, how it was produced, and the concentration in which you smell it.
For me, simply recognising rose is not enough. I want to understand what kind of rose it is, which facets I can smell, and how I could use them in a composition. For example, today I may want to create a fresh, green rose accord, so I will choose ingredients that help me highlight this particular side of rose. Tomorrow, I may want a warm, honey-like, slightly spicy rose, and that will require a completely different selection of materials.
We can create the same scent idea in many different ways. Even I may choose different ingredients depending on which facets I want to highlight at that moment. This is one of the reasons why I don't see a formula as the only correct answer.
How I Explore a New Perfume Ingredient
When I receive a new ingredient, I don't immediately add it to a perfume formula. I don't even start by reading the manufacturer's recommendations about which materials to combine it with. It's not because those recommendations are useless. I simply want to form my own impression first, without limiting myself to someone else's ideas about how the ingredient should be used.
The first thing I do is prepare a dilution, usually at 5% or 10%, depending on the strength of the material. Some ingredients smell so strong in their pure form that it becomes difficult to notice their more delicate facets. When diluted, they can become much more interesting. Then I start smelling and taking notes, writing down everything I notice: familiar smells, memories, associations, textures, and the overall character of the material. Sometimes I return to the ingredient at a different concentration or after some time to see how it develops.
A good example is immortelle. It is an incredibly complex ingredient, and it took me quite a long time to learn how to work with it effectively. One of its most recognisable facets reminds me of curry. This note can be so strong that, if you use too much immortelle, the curry effect can take over the entire composition. But curry is not the only thing I find interesting in this material.
I really love its maple syrup facet. It smells warm, honey-like, and slightly caramelised. This immediately makes me think about combining it with tonka bean to create something that reminds me of cane sugar, even without using ethyl maltol. I also notice dried fruit facets in immortelle, which gives me another idea: using a small amount to add depth to accords inspired by alcoholic drinks and cocktails. And then there is its slightly bitter, earthy side, which suggests something completely different, such as petrichor accords, wet earth, or moss.
Notice that we are still talking about the same ingredient. But if you only think of immortelle as something that smells like curry, you may never discover most of its possibilities. That is why I prefer to explore a material first and only then decide how I want to use it in a formula.
Why the Same Ingredient Can Smell Different to Different People
Our sense of smell is closely connected to personal experience. We recognise smells through familiar images, memories, and associations. What reminds one person of dried fruit may remind another of jam or a warm fruit pie. Someone may smell dry bark in a woody ingredient, while someone else may think of old furniture or a walk through the forest. This does not necessarily mean that one person is right and the other is wrong.
I think it is important not to force your own impressions to match a ready-made description. If a manufacturer describes a material as woody, ambery, and spicy, that information can be useful, but it should not stop you from noticing something different. Sometimes an unexpected association becomes the starting point for a very interesting accord. Of course, as perfumers, we need a shared language to describe smells and understand each other, but this language should not replace our own perception.
How to Learn and Remember Perfume Ingredients
One of the most common questions beginners ask is how to remember so many perfume ingredients, especially when some of them have names like dodecalactone, ambrettolide, or cis-3-hexenol. Remembering the name is only part of the challenge. You also need to remember the smell, its different facets, and how it behaves. This is why I recommend creating a clear learning system for yourself.
1. Study ingredients by olfactory families. Start with floral, citrus, woody, fresh, spicy, and other groups. This will help you gradually build your own olfactory palette. You will not only learn to recognise individual materials but also compare them, noticing similarities and differences.
2. Explore both natural and synthetic ingredients. Don't limit yourself to essential oils or, on the other hand, only synthetic molecules. It is important to understand what both types of materials can offer. For example, a natural floral absolute may have many different facets, while a single synthetic molecule can help you study one particular facet more closely.
3. Start with commonly used ingredients. You don't need to buy hundreds of rare materials straight away. It is much more useful to become familiar with the main ingredients widely used in modern perfumery. Your palette can be small at first. What matters is how well you understand it.
4. Explore every ingredient from different angles. Don't stop at one simple description, such as "woody" or "floral". Write down the different facets you notice, your personal associations, and how the smell changes over time. Little by little, you will begin to notice much more.
5. Practise blind smelling tests. After studying a group of ingredients, try to recognise them without looking at their names. Repeat the exercise a few days later. This helps you check whether you really remember the smell rather than simply recognising the name on the bottle.
6. Learn to recognise familiar facets in finished perfumes. This is a more difficult step because smelling an ingredient on its own, on a smelling strip, is very different from recognising its character inside a complex composition. It is also important to understand that noticing a familiar facet does not always prove that a particular molecule is present in a formula. Still, learning to recognise these facets is a great way to develop your ability to analyse fragrances.
7. Start creating your own accords. Once you know several ingredients well, try combining them. Change the proportions and notice how one material highlights or changes another. Pay attention to the new effects that appear when ingredients are mixed. This is the moment when knowledge starts becoming a practical skill.
Step by step, you develop more than just a memory for smells. You begin to understand what each ingredient can do and how you might use it in your own compositions.
Four Ingredients, Two Completely Different Accords
I love showing the possibilities of perfumery through simple examples. Imagine we have only four ingredients: lemon, vanillin, cinnamon, and patchouli. It seems like a strange combination at first, but let's try to create two completely different scent ideas with them.
The first one is lemon pie. We make lemon the main note and add more vanillin for a sweet, dessert-like effect. A little cinnamon brings a spicy touch, while a very small amount of patchouli can add a dry, woody, slightly earthy facet that reminds us of a baked crust.
Now let's take the same four ingredients but change their proportions. We keep the bright citrus note, adjust the balance between cinnamon and vanillin, and use patchouli to add a darker depth. This time, we can move towards a completely different association: the familiar sweet, spicy, citrus smell of Coca-Cola.
Of course, these are only possible directions for experimenting. The final result will depend on the exact materials and their concentrations. But I think the idea is very interesting because we haven't added any new ingredients. We have simply changed the proportions and shifted the focus, and now we have two completely different scent ideas.
For me, this is one of the most enjoyable parts of being a perfumer: understanding materials well enough to discover unexpected combinations on your own.
One Ingredient Can Create Very Different Effects
There is another interesting side to understanding the many facets of an ingredient. Let's take damascenone, for example. It is a very expressive molecule with fruity, rosy, dried-fruit, and wine-like facets. Depending on the ingredients around it, damascenone can play very different roles.
In a rose accord, I may use it to highlight the rich, fruity side of rose. In a red wine accord, it can bring a deep, berry-like, wine-like character. In a tobacco accord, it can add warm dried-fruit nuances, while in a fruity composition, it can help highlight the character of cherry or plum.
Of course, one molecule cannot create the complete smell of rose, wine, or tobacco on its own. The surrounding ingredients and their interactions are essential. But when you know its smell well, it becomes much easier to imagine where it could be useful. This is how ingredients gradually stop being just names in a catalogue and become tools for expressing your own ideas.
Why I Don't Recommend Starting with Hundreds of Ingredients and Complex Formulas
Many beginners believe that to create interesting perfumes, they need to build a large collection of ingredients as quickly as possible. But having a lot of bottles does not mean you know how to use them. You can own hundreds of perfume materials and still depend on other people's formulas because you don't fully understand your own palette. Or you can know a relatively small number of ingredients very well, recognise their many facets, and create different accords using them. I would start with the second approach.
Take a few familiar ingredients and try to use them for different purposes. Create a fresher or warmer accord, highlight the fruity facet of a floral material, or add dryness, softness, bitterness, or sweetness. Then change just one proportion and smell the result again. This simple exercise can teach you much more than copying a complex formula made of dozens of materials.
And I am not saying that studying other people's formulas is unnecessary. Quite the opposite. They can be excellent learning tools because they help us understand how fragrances are built, how ingredients interact, and how proportions influence the final result. But for me, a formula should be something we explore and learn from, not simply a set of instructions to copy without thinking.
How to Move from Studying Ingredients to Creating Your Own Fragrances
When you want to create a fragrance, try starting with a scent idea instead of a list of molecules. What exactly do you want to express? For example, a rose. But what kind of rose? A fresh, green rose that smells as if it has just been cut? A warm, honey-like rose? A juicy, fruity rose? Or something drier and more powdery?
Then think about which ingredients in your palette could help you create those facets. Choose a few materials you know well and make your first small accord. Smell the result and ask yourself what you notice, what is missing, which ingredient is too strong, and which facet you would like to highlight. Then change one thing and evaluate the composition again.
I find this approach much more interesting than trying to find the perfect formula straight away. This is also how I enjoy working myself. First, I decide what kind of smell I want to create. Then I divide that idea into different facets and gradually look for ways to bring them together. Sometimes I find the solution quickly, while other times I need to create several versions and return to them later. There is no single answer that works for every perfumer or every creative idea.
Perfumery Begins with the Ability to Smell
For me, perfumery is a combination of knowledge, practice, and creativity. It is important to understand ingredients, work with proportions, know the properties of materials, and follow safety guidelines. But none of these things can replace your own sense of smell.
This is exactly why I teach perfumery the way I do. I want my students to do more than recognise ingredients or reproduce existing formulas. I want them to develop their own olfactory palette, discover new possibilities in familiar materials, and learn to create the scents they imagine.
Over the years, I have built a large Russian-speaking perfumery community and my own perfumery school, where I share this approach to learning and creating fragrances. Now I would also love to share more of my knowledge and experience in English with everyone who is curious about perfumery, wants to understand ingredients more deeply, or dreams of creating their own fragrances.
Because for me, perfumery is not paint by numbers. The more deeply you learn to smell, the more freedom you have to create.
Valerie Nesterova
Chemist & Perfumer