Preface
Fragrance production involves gathering raw materials, extracting essential oils, pre-treatment (purification and aging), blending, aging, cooling, filtration, toning, and quality control. Like a good bottle of wine, creating a fragrance takes a lot of work and time. (Our perfume freezer can handle mixing, aging, cooling, filtration, toning and quality control)
Water: purified water, alcohol
Auxiliary: trace pigments, antioxidants, fungicides, surfactants
common natural ingredients
Rose petal
myrrh
mastic
Jasmine
Oak flat branch coat
sandalwood
vanilla
citron
Common synthetic raw materials
Aliphatic aldehydes (Chanel No. 5)
Watermelon Ketones
Ambergris
Ambergris (synthetic)
Methyl dihydrojasmonate
indole
Musk (synthetic)
Lily of the Valley (synthetic)
Pretreatment - Purification and Aging
- Flavor, alcohol, and water must be pure and free of impurities to ensure a clear appearance and a mellow smell.
- Pretreatment of alcohol - purification: adding alkali reflux method and potassium permanganate oxidation method to alcohol, the purpose is to remove impurities. Sodium hydroxide is added to the alcohol, boiled and refluxed for several hours, and then fractionated for one or more times to collect the purest part of the aroma to prepare perfume. Or you can add potassium permanganate solution to the alcohol, stir quickly, let it stand, filter out the precipitate, and then add activated carbon. After standing for several days, it is filtered through silica gel to further absorb impurities. Aging: A small amount of spice is added to the purified alcohol, sealed at 15 degrees for several months.
- Pretreatment of essence - add a small amount of pretreated alcohol to the essence, and use it after aging for 1 month.
- Pretreatment of water - Distillation sterilization to remove metal ions. Metal ions are usually removed with sodium citrate or EDTA.
Mix
- After the essential oils are extracted and collected, the process of creating the scent begins. Once all the ingredients are selected, they need to be placed in the container of the fragrance freezer and mixed for a while. Essential oils are blended according to a recipe pre-determined by a master of the perfume industry, often referred to as "the nose". Many recipes have been crafted over several years and often contain hundreds of different ingredients.
- Some fragrance ingredients come from plants, some are animal products. For example, castor comes from beavers, musk comes from stag, and ambergris comes from sperm whales. Animal ingredients are often used as fixatives, allowing perfumes to evaporate slowly and to last longer.
- Other fixatives include coal tar, moss, resins or synthetic chemicals. Alcohol and sometimes water to dilute the ingredients in perfumes. The ratio of alcohol to fragrance determines the strength and value of the fragrance. The more essential oils there are, the stronger (and more expensive) the fragrance will be.
- Eau de parfum (perfume) has a lower alcohol concentration, while a body spray will have a much higher alcohol concentration.
Aging
- High-quality, pure fragrances tend to be stored for months or even years after being mixed. This is done to ensure the right scent is created. Aging allows the different scents and notes to truly come together. Fragrance is made up of top, middle and bottom notes, the top notes are of short duration, the middle notes provide the main body of the fragrance, and the bottom notes create a long-lasting fragrance.
- The mixed perfume is aged in an airtight container with a safety valve. There are two kinds of aging methods: physical method and chemical method.
- Physical methods: mechanical stirring, air bubbling, infrared, ultraviolet irradiation, ultrasonic treatment, mechanical vibration.
- Chemical methods: Air, oxygen or ozone bubble oxidation, silver or silver chloride catalysis, tin or hydrogen reduction.
- During the aging period, the smell of the perfume gradually changes from rough to mellow. However, if the fragrance is not properly formulated, it will also produce an undesired odor. Regarding the length of time required for aging, some people think that it takes 3 months, and some people think that it will take longer. This needs to be adjusted according to the requirements of the nose (perfumer) and production conditions.
Cool down
When the perfume encounters a lower temperature, it will become translucent or foggy, and then it will no longer be clear if it is heated again, and it will always be cloudy. Therefore, perfumes must be frozen before being filtered.
Filter
After aging and freezing, some insoluble substances will precipitate out, which should be removed by filtration to ensure that it is transparent and clear.
Toning
The color addition is generally after the filtration process, otherwise the color is easily absorbed by the filter aid.
Product inspection
- Use instruments to compare colors, measure specific gravity and refractive index, and use conventional methods to measure alcohol content.
- Quality control is an important aspect in the perfume production process. It ensures that the finished fragrance is free of any harmful or unwelcome products, some of which may even be banned. This protects the brand's reputation and, more importantly, the public's health.
- Natural ingredients are difficult to collect, and some perfumes use natural animal oils, which can be cumbersome to collect. Synthetic fragrances make it easier for perfume makers to create their own scents with less quality requirements.
Bottling
Bottles should be washed with distilled water. When bottling, some space should be left at the neck of the bottle to prevent the solution in the bottle from being heated and expanded during storage and the bottle from breaking.
