A Look at the Olfactory Family and Perfume Ingredients

The first topic we will discuss here is related to the types of fragrance scents.

When you visit a store to buy perfume, the most important and first question is about the scent of the perfume you are choosing. The beauty consultant will typically ask you about the type of smell that you prefer and your response is usually one of these options:

warm, cold, bitter, sweet, spicy, sour, cool, etc. However, it’s interesting to know that these terms do not have a precise and correct application in the specialized field of perfume.

In fact, these words are not used to describe perfume scents. The reason is that not all of us have a common broad olfactory experience. This means that from childhood, we all undergo similar training in different fields, which leads to typical awareness and similar results, helping us to develop a relative understanding of the world around us. For example, in the early years of life, we become familiar with colors or fruits, and this familiar experience leads to a common understanding of a color or fruit among all of us. That’s why when we point out the color pink among many colors, it is easily distinguishable for everyone.

But do we have the same kind of experience with our sense of smell or types of scents?

Perhaps some scents remind us of a place, person, or anything else that we’ve experienced, evoking a nostalgic feeling or because of our familiarity with that place, food, or object, we can immediately recognize it, like the smell of the sea, cucumber, jasmine flower, etc.

However, on a broader scale, this does not happen. For example, a “bitter” scent is not something tangible and we attribute the bitterness based on personal experiences. If you try, you will see that what you consider a bitter scent might be described by someone else as spicy or cool. This is the same for all the scents we mentioned—whether bitter, sweet, etc. This is why it’s quite common to ask for a certain scent but the salesperson offers you something different from what you wanted, which can be disappointing. The truth is the salesperson didn’t make a mistake; based on their olfactory experience, they recommend a scent that matches your request. This can create a significant problem.

So, how can this issue be resolved?

Experts in the perfume industry have addressed this problem by introducing the concept of the Olfactory Family. In this method, perfumes are divided into several groups based on the dominant scent of the raw materials used, which is outlined in the table below.

It’s worth mentioning that different brands and parent companies in the perfume industry use different approaches to this classification, and we will refer to a general overview here.

Today, trained fragrance consultants are able to guide you effectively. By simply knowing the olfactory family of your desired perfume, they can introduce a fragrance that matches your taste. Furthermore, with some study and practice, you can learn the olfactory families of the fragrances that you like which helping you make the best choice.

Sources of fragrance Ingredients

In the previous section, we became familiar with the olfactory family, but an important topic to discuss here is the sources which these olfactory families are derived from. These are the raw materials used to produce essences, ultimately forming the dominant scent of a fragrance.

The main sources for producing essences are divided into three groups:

1. Natural Sources:
   This group includes all raw materials available in nature. Simply, anything found in nature can be used as a raw material to produce essences. Here are a few examples:

1. • Citrus fruits
   • Flowers and blossoms
   • Fruits
   • Vegetables (corn, rhubarb, etc.)
   • Various nuts
   • Green leaves, mosses and buds (such as lavender leaves, patchouli, violet, rosemary, etc.)
   • Roots (ginger, iris root, vetiver root, etc.)
   • Seeds (cocoa, cardamom, tonka bean, cumin, etc.)
   • Woods
   • Resins

1. Animalic Sources:
   This might sound surprising, but some animals are important sources for perfume production. Since these animals are either rare or difficult to access for various reasons, using them in perfume composition increases the price of perfumes. Animalic essences typically give perfumes a very strong and lasting power, such as musk, ambergris, and castoreum.
   We will discuss this topic in more detail in a separate blog post.

1. Synthetic Sources:
   Today, due to the unavailability of some natural raw materials or difficulties associated with using animal sources in fragrance creation, experts have turned to synthetic alternatives. In this process, lab conditions are used to produce scents that either don’t exist in nature (like the smell of a tennis ball), are very rare (like musk, which is replaced by synthetic white musk), or are more expensive to use naturally. Below are some examples of synthetic materials:

1. • Aluminum
   • Ash
   • Blood
   • Burnt matches
   • Calone
   • Melted iron
   • Water
   • Blue sky