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11/06/2024

❓ We're hosting an Ask Me Anything Session with founder and perfumer behind independent fragrance house Aromas de Salazar . Michael will answer all your questions in the comments from June 15th - 16th 📢

10/06/2024

I want to share with you that today marks the beginning of a new life for my wife and me. One of the happiest days of my life. 👶❤️

06/06/2024

🤫 Fragrance Aficionados, it's time to spill the tea! What's the hidden gem in your collection that you feel doesn't get the love it deserves? The underrated scent that makes you feel like you've stumbled upon a secret treasure... 💎

01/06/2024

Raw material: Helional 💧
Helional is an aroma chemical widely used in fragrance compositions. Its smell is delightful: Fresh, and floral, with hints of green, water, and a touch of fruitiness. Many associate it with the smell of cyclamen flowers. It belongs to the group of aldehydes.

In perfumes, Helional is often a key player in the heartnotes. It fully emerges after the initial top notes have faded, but before the base notes take center stage. Helional brings a fresh, airy, green, and dewy character to fragrances—perfumers like to use it to add a burst of long-lasting freshness to their creations.

It isn't just limited to perfumes, as it's quite versatile and can be used in various products like lotions, antiperspirants, shampoos, and soaps. So next time you catch a whiff of a fresh, green-floral scent in someone's sillage, there's a good chance Helional is working its magic behind the scenes. 🪄

31/05/2024

Just booked the flight and Airbnb for 2025 in Milano! Can't contain my excitement! 🤩🎉

28/05/2024

🎨 Blenders are a category of raw materials in perfumery used to harmonize and smooth out the transitions between different notes in a fragrance composition.
They help bridge the gaps between them. This leads to a more cohesive and well-rounded perfume.

Here are some key characteristics and uses of blenders:

- Any raw material can act as a specific blender as long as it has two prominent aspects in common with the two notes it is supposed to connect. For example, lavender oil can bridge the gap between fresh/floral and woody notes, as it features both notes in its profile.

- Common universal blender materials are certain musks like ambrettolide, iso e super, exaltolide, and ethylene brassylate. Other blenders are anisic notes, salicylates, benzoates, and low-impact floral notes like hedione.

- They tend to have a lower odor impact compared to hero ingredients like top and heart notes and certain modifiers.

- Blenders improve the flow between the top, middle, and base notes. They aid in creating a harmonious transition from one stage of the fragrance to the next.

- Blenders are usually incorporated in the "blending step" of perfume creation after the main heart/base and modifying notes have been selected. They are added drop by drop until the perfumer achieves the desired effect.

- Using the right blenders is key to tying together a fragrance composition and making it smell polished and professional.

27/05/2024

Proud to be one of 130 pledgers of The Perfumery Code of Ethics by . ✊

25/05/2024

💮 Philadelphus coronarius on our balcony. It's also called faux jasmine and farmer's jasmine in Germany. Has a nice white blossom scent with honeyed aspects and is supposed to be perennial. We'll see after next winter...

22/05/2024

🪵 Javanol is a powerful synthetic sandalwood odorant developed by fragrance company Givaudan in 1996. It has a rich, creamy, somewhat natural sandalwood scent with rosy nuances.

Javanol is not found in nature and was designed in the lab as a more sustainable alternative to natural sandalwood oil, which had become unsustainable to harvest and very expensive by the 1990s. With an exceptionally low odor detection threshold, Javanol is approximately 8 times more effective than the most powerful natural sandalwood compounds.

⚠️ Smelling it in pure form can block the smell receptors within seconds, so perfumers must take care while working with it or they will stop being able to smell it for several hours.

The unique molecular structure of Javanol, with its two cyclopropane rings, provides excellent stability compared to other sandalwood odorants.

I still have 7 year old perfume composition notebooks that still carry the scent of Javanol. 🤯

It lacks double bonds which improves its performance in fragrances. Even at trace amounts below 0.1%, Javanol can add richness, creaminess and radiance effects to a wide variety of fragrance accords beyond just sandalwood. It works especially well to round out and provide sophisticated density to musky, floral, spicy and woody notes.

Javanol is considered a new-generation sandalwood molecule with unprecedented power and substantivity. Perfumers often use it as the backbone of modern sandalwood fragrances, combining it with more diffusive and complementary sandalwood odorants like Polysantol and Ebanol to reproduce the full sandalwood olfactory profile.

A very small dosage of Javanol, as low as 0.02%, can boost and extend the sandalwood character of a fragrance. The recommended maximum usage is 2% in a fragrance concentrate. Javanol has found use in many famous perfumes including Truth for Men by Calvin Klein and Chic for Men by Carolina Herrera.

Do you like to work with it?

20/05/2024

We proudly present the 1st issue of our perfumery newsletter Scents & Stories. Featuring award finalist Andreas Wilhelm, the nose behind his disruptive brand .sucks. His fragrance WEALTH 4148 is inspired by the headspace analysis of a freshly printed 200 Swiss franc note. 💰
The interview will be made available on postmodernperfumer.com when newsletter #2 comes out. Make sure to subscribe!

20/05/2024

"What is important is not whether an essence smells beautiful on its own but how its idiosyncratic capacities and elements merge and blend with chosen others to create a beautiful new smell.

For a perfumer to dislike patchouli or vetiver is like a painter disliking green or yellow. Essences are simply materials with which to realize a vision, and while every perfumer will have favorites, every essence has a place in skilled hands."

Mandy Aftel, Essence and Alchemy ✨
A Natural History of Perfume

18/05/2024

Z11 🪵 is also sold under the name Amberketal or Amber Oxepin; it is a synthetic woody-ambery aroma chemical used in modern perfumery. Discovered in 1953, it remained the exclusive property of the fragrance house Firmenich for many years before it was made widely available.

Z11 has a dry, woody, ambery smell with a strong trigeminal effect; that means, it creates a physical sensation in the nose. Its smell has been characterized as elegant and sleek—an image of a precious wood edged in shining metal.

In perfume compositions, Z11 is used as a base note that provides a sensual, warm, and long-lasting ambery foundation. It works very well also in improving and modernizing woody-ambery accords. Many people perceive it as very powerful, while others can't smell it at all.

Z11 is all-purpose and quite potent, so it is normally used in dilution: 10% in a solvent like dipropylene glycol or isopropyl myristate. Firmenich sells this dilution as "Z11 MIP". A more recent "high definition" version has a higher percentage of the most desirable isomer than the original and is considered cleaner and stronger than the original: Z11 HD.

Some popular fragrances containing Z11 include Paco Rabanne 1 Million and The Library Collection Opus VI by Amouage.

In brief, Z11 is a powerful, elegant, and long-lasting woody-ambery material that injects sensuality and addictive qualities into the composition, making it probably one of the most prized "secret weapons" of perfumers when used judiciously.

18/05/2024

𝗦𝘂𝗯𝘀𝗰𝗿𝗶𝗯𝗲 𝘁𝗼 𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗳𝗿𝗲𝗲 𝗻𝗶𝗰𝗵𝗲 𝗽𝗲𝗿𝗳𝘂𝗺𝗲𝗿𝘆 𝗻𝗲𝘄𝘀𝗹𝗲𝘁𝘁𝗲𝗿. 𝗣𝗲𝗿𝗳𝘂𝗺𝗲𝗿 𝗶𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗿𝘃𝗶𝗲𝘄𝘀, 𝗳𝗿𝗮𝗴𝗿𝗮𝗻𝗰𝗲 𝗹𝗮𝘂𝗻𝗰𝗵𝗲𝘀 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗶𝗻𝗱𝘂𝘀𝘁𝗿𝘆 𝗻𝗲𝘄𝘀. 👉 𝗽𝗼𝘀𝘁𝗺𝗼𝗱𝗲𝗿𝗻𝗽𝗲𝗿𝗳𝘂𝗺𝗲𝗿.𝗰𝗼𝗺 🔗 𝗟𝗶𝗻𝗸 𝗶𝗻 𝗯𝗶𝗼!

16/05/2024

🚔👮🦮 I live with a unique aspect of the sense of smell - phantosmia. This condition causes me to sometimes smell things that aren't there, a kind of olfactory hallucination. While many people find this to be a nuisance, I see it as a wonderful thing, and subjectively, I only experience its benefits.

One of the first experiences that made me realize these were hallucinations happened during a significant police operation near my apartment at the time. I was woken up at night by the flashing blue lights and the bustling activity outside. I overheard the police officers mention something about a dog handler, so I assumed that police dogs were involved.

Unsure if the operation was happening in our building, I groggily went to our hallway to listen more closely to see if the officers were in our stairwell. I heard nothing and was relieved to find that the operation was in another building. However, one thing puzzled me. I still smelled police leather jackets and dog fur in our hallway.

The smell of the leather jackets finally made it absolutely clear to me that the odor was a hallucination. German police only wore black, heavy leather jackets during my childhood. These were gradually phased out and replaced with more functional clothing, so nowadays, you hardly see any police officers wearing leather jackets in our state...

15/05/2024

Face reveal time! 😅 I'm unboxing a larger order from . The raw material I'm talking about is called Ethyl Safronate and it's surprisingly effective if you want to imitate the fruity top notes of Cambodian oud. Very cost-effective too. 💰 Should I post more reviews from this order?

12/05/2024

🥧 The Madeleine Effect: In the famous scene in Marcel Proust's novel In Search of Lost Time the taste and smell of a madeleine cake dipped in tea evokes a powerful, involuntary childhood memory for the narrator.

In the passage, he describes how the sensory experience suddenly and vividly transports him back to his aunt's house in the village of Combray, where he used to have the same snack on Sunday mornings as a boy. It unlocks a flood of detailed memories of his childhood home, town, and gardens that he thought were lost forever.

09/05/2024

Raw Material: Indole 🌼💩✨

Indole is a fascinating ingredient in perfumery that can be tricky to describe. In its pure form, it has an intense, almost mothball-like smell that can come across as f***l or musty.

However, when used in tiny amounts, indole imparts a deep, sensual, and slightly animalic floral scent.

Indole naturally occurs in many white flowers like jasmine, tuberose, orange blossom, and gardenia. It's what gives these blossoms their intoxicating, heady, and narcotic qualities.

Perfumers use indole to add realism and depth to floral fragrances. Just a touch of it can make an abstract floral perfume smell like real blooming flowers.

Interestingly, indole and derivatives are also produced in our intestines and by the bacteria on our skin, especially in the groin area.

During s*x, heat and moisture increase, releasing more indole. This may explain why humans are instinctively attracted to its scent in flowers - it subconsciously reminds us of intimacy.

The trick with indole is getting the dose just right.

Too much and it smells like mothballs or worse.
But the perfect amount, often less than 0.1%, gives a floral fragrance an addictive, sensual, "dirty" undertone that keeps you coming back for more. It's a key player in some of the most legendary perfumes like Chanel No. 5.

So while indole may sound strange or even off-putting, it's the magic ingredient that makes white floral scents so alluring and provocative. It connects us to the blossoms as well as our own human sensuality.

That's the power of indole! ✨

08/05/2024

What is the Perfumery Code of Ethics? 🤔

Think of it as a set of guidelines for making the fragrance industry more honest and fair. Led by perfumer Christophe Laudamiel (), it's about:

1. Original Scents - Giving credit where it's due and saying no to copycat fragrances.

2. Perfume as Art – Recognizing that perfumes are creative works of the mind, and perfumers deserve to be seen as artists.

3. Respecting Everyone Involved - Making sure the chemists, people growing the ingredients, and those crafting the scents are treated fairly.

4. Honest Descriptions - No more misleading marketing speak! Fragrance descriptions should tell you what the scent actually smells like: "If we say it, you will smell it."

5. Samples are for Smelling - Don't try to make a profit from freebies. Companies should donate unused perfume samples to charities instead.

6. Transparency in Reviews - Being upfront about who is behind a fragrance review.

7. Calling Out the Bad Stuff - Reporting anything that seems off, and staying committed to sharing accurate info.

8. Fresh Start - Older fragrances get a pass on these guidelines.

Why does this matter? Laudamiel thinks it's time to clean things up. No more stolen ideas, underappreciated perfumers, or shady practices. Many in the fragrance world agree it's time for change! ✊

07/05/2024

🤯 In a study, one-quarter of the college student respondents would give up their sense of smell to keep their phone.

Here are the most interesting facts from the study "Your Money or Your Sense of Smell? A Comparative Analysis of the Sensory and Psychological Value of Olfaction":

The study revealed some fascinating insights about how we value our sense of smell compared to other senses and commodities:

- People were more willing to give up their sense of smell than their vision to keep access to various commodities like coffee, chocolate, and streaming services. The only exception was social media - smell beat out social media!

- Speaking of social media, it was actually the least valued commodity in the survey, even below the ability to smell. Quite surprising given how obsessed society seems to be with social media these days.

- Our sense of smell seems to become more precious as we age. Older folks valued their ability to smell significantly more than college students did.

- There weren't major differences between men and women in how much they valued being able to smell. Apparently, we're pretty much equally attached (or unattached) to our sniffers!

So in a nutshell, this study suggests that while we definitely value our noses, many of life's little pleasures still rank higher in importance for a lot of people. But don't underestimate smell - it still beats out social media! Just some food for thought next time you stop to smell the roses (or the coffee). ☕

06/05/2024

Perfume is the invisible tattoo, a personal story etched in scent. 🖌️

04/05/2024

Raw Material: Guaiacol 🪵🔥

Guaiacol, with its smoky, vanilla-like woodiness, is a unique asset for perfumers.
Used in small quantities, it adds depth to florals like ylang-ylang, rose, and even lilac. Carnation fragrances also benefit from guaiacol, and it's possible to use slightly more in spicy blends.

That powerful, warm, balsamic sweetness works wonders with materials like vanillin. It can be found naturally in things like coffee, whiskey, and wood smoke. This phenolic compound is essential for anyone seeking smoky, woody perfumes with a subtly sweet edge.

01/05/2024

Introducing 🎉 Scents & Stories, my newsletter dedicated to niche perfumery. The specific contents are still under wraps. However, if you want to be among the first readers, I highly recommend subscribing now on: postmodernperfumer.com 🔗 Link in bio!

27/04/2024

Raw Material: Kephalis 🪵

Kephalis, a modern and versatile scent molecule, is loved by perfumers. Think warm wood, rich to***co, black pepper, a whisper of honey and iris, and something bright and fruity – all part of its appeal. It works beautifully with so many things – florals like jasmine, sophisticated ambers, even leathery, traditionally masculine scents. Perfumers often include Kephalis at a 1-8% concentration. 😍

26/04/2024

Women smell better than men. About time we get more female perfumers into the fragrance industry. 🥰 Studies prove women can detect, separate, and name smells more easily. This could be because women have more smell-sensing cells in their brains. Even baby girls have this sharper sense. 👶

Why did women evolve this way? Maybe a good nose helped them choose healthy partners and avoid bad food when pregnant. A woman's sense of smell even changes with her monthly cycle, strongest when she's most fertile. This might have helped her find the right mate.

Smell matters more to women than we realize. A mother knows her baby by its scent. Couples click better when their natural smells are very different. Losing your sense of smell hurts your life and your relationships. Study after study, science keeps showing us how powerful a woman's nose is. 🤯

22/04/2024

Raw Material: Helvetolide® (by )

Helvetolide® is a diffusive top-note musk that adds a luxurious touch to perfumes. Imagine the cozy muskiness of ambrette seeds but with a fruity pear twist.

Helvetolide and Habanolide combined are part of the iconic white musk accord created by Alberto Morillas. It's surprisingly light and airy for a musk molecule and somehow makes everything it touches smell more expensive—adding depth and complexity to floral bouquets while smoothing the vibrancy of fruit notes.

20/04/2024

Here are a few highlights from my interview 💬 with Chris Undi, founder and perfumer behind the independent fragrance brand . We talked about his love for Japan, his personal approach to perfume creation, his favorite raw materials, and the fragrance industry.

Read the full interview on: postmodernperfumer.medium.com 👉 link in bio!

19/04/2024

Don't wear a scent, let it wear you. ✨ You might be surprised who you become.

05/04/2024

Your nose knows no bounds. It rebuilds itself. ✨ Neurons die. New ones rise from the stem cells in my nose lining. This never-ending cycle keeps your sense of smell sharp, even though the environment throws all kinds of junk at you. This renewal sets your nose apart from the rest of your senses.

Stem cells – they're the wellspring of your sniffing power. They change like magic, becoming the workhorse neurons that pick up scents. This changeful nature fascinates scientists. They watch how my nose fixes itself. Maybe they can use what they learn to heal other parts of the body – things like damaged nerves and brains.

Your nose could be more than just a sniffer. It could be a medicine maker. Those stem cells, some people think they're miracle workers. They've shown a spark in experiments, a hint that they can mend spinal cords and slow diseases that destroy the brain. Your sense of smell… it's not just about sniffing out a good fragrance or meal. It could be the key to a healthier future. ⚕️

04/04/2024

Raw Material: Magnolan 💮

Magnolan is a versatile aromachemical used in floral fragrances. Its complex scent profile blends notes of magnolia, peony, and grapefruit for a fresh, natural effect. 💧

Perfumers love magnolan for its ability to bridge citrus with white floral notes. It can be used at various concentrations and boasts impressive longevity on a blotter, making it a valuable heart to base note in perfume compositions.

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🚔👮🦮 I live with a unique aspect of the sense of smell - phantosmia. This condition causes me to sometimes smell things that aren't there, a kind of olfactory hallucination. While many people find this to be a nuisance, I see it as a wonderful thing, and subjectively, I only experience its benefits. One of the first experiences that made me realize these were hallucinations happened during a significant police operation near my apartment at the time. I was woken up at night by the flashing blue lights and the bustling activity outside. I overheard the police officers mention something about a dog handler, so I assumed that police dogs were involved. Unsure if the operation was happening in our building, I groggily went to our hallway to listen more closely to see if the officers were in our stairwell. I heard nothing and was relieved to find that the operation was in another building. However, one thing puzzled me. I still smelled police leather jackets and dog fur in our hallway. The smell of the leather jackets finally made it absolutely clear to me that the odor was a hallucination. German police only wore black, heavy leather jackets during my childhood. These were gradually phased out and replaced with more functional clothing, so nowadays, you hardly see any police officers wearing leather jackets in our state...

Face reveal time! 😅 I'm unboxing a larger order from @perfumiarz. The raw material I'm talking about is called Ethyl Safronate and it's surprisingly effective if you want to imitate the fruity top notes of Cambodian oud. Very cost-effective too. 💰 Should I post more reviews from this order?

Discover the world of niche perfumes and fragrance creation with Scents & Stories, a newsletter for perfume connoisseurs and independent perfumers. Link in bio 🔗

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