Perfume Structure

 Perfume Structure 

Hello folks. Now you've smell all kind of scent, it's time to talk about perhaps the famous pyramid in perfume which is the perfume structure.

Does it matter?

It does but. Before we go into it even further lets go briefly in the perfume pyramid. The famous pyramid talk about the different layer of notes that goes into a perfume - the top, middle and base notes. The differentiation between those notes lies in two things:

1) Volatility (Malay: Mudah meruap): the rate of evaporation of the notes that result you in having a high impact of smell

2) Tenacity (Malay: ketahanan bau): the time that the materials stays on something. High tenacity means the material is able to stay a lot longer time and vice versa

Typically you would expect high volatility material would have low tenacity and the other way around. But we sometimes see that is not the case.
I'm sure if you're really into perfume, you must have seen this picture.

Top notes are the most volatile ingredients that makes the top note. It is the smell that you notice first as soon as you spray your perfume and the smell will reduce in matter of minutes.

Middle Notes is also called the heart notes. It is the smell that gives your perfume it's character and the center of attention. Materials that goes into the heart note has intermediate volatility.

Base Notes is the longest (several hours to days). It forms the final phase of the fragrance, its scent molecules will develop a different nuance in every person, making the base note the most individual part of a fragrance.

We feel however the pyramid structure might be a bit misleading since it gives the impression that each notes evaporates independently one after another. The fact of the matter is all those ingredients in all the notes mixes and intertwines giving that complex layers that your perfume develops after spray. So here is what we think is a better depiction of the perfume structure.

Sorry. I was an engineer. I like graphs

Depending on the volatility of the materials in each of the notes, the layers from each of the notes intertwined based on its volatility giving the complexity of the scent as it unfolds in time. This is a concept that we find relevant to start our understanding of perfumery.

So there it is folks. Our brief explanation on perfume structure. Catch our next post on perfume materials and ingredients. Till then have an awesome day ahead.

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