Formulae

Is there a perfect way to work on a new formula and write down your perfume trial recipe? No, there isn’t.
Reading in the excellent overview by Guy Robert “Les Sens du Parfum” about masters of perfume design and their way to create a new fragrance, there is nothing like best practice. Which is reassuring in a sense as I work on my own rules, too- with some systematic, of course.
Those perfumers who where close to production (such as Coty, Alméras, Jacques Guerlain, …) wrote their formula with production routines in their mind. Which components have to be mixed separately and added as a mix, which components will come last, being the most expensive, which will not stand heating of the mixture to bring crystalline components into solution; their formula writing seems to have taken rather practical thoughts into account. Others formulated strictly on a 1000 basis, resulting in formulas which always ended in a total of 1000 equivalents, or 1500 equivalents as exemplified by Paul Vacher. This allowed him to very easily judge the proportion of one compound in the total of his formula, as he used a standard of 150 gram per litre perfume. Others (such as Jean Carles, Henry Robert) grouped their formula strictly on the tenacity of the ingredients, trying to group them, with the aim to simplify (or extend) certain accords.
The later is also my way of working, starting from a main accord, such as Bergamot, Rose, Tobacco. But contrary to Jean Carles who is said to have known the outcome from every formula written on paper before it was actually mixed, I am working slowly and iteratively, adding few components at a time (of course, some things I may have learnt in the mean time, which component gives what effect with what other component. But things get very fast very complicated, indeed!) Always judging the effect of one particular addition to the overall accord, I sometimes spend days towards a new trial. I wished I knew what a formula will smell like in advance! Lucky Jean Carles.