| What it is | A browser workspace for independent perfumers: described materials, formulation, scent analysis, live indicative IFRA checks, optional shelf-grounded AI and batch work | General-purpose calculation grid (Excel, Google Sheets) | Formulation app for iPhone, iPad, Mac and Apple Vision, sold by Lux & Terra Ltd, the London perfumery where it was developed | Perfumery workspace app for perfumers and indie creators; data stays on the device by default | Web platform for creating, managing and buying or selling formulas | Mobile perfumery workspace for iPhone, iPad, Apple-silicon Macs and Android; data stays on the device | Cloud-based perfumery workspace you log in to ("one workspace for the entire life of a fragrance"): formulation, IFRA review, inventory, batches, labels and safety documents | Free formula software in the browser (with an account) and a desktop app in beta for Mac, Windows and Linux that works offline without one | A free web app for perfumers, "from the first experiment to a production batch": formulas, raw materials, batches and weighing in the browser | An online workspace for hobby and professional perfumers and students: ingredients, formulas, percentages and accords | A perfume formulation workspace for iPhone, iPad, Mac and Apple Vision, "for hobby perfumers, students, independent perfumers and fragrance creators" | An open-source perfume formulation tool and material database in the browser; last code change October 2023 | A free Excel workbook from Ourmess Fragrances, a family-run independent perfume house: "build a library of your materials, easily formulate scents, and get an instant view of IFRA compliance" | A browser-based formula manager for perfumers, made by Core Creations in Sydney: formula import with AI, IFRA and allergen checks, supplier catalog matching, bench sheets and stock | An unrelated web app that shares our name: formulas to the gram, a raw material library and batch logs, with an AI mentor in English or Bahasa Indonesia; maker and country not stated |
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| Ships with a materials database | Yes. 2,211 materials, each described and classified: odor description, olfactive families with percentage dominance, impact and substantivity, a CAS number where one exists (1,642; a compounded base has none to give), plus estimated constituent tables for 739 | No, every material is typed in by hand | No, raw materials and their data are entered by the user | The vendor reports 20,000+ material entries with one-tap detail auto-fill. Entry count is not a measure of completeness, distinct substances or data quality | A material library with dilutions, suppliers and technical specs is included; its size is not stated | No: the app ships with no material data and you build your own library; a shared Materials catalogue (size not stated) is on the paid Professional plan | An ingredient library is built in ("The Oracle", a searchable ingredient universe with volatility, headspace and dose-response analyses); its size and per-entry data are not stated | Yes, "thousands of materials" aggregated from online sources, auto-filling name, CAS and IFRA limit; size not stated | Not stated as a bundled catalog; you track your own raw materials, browse the Fraterworks and DirectPCW catalogs and see which materials Perfumer's Apprentice and Perfumiarz stock | A "full ingredient library" on both paid plans, with tags, categories, dilutions, prices and IFRA limits; whether it comes preloaded, and its size, are not stated | Yes: 471 perfumery materials with technical and safety information, with multilingual names and aliases | Yes, a small material and mixture database (134 materials and 6 mixtures in its data files); the README says it needs expanding | Not stated; you build a library of your own materials in the workbook | No bundled described catalog is stated; ingredients are matched by CAS number and AI name matching to about 2,700 Bulkaroma and Fraterworks products, refreshed nightly; other suppliers are added by hand | Not stated; a user-managed raw material library with stock, tiered pricing, supplier links and low-stock alerts, capped at 30 materials on the free plan |
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| IFRA checking and scope | Checked live while composing, on every tier including free, and it counts one molecule arriving from several naturals at once. Category 4 (fine fragrance on skin), 51st Amendment, indicative: verify against the official standards before you sell | By hand, if you build the formulas yourself | A limit field you fill in per material; no automatic formula check is documented, and the FAQ notes conformity is your own responsibility | Limits auto-filled or fetched by CAS and checked on the formula, including restricted constituents inside natural oils; amendment and categories not stated | An IFRA compliance checker by product category, with a PDF report, on the paid plans, not the free one; amendment not stated | Per ingredient and formula, categories 1 to 12, with an IFRA certificate in its document package, on the paid Professional plan only; the app downloads IFRA's standards overview itself (the XLS by hand is the fallback) | Live review in the formulator against the 51st Amendment (named in its page metadata), at the finished-product concentration with natural constituent context; a reference page shows the 52nd as consultation data; allergens are flagged, no EU declaration document is named | Yes, automated limits, summed when a material appears more than once, including through nested formulas; which amendment and which categories are not stated | Every formula checked against the 51st Amendment with the contributions of naturals included; whether it runs live while editing is not stated | Built-in limit detection with a warning the moment an ingredient exceeds the limit for your category; amendment and naturals not stated | IFRA information "for reference only"; its release notes describe category-based checks with severity levels; which categories, the amendment and naturals are not stated | Flags a material when its share of the finished product passes the IFRA maximum stored for it, counted across mixtures; 30 bundled materials carry a maximum, the rest you fill in; no amendment or category stated | An "instant view of IFRA compliance"; the amendment, the categories and whether constituents of naturals are counted are not stated on its download page | Checks the 51st Amendment for a category you choose, 1 to 12, at your dosage, and flags offenders with their usage level; how naturals are handled is not stated. An EU allergen declaration generator (Annex III) is included | No checking; IFRA appears only as a topic the AI mentor answers questions about |
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| Formula work | Dilution-aware milligram scaling and costing, guided weighing with actual-pour adjustment, stock deductions, batch and maceration tracking, shelf-based substitutes, and branching version history with diffs and restore (Unlimited) | Whatever you build; data validation can reject some bad entries, but a wrong number that is still a number goes through | Scaling engine, a five-level pyramid by substantivity, dilution tracking | Scaling, batch trials with versions, side-by-side compare, reuse a formula as an accord | Smart calculator, auto-scaling, version control, cost and margin analysis, a five-level olfactory pyramid; batch production tracking and stock alerts are on the paid plans | Formula builder with grouping by note type (free); versions and comparison, scaling, batch making with stock deduction and supplier orders are Professional | Live totals, dilutions and costing, bases and accords, batch production (scale, stage, execute) and a weighing mode with variance tracking | Grams with relative and absolute percentages, scaling to a target weight, per-line dilutions, formulas nested as accords or bases, formula comparison and a cost breakdown | Formula and accord versions compared side by side, proportions and concentrations, dilution tracking, weighed batches with deviation tracking and remaining targets recalculated after an over-weigh; batch scaling and substitutes not stated | Version control (save, restore, compare), batch scaling with grams and percentages kept in sync, per-ingredient dilutions, accords and per-batch costing; substitutes not stated | Batch sizes, concentrations and dilutions, with alcohol, solvents and carriers kept apart from the fragrance materials; AI-assisted analysis; versions and substitutes not stated | Scale a whole formula, dilutions entered as mixtures, archived formulas; versions, batches and substitutes not stated | Formulating from your own material library; scaling, dilutions, versions and batches are not stated | Bench sheets in heaviest-first pour order with running weights and tick boxes (Pro), scaling to grams, stock deducted after each production run, cost per bottle and shopping lists by supplier; versions not stated | Batch scaling, pre-diluted materials with automatic cost adjustment, batch logs and reusable accords; versions and substitutes not stated |
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| Scent analysis and drydown | Interactive family and sub-note profile, amount and impact views, and a modeled drydown timeline. Estimates, not a substitute for smelling a trial | Custom charts and calculations you build; no perfumery model supplied by the spreadsheet itself | Five-level pyramid by substantivity; interactive drydown not assessed in this review | Not assessed in this review | Five-level olfactory pyramid; interactive drydown not assessed in this review | Grouping by top, heart, base or solvent with a live pyramid view; interactive drydown not assessed in this review | Ingredient volatility, headspace and dose-response analyses are described; formula-level drydown not assessed in this review | Material odor profiles are described; formula-level drydown not assessed in this review | Not assessed in this review | Not assessed in this review | Not assessed in this review | Not assessed in this review | Not assessed in this review | Not assessed in this review | Not assessed in this review |
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| AI assistance and context | Optional AI Studio: Ask about materials or attached formulas, Build from your own shelf, and refine formulas. Shelf context and server-side formula checks; AI usage uses separate credits | Depends on the spreadsheet product and add-ons; perfumery-specific AI context not assessed here | Not assessed in this review | Not assessed in this review | Not assessed in this review | PV AI on Professional, with a free sign-in: chat, formula advice, a draft formula from a description or an existing formula, a bottle scanner and formula import from PDF, photo, web page or text; chat, scanner and generation are in beta; capped at 100 prompts per six hours | Not assessed in this review | AI fallback for formula import when signed in; formula-generation scope not assessed here | Not assessed in this review | Not assessed in this review | AI-assisted formula analysis is described; shelf context and generation safeguards not assessed here | Not assessed in this review | None stated | AI formula parsing and AI ingredient matching, paid in monthly AI credits (10 on Free, 100 on Pro); an AI substitute finder is listed on Pro | AI mentor in English or Bahasa Indonesia; shelf context and generation safeguards not assessed here |
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| Import and export | Import from PDF, CSV, TSV or pasted text; export PDF, EU allergen declaration, INCI label, GHS SDS draft | CSV in and out, by hand (Excel's CSV export saves only the active sheet) | Export PDF, Markdown, CSV and TSV; an experimental CSV import, for raw materials only | Excel import with mapping; PDF export and Excel backup | PDF export on every plan, the free one included; import not stated | Exports formulas as PDF, CSV or JSON, QR codes and an eight-document compliance package (Professional); imports a formula from a PDF, photo, web page or text through its AI (Professional); database backups in every mode | Imports from the Olfactorian formula library and extracts constituent data from uploaded SDS or CoA documents; exports formula records, reports and labels (PDF, PNG); spreadsheet import and formula file formats are not stated | Import materials from CSV, TSV or JSON, and formulas from almost any structured text (Markdown included, with an AI fallback when signed in) or from Olfactorian; export all data as a zip of CSV, Markdown and JSON | Export PDF or CSV and print bottle labels on A4 sheets or a thermal printer; import not stated | Import Excel, CSV and JSON; export CSV, JSON backups and PDF | Import ingredients from SDS files or URLs; export PDF formula sheets; no formula import stated | JSON in and out, all data | An Excel workbook (.xlsb) you keep on your own computer; import and export beyond Excel are not stated | Imports PDF, Excel (.xlsx, .xls), CSV or typed text with AI extraction; PDF (watermarked on Free) and Excel export on Pro and above | "Full backup and export" only; formats and import not stated |
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| Runs on | Any browser, desktop or phone, and installs as an app; an Android app on Google Play; no native iPhone app | Anywhere Excel or Sheets runs, in a browser or offline | iOS and iPadOS 15 or later, macOS 11 or later and visionOS; no Android, Windows or web | Android, Windows, iPhone and iPad, Apple-silicon Macs and Apple Vision; no web app | Any browser | iPhone and iPad (iOS 18 or later), Android 7.0 or later, and Apple-silicon Macs through the iPad app; no Windows, no web | An online workspace with a log-in (email or Google); no mobile app was found and offline use is not stated | Any browser (with an account); a desktop app in beta for Mac, Windows and Linux that works offline without one | Any browser, nothing to install | Any device in the browser, with offline caching | iPhone, iPad, Mac (M1 or later) and Apple Vision, each on version 26 or later, through Apple's App Store | Any browser, at a GitHub Pages address, saved in the browser itself | Microsoft Excel: the download page says it requires Excel, with editing and content enabled; no account | Any browser, nothing to install; no mobile app is mentioned | A web app with a login; platforms not stated |
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| Price to start | PerfuMate: free with no expiry. A free account holds unlimited materials and 3 formulas, with the whole catalog, indicative IFRA checking, allergen and INCI label text, the scent profile and drydown. Bottle labels, the pack that contains them, color PDF themes and formula version history are paid. On the free plan each formula exports once; full backups are always free. PerfuMate's paid plan is $12.90 a month, $68.00 a year or $119.98 once. Monthly and yearly renew until canceled; Lifetime is a one-time purchase. Optional AI usage uses separate credits | Spreadsheet: free to start, with Google Sheets or Excel for the web | Formulair: free up to 25 raw materials and 25 formulas; the full version is a one-time in-app purchase ($39.99 on the US App Store) | Formulab Pro: free to download and try; a subscription unlocks full features, $4.99 a month or $39.99 a year on the US App Store, bought separately on each platform | ScentLabs: free up to 25 raw materials and 10 formulas, with cost calculation and PDF export; Pro is $9.95 a month or $49.99 once for lifetime, adding the IFRA checker, batch tracking and stock management | Perfumer's Vault 2: a free Hobbyist mode with no time limit (formulas, your own material records and database backups); IFRA, batches, exports, suppliers, stock and its AI are on Professional, a subscription at $6.99 a month or $59.99 a year on the US App Store | The Aroma Forge: a free workspace with no credit card; its limits, and the prices of its paid subscriptions and one-time purchases, are not published on its site | Molequles: free, "free and will always be free", with an optional donation; no stated limits | Tapputi Lab: completely free with every feature included, nothing to pay and no paywall; funded through vendor affiliate links | Perfume Workbench: no free tier; a 7-day free trial, then $4.99 a month or $49.99 once for lifetime | PerfumeLab: free to download; PerfumeLab Pro is GBP 4.99 a month or GBP 29.99 a year (USD 4.99 and 29.99 on the US App Store); what the free version includes is not stated | PerfumeNuke: free and open source under GPL v3 | Ourmess Fragrance Formulator: a free download, no signup | Formulary: free for 10 formulas and 10 AI credits a month, with watermarked PDFs and basic ingredient matching; Pro A$9 a month (1,000 formulas, 100 AI credits) and Team A$29 a month (5 users), in Australian dollars, two months free on annual billing; a 7-day Pro trial without a card | Perfumate (perfumatelab.com): free forever with up to 30 materials, 5 formulas, 5 accords and 5 batches; Rp299,000 once for lifetime; no monthly plan |
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