How to smell and evaluate perfume materials on blotters

Dilute the material first, usually to 10 percent, write its name, dilution and the time on a paper strip, dip the tip, and smell it at fixed times: after half a minute, ten minutes, an hour, a few hours, the next day, and for heavy materials for days after that. At each time, write what it smells like, how strong it is, and whether it is still there. To compare two materials, dilute them the same way, dip them at the same moment and smell them side by side.

Why dilute a material before smelling it?

Because neat, many materials are too strong to read, and some smell like something else entirely. The catalog describes Indole as mothball-like in concentration and luminous in dilution: the same molecule, two different impressions. A diluted strip shows you the material as it will behave inside a perfume.

The catalog suggests a working dilution for every material. For most it reads neat or 10 percent: both are common on the bench, and for smelling, 10 percent is the easier one to learn from. Very strong materials get a lower figure of their own, 1 percent for Calone 1951 and Indole and 0.1 percent for Grapefruit Mercaptan, while a quiet material such as Hedione is simply used neat. Treat each figure as a suggestion: many are set by a rule from the material's strength rather than chosen one by one.

Practise with 10 percent by weight: 1 g of material and 9 g of solvent, weighed on the scale. Alcohol flashes off and leaves the material alone on the strip; Dipropylene glycol is odourless and does not evaporate, so it slows the opening slightly. Pick one and use it for everything you want to compare. Wear gloves when handling neat materials. The dilution calculator does the arithmetic for any strength.

How do I prepare and label a strip?

Label first, dip second. Write the material, the dilution and the time on the handle end before it goes near the bottle, because unlabelled strips become interchangeable within the hour. Dip only the tip, the same depth each time, so strips can be compared. Do not soak it.

Wait a few seconds for the solvent to leave before you judge. Hold the strip just under your nose without touching it, take short sniffs rather than one long breath, and stand strips in a holder or a clip so the wet ends touch nothing.

When should I smell a blotter?

At fixed times, the same ones for every material, so your notes compare:

• 30 seconds: the first impression, with some solvent still there.
• 10 minutes: the top of the material.
• 1 hour: its heart, which is usually what it is used for.
• 4 hours: what it turns into.
• Next day, then daily: for heavy materials, until nothing is left.

The spread is wide. The catalog lists Lemon Essential Oil at about four hours on a strip, Hedione at about three days and Ambroxan at well over a week. Those times are estimates, and strip times are not an exact science, but knowing roughly how long each material lasts is most of knowing where it belongs in a formula.

What should I write down?

Write in your own words first, then compare with a description. At each time mark:

1. What it smells like. Plain words: "green, cut stems", "soapy", "pencil shavings". What it reminds you of counts too.
2. How strong it is. The catalog rates impact from 1 to 10: Hedione is a 2, Calone 1951 a 9. Give your own number and see whether they agree.
3. Whether it is still there. The last time you could smell it is your strip life for that material.
4. How it changed. Many materials open one way and dry down another. That change is often the most useful thing to know.

Then place it: does it lead the opening, carry the middle or stay at the end? That is its band, top, heart or base, and it is a judgement about the job a material does, not only its hours. The olfactive pyramid explains why the two can differ.

How do I compare two materials?

Make the comparison fair: the same dilution, the same solvent, the same dip, the same moment. Mark the strips on the underside so you do not know which is which, and smell A, then B, then A again at each time mark. Write the differences, not just which you prefer.

Good first pairs are materials that should be close. The catalog describes Bergamot FCF Essential Oil as essentially the same scent as expressed Bergamot Essential Oil, marginally less full in its deeper facets: a pair on strips tells you whether you can hear that. The same method decides whether one material can stand in for another. Substitutes suggests the candidates.

How do I avoid smelling fatigue?

By smelling less at a time. The nose adapts quickly, and after a few minutes on one material it stops reporting it. So:

• Take short sniffs and move the strip away between them.
• Walk away between time marks. Smelling every two minutes teaches nothing the marks would not.
• Keep a session to a handful of materials, and start with the lighter ones.
• Work in a room with fresh air and no other smells: no perfume on you, no cooking.
• When everything starts to smell the same, stop for the day.

PerfuMate's catalog gives each material its families, band, impact from 1 to 10, typical dilution and, where one is known, its strip life marked as an estimate, and your own notes sit on the material's page on your shelf. How to train your nose builds on this. Start a formula, free.