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How to train your nose for perfumery

Train your nose with a small set of materials, smelled a little every day, in dilution, and written down. Start with one clear example from each of a handful of scent families, learn to name them blind, then learn how they behave together in simple accords. Progress comes from repetition and notes, not from smelling a lot at once, and it takes months rather than days.

Which materials should I start with?

One clear example per family, a dozen or fewer. PerfuMate's catalog files every material under scent families such as citrus, floral, green, herbal, spicy, woody, earthy, resinous, gourmand, musk, amber and ambergris, and a first kit can follow them:

These are far apart on purpose. At first, the aim is to hear the difference between families; the fine differences within one come later.

What does a daily routine look like?

Ten minutes, most days, is worth more than an afternoon once a month. A routine that works:

  1. Pick three or four materials from the kit.
  2. Dip a labelled strip of each and smell it at once, writing three words for each before you read any description.
  3. Smell the same strips again later in the day and the next morning. Note what has gone and what has stayed.
  4. Rotate through the whole kit over a week, then start again with the same materials.

Repetition is the point. The fifth time you smell cedarwood you notice things the first time did not, and the words you write change with it.

Why smell materials in dilution?

Because that is how they are used, and because neat, many are too strong to read. The catalog describes Indole as mothball-like in concentration and luminous in dilution, which is the difference between learning the material and learning a headache. Ten percent, weighed on a scale and labelled, is the easy default for learning; the catalog's working dilution for each material shows which ones need more dilution than that. How to evaluate materials on blotters covers the strip itself.

How do I test myself blind?

Ask someone to dip strips from your kit and mark them with numbers on the underside, or shuffle labelled strips yourself before you look. Name the family first, then the material, and write your answer before you turn the strip over. Keep your results in the notebook so you can see your own progress over the weeks.

When the kit is easy, add near neighbours and test those: Bergamot FCF Essential Oil against expressed bergamot, lemon against distilled lime, one clean musk against another. This is where a nose starts to become useful at the bench.

How do I learn accords?

By building the classic ones and taking them apart again. An accord is a small group of materials that reads as one idea, and a few old structures teach a great deal:

Smell each material alone, weigh a small mix, then smell the mix and try to find each part in it. Oakmoss is restricted by IFRA, so use a low-atranol grade and keep within the oakmoss limit if the accord ever goes near skin. How to build an accord goes further.

How should I keep notes?

Briefly, dated, and in your own words. For each material: what it smells like at the first minute, at an hour and the next day; its family; what it reminds you of; and anything that surprised you. Only then compare with a written description. After a month, reread your first notes and write new ones: the change in your vocabulary is the most honest measure of progress you have.

How long does it take?

There is no honest number, and it varies from person to person. A small kit becomes familiar with regular practice over weeks; a working palette takes much longer. Two things slow everyone down: smelling too much at once, which tires the nose until everything smells the same, and skipping the notes, which leaves nothing to compare against. Stop when you are tired, and come back tomorrow.

The PerfuMate catalog lets you browse materials by family, each with its description, band, impact and typical dilution, and your own smelling notes stay on each material on your shelf. When the kit feels familiar, start a formula from an idea. Start a formula, free.