Disambiguation DIY education ingredient Making your own perfume natural
28 April 2012 by Pell Wall (Chris) | Leave a Comment
Perfumery ingredients often have fascinating names, sometimes confused by different usages and this is a case in point, in this case there are three different ingredients, all fixative base notes, that are easily confused: Benzoin, used alone, or prefixed with Sumatra, usually refers to Styrax benzoin (also called Benzoin resinoid*), whereas Benzoin Siam is usually used to refer to Styrax tonkinensis – […]
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DIY IFRA Making your own perfume news
27 April 2012 by Pell Wall (Chris) | Leave a Comment
At the European Parliament Expo on Trade Secrets, earlier this year, IFRA decided to publish a full fragrance formula ‘for the first time’ and copies of the formula and the fragrance made with it were given to politicians as part of a lobbying campaign to raise awareness of the importance of trade secrets to the fragrance industry.That […]
Compliance DIY IFRA Making your own perfume Standards
25 April 2012 by Pell Wall (Chris) | Leave a Comment
IFRA Standards International FRagrance Association I’m always being asked, by people starting out in the make-your-own-perfume business what these are and how they apply to fragrances. Most people not in the industry seem to find the IFRA website a bit difficult to navigate too, so I thought I’d make up a summary list for quick reference. This […]
DIY feedback new products news product St George’s Day
24 April 2012 by Pell Wall (Chris) | Leave a Comment
It’s the day after St George’s Day so I have a year to gather ideas, build a design and make it ready to release a fragrance for St George’s Day 2013. This idea started when a friend of mine bemoaned the fact that St George’s Day isn’t much celebrated and wondered whether corporate sponsorship might […]
artemisia Devana Disambiguation DIY estragon ingredient Making your own perfume natural vetiver
26 February 2012 by Pell Wall (Chris) | 2 Comments on Artemisia – and how to identify natural perfumery ingredients
Artemisia absinthium Lambrook Sliver I used Artemisia absinthium as the key ingredient in my fragrance Devana, but it’s raised a few questions about what it is and whether there are other similar plants about. I think the genus Artemisia is rather an interesting one, so I thought I’d expand on it a bit here. First […]
DIY Home Fragrance news product question Woodsmoke
23 January 2012 by Pell Wall (Chris) | Leave a Comment
Anyone who has ever sat around a campfire will have memories associated with the smell of wood-smoke, hopefully good ones . . . If like me you also have the good fortune to have an open fire at home, you may have shared my disappointment that you don’t really ever get the same effect indoors […]
ambergris animal DIY education ingredient Making your own perfume natural
27 December 2011 by Pell Wall (Chris) | Leave a Comment
Ambergris as a perfume ingredient has a lasting fascination and is widely misunderstood – here I’ve described some of it’s story. I don’t generally use real animal ingredients in my work – I use synthetic substitutes – however some ingredients have a special magic regardless of whether they can be used, or afforded. A piece […]