I swear I am smelling this the first time of my life!!!

...This was kind of the motto of my class while still in school following the initial perfumery training...

When there is more than 1000 raw materials ( naturals and synthetics together ) to know by heart, you of course, would expect that some of them are really resembling to one another. Indeed, sometimes, there is a tiny aspect of mustiness or a difference in the volatility that makes you know that these two samples are not the same.

On the other hand, day by day, you start to smell different nuances from the same sample you practiced on yesterday. Sometimes this discovery comes while doing blind tests, and that's the time when you would put your hands into fire for proving that this is a completely different raw material. Cause, no way, it smells so strong this time, so bitter, so etc, and you insist that you have been probably absent when the others learned this specific ingredient.

Here you are, some of my big discoveries from recently:

- Since when coconut aldehyde smells like celery?

- Why suddenly white musk smells like an ambery chocolate?

- How come bitter orange smells like humid tobacco leaves?

- Is it a bad sample, or lime oil DOES smell like marzipan?

- Since when chamomile smells like dry cognac?

Different nuances are sometimes linked to the humidity of the air, general weather or what have you smelled or ate just before. Sometimes, it is your nose becoming more sensitive to a special aspect, e.g. you detect more easily the spicy notes.

While these could be really confusing, apart from being an obligatory passage for all perfumers, it is going to be of a great help for formulation exercises. If you happen not to know that tarragon has a fruity side with green mango nuances, you will never end up with a relatively short, but beautifully natural, zesty, round mango accord.

Learning the different aspects of perfume ingredients is the basis for creating fragrances "in your mind". Once you can list by heart all the aspect of a certain perfume ingredient even if you are awaken in the middle of the night, you are ready to make intelligent perfume associations.