Report from the PerfumersWorld
2009 5-Day Perfumery Course & Workshop
at Warwick, New York
"The Art and Technology of Perfumery"

The foundation of Stephen V. Dowthwaite's perfumery training method is The ABC's of Perfumery®, a method of grouping aroma materials which was described in the May/June 1999 issue of Perfumer and Flavorist.

Students execute their first classroom assignments by using only "A-Z" Fleuressence®; bases which were created by Dowthwaite to represent the A-Z aroma groups in The ABC's of Perfumery training method. Because of the simplicity of this method, within a few hours (not months!) students are able to start creating credible matches for both existing fragrances and fragrance concepts developed by the group.

Tracy Pepe of Nose Knows Consulting, Ontario, Canada, creates a "mind map" for a new fragrance.

The "mind map," a concept developed by Englishman Tony Buzan, can be used in fragrance development to sharpen a fuzzy idea for a fragrance into a finished product that communicates the original idea — through scent — so perfectly that the person who smells it "sees" the visual images of the original idea.

This match between marketing concept and fragrance is a marketer's dream, for when the consumer SMELLS the fragrance, the reaction will be, "Why YES, it DOES smell exactly like ... [your product image]."

As a class exercise, a mind map was created for an "August in the Park" perfume (the "park", in this base, being New York City's Central Park.) After the map was drawn, each student was assigned the task of developing a fragrance accord for one element of the mind map. These individual accords were then balanced (for significance in the theme) and combined to produce a final "August in the Park" perfume.

Perfumer Steve Dowthwaite demonstrates The Perfumer's Workbook software to Renee Gabet, founder and CEO of Annie Oakley Enterprises, Inc..

Ryan Chadwick of PerfumersWorld demonstrates The Perfumer's Workbook to Pamela Cutler-Wiemerslage, owner of Salon Knotty, "Wichita's newest upscale salon and day spa for men and women".

Meals at the Warwick Center are served buffet style and groups such as our own are assigned their own tables. Taking three meals a day together gave workshop participants a chance to interact in a relaxed environment. At meals we had a chance to socialize, but also to discuss perfume, trade concerns, and the perfume business in general.

It is not often that a professional perfume retailer gets a chance to discuss perfume, face to face, with a perfumer. For the perfumer this can be a humbling experience. Thanks to Sammy Alshantir we were "hit in the face" with a rejection of the "top note, middle note, base note" perfume design structure. Instead — shocking to many — Sammy made the point that a great many of his customers base their selections on top note alone, which is not so surprising, but, when the top note "evolves" into the heart note, the customer thinks the fragrance has "gone bad" and may want to return it!

While, as perfumers, we may argue that this consumer is "unsophisticated" and "needs to be educated," on the practical level, the level of the retailer face to face with the cash customer, Sammy made it quite clear that this process of "educating" the consumer only CONFUSES the consumer and is likely to squelch the sale. Food for thought from the trenches!

The perfumer's palate has grown to include well over 3,000 aroma materials. Although many of these are used quite rarely, perfumers working in competitive markets must have an understanding of HOW and WHEN to select aroma materials that will combine to yield the results they desire.

Clearly the perfumer must be able to go beyond guesswork in making his or her initial selection of materials. If the perfumer had to guess at each material, the process of building a perfume would take far to long. Hence some understanding of GROUPINGS of aroma materials is essential, as well as an understanding of how — from a chemical name — the behavior of an aroma material within a group can be predicted.

Because Workshop students started out by learning the 26 basic aroma groups of the ABC's of Perfumery® AND enough fragrance chemistry to predict to some extent the behavior of NEW materials within these GROUPS, within three days they were able to build the fragrances required for their exercises by making INTELLIGENT choices from among more than 700 aroma materials that were available to them.

With no TV in the rooms, evening workshop sessions proved popular. Here Steve Dowthwaite demonstrates some of the features of The Perfumer's Workbook® — fragrance creation software developed by Dowthwaite and distributed by PerfumersWorld. Each attendee received a personalized copy.

One use of the software which amazed the group was its ability to "crunch" a group of keywords from a perfume brief and, in seconds, produce a first version of a formula fitting the required odor description. The creative and BUSINESS implications of The Perfumer's Workbook were demonstrated to be ... awesome!

The retailer and the evaluator: Sammy Alshantir, owner of upscale perfume shops Parfums de France, and Micaela Velasco, fragrance evaulator for Mane Columbia.

Developing a fragrance started in the head. The head being scratched here is that of Cutler-Wiemerslage. After mentally determining her formula and writing it down in her notebook, Pamela will mix her fragrance from the bottles shown in front of her — and possibly from others not shown in this photo.

Fragrance is used almost universally in soaps, shampoos, and a wide range of household products. But these products present technical issues. Oil repels water. Yet many of these products are called upon to wash away dirty, oily, grime and the workshop touched upon some technical issues -- anionic, cationic and non-ionic materials, surfactants, emulsifiers and micelles -- and a Universal Formula for toiletry products.

The hands on exercise for this segment of the workshop required each student to pick a commercial beauty or household product and either develop a match for its fragrance or create an appropriate original fragrance for a product in the same category.

Thanks to Pamela, I (Phil Goutell) managed to get into one photo, seen here posting more than sniffing, hoping Pamela will hurry and get it over with quickly.