Introducing our 5-Day Perfumery Workshops:
Lightyears, Inc. in association with PerfumersWorld now offers perfumery training in the United States through our once a year, open enrollment, 5-Day Perfumery Course and Workshop — "The Art and Technology of Perfumery" — conducted by British perfumer Stephen V. Dowthwaite.
The PerfumersWorld 5-Day Workshop format was originally developed by Dowthwaite at the request of international fragrance companies to train fragrance evaluators and perfume marketing staff in the Asian market. His 5-Day Workshops have evolved into an immersion training session in fine fragrance creation, aromatherapy, natural perfumery, beauty, and household products.
These are hands on workshops in which brief lecture sessions are immediately followed by exercises through which students learn, through an orderly, systematic method, to compose and compound their own perfumes. Starting with 25 aroma bases characteristic of 25 aroma groups, students soon find themselves making intelligent choices for their assigned tasks in selecting from over 700 aroma materials — both naturals and single molecule aroma chemicals — provided for their use in the workshop.
While neither experience in perfumery nor a background in chemistry is a prerequisite for enrollment in a 5-Day Workshop, a serious interest in both the creative and technical sides of perfumery is suggested if the student is to derive the maximum benefit from this training.
Location:
Our U.S. workshops are conducted in the New York area. For 2010 our workshop location will be an easy daily commute from New York City (Manhattan) or New Jersey.
What it is NOT:
Although our 5-Day Workshops can help you develop a better appreciation for perfume, they are NOT classes in fragrance appreciation. Although we welcome the "beginner" who can add much to the depth of a workshop, PerfumersWorld developed this 5-day workshop format to provide much needed (and hard to find) technical training for business owners and fragrance industry professionals such as research chemists and fragrance evaluators.
If you are looking for training that will enable you to talk more intelligently about fine fragrance and related products (i.e., for working at a retail fragrance counter or fitting more comfortably into the fashion and beauty biz) we suggest that you visit the Sniffapalooza website or take a course in fragrance appreciation from Cinquieme Sens. (We had the pleasure of meeting one of their perfumers who was enrolled in our 2008 workshop.)
Who we are:
Lightyears, Inc.
Founded in 1996, Lightyears, Inc. offers information and creative resources to independent perfumers and perfume marketers. Our Bio-Byte Perfume Maker's Club has long been a source of hard to find supplies and resources for small, independent perfume makers who struggle to find vendors offering perfumery materials in "home workshop" quantities.
Lightyears is also the creative force behind this website — PerfumeProjects.com — which has brought perfume information and opportunities to a staggering large number of domestic and international visitors seeking perfumery resources. This website also hosts the Museum of Modern Perfume, a collection of bottles and information which highlight some famous and not so famous perfumes, perfumers and perfume marketers.
More recently Lightyears has begun to develop our own original fragrances which are marketed exclusively through our FrankBush.com and PGLightyears.com websites.
PerfumersWorld
PerfumersWorld, located in Bangkok, Thailand, was founded by British perfumer Stephen V. Dowthwaite. Today, in addition to offering perfumery training to local and international students, PerfumersWorld is a source of aroma materials and perfumery services including fragrance development and consulting on technical issues concerning fragrance products.
Due to the multiplicity of languages spoken by Asian students in his perfumery workshops, Dowthwaite developed a simplified training method — The ABC's of Perfumery® — which was described in the May/June 1999 issue of Perfumer & Flavorist. Thanks to the ABC's method, absolute beginners in Dowthwaite's workshops find themselves matching classic fragrances and producing submissions for imaginary client briefs by day three of a five day workshop.
PerfumersWorld also sells over 300 of their own perfumes and fragrance products worldwide as well as over 700 raw materials at their retail showroom located at 120/1-2 NgamWongWan Road, Nonthaburi (Bangkok), Thailand.
If attending a workshop
is not possible for you ... or if
you want to better prepare yourself
in advance of attending a 5-Day Workshop ...
Many of the themes and techniques studied in depth in our 5-Day Perfumery Workshops are introduced in the PerfumersWorld Foundation Course in Creative Perfumery, a self study program available at this website.
The Foundation Course includes ten blocks of online lessons, The Perfumers Workbook fragrance creation software (unlocked), and the "A-Z" bases upon which Dowthwaite's The ABC's of Perfumery® teaching method is based.
For many such as myself, The PerfumersWorld Foundation Course was the resource that allowed me to enter the world of fine fragrance creation. Perfumery is an art but, like other arts, the artist must have certain tools in order to create. The Foundation Course provides these tools: an education in modern perfume creation through a course created by a working, commercial perfumer, aroma materials with which the student assignments are conducted, and access to a full range of contemporary perfumery materials — naturals and synthetics — through PerfumersWorld's online store.
Perfumery Training in Thailand
PerfumersWorld offers a number of perfumery training workshops in Bangkok, Thailand, throughout the year. For their current workshop schedule —
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Click on image to enlarge
Perfumer Stephen V. Dowthwaite, founder of PerfumersWorld, Ltd., leads a perfumery workshop in Bangkok, Thailand. |
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Are you interested in becoming a perfumer?
Would you like to learn, hands on, how a perfume is composed ... or, if you are perfuming already, gain insights and technical skills that can help make your new fragrances even better!
You don't need a degree in chemistry or anyone's permission to become a perfumer. All you need is a desire to learn, a course of instruction that grounds you in the fundamentals, and professional materials to work with.
If you have that all-important desire to learn, the PerfumersWorld Foundation Course with materials kit K26 gives you a highly effective working knowledge of the fundamentals of creative perfumery along with the materials you need to carry out the training exercises and begin composing new perfumes of your own.
The PerfumersWorld Foundation Course and the PerfumersWorld "Art and Technology of Perfumery" 5-Day workshops are complimentary. Studying with the Foundation Course before you take a 5-Day workshop will prepare you for the concepts introduced on Day One of the workshop, which are then used (in parallel with the Foundation Course!) for the remaining Four days.
On the other hand, a number of people who attend a 5-Day workshop purchase the Foundation Course at the end of the workshop or shortly thereafter. Why? Because the Foundation Course reinforced and expanded upon the concepts they had just studied and personal projects they had begun during the 5-Day workshop. And, thanks to the K26 materials kit, the Foundation Course gave them the perfumery materials they needed to continue to work on their own.
Some who took the 2008 PerfumersWorld 5-Day "Art and Technology of Perfumery" course in New York were PhDs, fragrance chemists working for the world's top fragrance and consumer products houses, some with many years of experience. Others were professionally trained perfumers working for smaller, "boutique" perfumeries. But most lacked any prior experience in perfumery, had absolutely no background in chemistry, and came to the 5-Day course with nothing more than an intense desire to learn — and they did!
Over 80 percent of those who attended our 2009 Workshop were fragrance industry professionals but, to the other 20 percent who worked with us, all of the technology of perfumery new.
Whether you are able to participate in a 5-Day workshop or not, if you have a strong desire to become a perfumer or learn more about how perfume is composed, or, if you are already a practicing perfumer and wish to freshen up your creative outlook and gain new insights into perfume composition, the PerfumersWorld Foundation Course is an excellent tool for both serious perfumery education, and creative inspiration!
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