Click to enlarge image The Perfumer's Workbook serves as both a record keeping system and as a fragrance development tool.

The Perfumer's Workbook is a perfume creation computer program (software) on a CD that is included with the PerfumersWorld Foundation Course. The Perfumer's Workbook serves both as a password protected record keeping archive for your formulas and as a fragrance development tool.

Simple record keeping

In its simplest use, The Perfumer's Workbook allows you to enter a formula of your own, by name or code name. Each material used in your formula is listed. These formulas are automatically archived and can be printed out from your computer for your "hard copy" notebook, if you keep one.

Click to enlarge image The Perfumer's Workbook adds information to each record of a formula, as seen on the left of the screen shot above. This information can be edited and will be printed out with your formula when you issue the "print" command.

But, when you ask The Perfumer's Workbook to print out your formula, it does more than just give you back what you typed in. When it prints out your formula, it ADDS information — a written smell description of your fragrance, its relative odor impact compared to other fragrances, its anticipated odor life on a test blotter, its top, middle and base notes, its suggested applications (i.e., its suitability for use in fine (alcoholic) perfumes, deodorant, cream, soap, liquid soap, shampoo, hair conditioner, etc.) It also adds a note on the suitability of your formula for flavor (food) applications — but this is a special area of expertise and, in most cases, you will find your fragrances described as "Not suitable for use in flavors."

You might ask, how can it do this? The answer is simple but the computer calculations that carry out this task behind the scenes are highly complex. To start with, The Perfumer's Workbook comes with an installed database of over 500 perfumery materials, including those supplied with the PerfumersWorld Foundation Course. When you type in your formula, you indicate — by stock number — which materials you are working with. Thus the software "knows" a good deal about your formula, simply from its analysis of the perfumery materials you have selected.

(To use a perfumery material not included in the database, simply add it too the database, along with its characteristics.)

Click to enlarge image Go to the Graph function, click on the "Auto Elapse" button, and The Perfumer's Workbook automated graph shows how your fragrance will evolve over time!

Learning more about your formula

The enhanced record keeping function of The Perfumer's Workbook is just the beginning. More important is its ability to help you develop your formula by showing you, graphically, how it will smell when first applied and how its scent will evolve over time — minutes or even hours. You can observe this either on an animated pie graph or bar graph. When you click on the "Auto Elapse" button, your fragrance starts to evolve (actually, you are watching it evaporate!)

As you watch, you will see the colors representing your top notes start to vanish, indicating that these highly volatile materials evaporate quickly. Then come the "heart notes". As you watch the minutes tick by, you are presented with a graphic representation of what your fragrance will smell like at each minute of evaporation! When the clock has ticked down all the way, you will be left with the base notes alone — your "dry down", as it is called. This odor may remain for hours or even days. (In real life, on a test blotter, your dry down may still be recognizable after a year or more, depending on what materials you have used for your base notes!)

Learn new perfumery materials

Click to enlarge image Click on the quantity of a material shown in column one and The Perfumer's Workbook will show you potential substitutes for that material, from its database of over 500 materials.

The Perfumer's Workbook helps you expand your knowledge of perfumery materials. Here's how. Once you have entered the quantity of each ingredient of your formula into column one, if you click on the existing quantity, you can adjust if, remove it, or ask The Perfumer's Workbook to suggest substitutes for that material.

When you ask to be shown appropriate substitutes, The Perfumer's Workbook opens up a list of all appropriate substitutes in its full database. It does not just show you potential substitutes from the materials you already have in stock. Sometimes you will find only a handful of suggestions. At other times, many potential substitutes will be shown.

Of course, before you go changing your formula around, you'll want to know something about each of these suggested substitutes. The Perfumer's Workbook gives you answers. By clicking a suggested material and then using eight sub-menus, you can discover the material's "relative impact" (odor strength), how long it will last on a test blotter, it's odor characteristics (in rough terms what it smells like), its suitability for various applications as a fragrance or food flavoring, its physical description (crystals, powder, thick liquid, etc.), synonyms for the material's name that is show (a single perfumery material can go under many different names!), and any special safety considerations connected with this material. Then, if you want to try using it — or just smelling it — you can order it from PerfumersWorld.

Click to enlarge image Click on the quantity of a material shown in column one and The Perfumer's Workbook will show you potential substitutes for that material, from its database of over 500 materials.

Using the "Modify" tool to develop your fragrance

One of the tools within The Perfumer's Workbook that I use regularly is the "Modify" tool which helps you adjust your formula for particular notes — A-Z, following the PerfumersWorld ABC's of Perfumery teaching method, for a particular product application (alcoholic perfumes, shampoo, etc.), price (to find less costly substitutes for materials you have selected), to make an "accord", or — the adjustment tool I use most, "Modify the tone or balance".

The "Modify the tone or balance tool" can suggest modifications of your formula in eight categories: top note, middle note, bottom note, strength, freshness, "floweriness", depth and smoothness. The software can suggest modifications of each of these qualities in anywhere from one to 1,000 percent of the original. I usually limit my curiosity to about 25% to 100%.

Click to enlarge image Materials shown at the left are from a list generated by the "Modify" tool for "depth". The original formula had 5 elements; the modified version, with its greater depth, had 19.

When you crank in your parameters and turn the software loose, it goes through a very large number of calculations and returns a "suggested" formula. If you started with five materials, you may now find your formula showing twenty materials, fifteen of which are completely new to you!

For me, these newly suggested perfumery materials represent materials I might want to obtain and test. I wouldn't just jump into it but, looking at these suggestions provokes me into wanting to expand my knowledge of perfumery materials ... and expand my inventory of materials I want to keep on hand. In time you'll notice that certain materials are suggested again and again, and it is these materials in particular that I most want to obtain, smell, and learn how to use.

Using your favorite bases and accords in new creations

In time you will find that, like most professional perfumers, you have developed your own special bases and accords which can assist you in the creation of new fragrances. The Perfumer's Workbook allows you to mix these elements — in whatever percentage you want — into a new creation.

Click to enlarge image Using the "99.9" function, quantities of an entire formula can be enlarged or reduced. This function is very useful when you want to mix a specific quantity of a base or accord you have developed into a new formula you are creating.

For example, say you have developed a base that has a nice drydown and is very long lasting on a test blotter — call it "B-1". Then, you have a really great lily of the valley accord you've developed — call it "L-1". Now you've messed around with a few other ingredients and come up with a partial formula — call it "F-1". To put it all together — as a "trial" — you want to mix 20 percent of your B-1 creation into formula F-1 ... and then add 40 percent of your L-1 accord. Here's how you would do it.

First, bring all three formulas up on the screen, with formula F-1 in column 1 (because column 1 is the column for the formula being constructed), formula B-1 in column 2, and formula L-1 in column 3.

Now click anywhere in column 2 to make it the "active" column. Now click on the "99.9" drop down icon on the main menu, enter ".2" (for 20 percent), and click "OK". The quantities of the aroma materials in column 2 are now reduced to 20 percent of their original value.

Follow the same procedure with formula L-1 in column 3, this time entering ".4" (for 40 percent).

Click to enlarge image Using the "Mix" function, you can mix an adjusted quantity of an existing formula into a new formula you are creating.

Now, with the quantities of B-1 and L-1 reduced to the levels you want to add to formula F-1, "activate" column 2 again and then use the "Mix" drop down icon on the main menu to mix the content of column 2 into column 1. Follow the same procedure for L-1 in column 3. You have now succeeded in mixing 20 percent of B-1 and 40 percent of L-1 into your formula F-1.

If working with bases and accords is new to you, you might not yet appreciate the power of this capability. But, as you begin to create your own "building blocks" which get used over and over in your new creations, you will quickly discover what a great convenience this tool provides by saving you from having to make individual mathematical calculations for each material in each base or accord you want to mix into your new formula.

"Service Area" database access

The "Service Area" of The Perfumer's Workbook gives you direct access to the database of over 500 odorants and you may freely edit their descriptions and costs or add new materials. (Read more about the Service Area.)

There's more to The Perfumer's Workbook

Described above are just one of the features of The Perfumer's Workbook. I constantly tell people that The Perfumer's Workbook alone is worth the full price of the PerfumersWorld Foundation Course. But The Perfumer's Workbook is not sold separately. It is only available with the PerfumersWorld Foundation Course. That's another reason to order the Foundation Course, and you can do so below.

Philip Goutell
Lightyears, Inc.