Four ways to create your own perfume

Let me ask you this: "Why would you want to create your own perfume?" Are you motivated by art, commerce, or vanity? Your reason for wanting to create a perfume plays a leading role in how you create your perfume. There are four ways you can create your perfume oil, the scent itself, the fragrance that people smell. Two of these ways require substantial investment; two require only pocket change. When you are ready to go ahead and create your own perfume starting with the perfume oil — the scent itself — you'll find a complete guide for transforming it into a commercial product in Creating Your Own Perfume With A 1700 Percent Markup!

Method I: Buy a stock fragrance and impress your brand on it.

A significant number of online vendors sell "fragrance oil" to anyone willing to pay for it. The names of many of these perfume oils suggest they are smell-likes of best selling perfumes. Spend time at local fragrance counters. Sample as many fragrances as you can for free. Purchase a few that you like best. Decide, within the limits of online fragrance oils available to you, on one that might work for you.

Once you have obtained your supply, and assuming your plan is not to simply market a knockoff, impress your own brand on it. Name it with a name that bears no relation to the name of the famous scent that inspired it. Now it is no longer an imitation of a famous brand. Now it becomes the name you have given it.

Pros

Anyone can do this. You don't need industry connections. There is no mystery over what you are paying or what you are getting. You can compare prices from one website to another as it is likely that more than one will have a smell-alike for the same famous brand. Because these websites take small orders, you can start your project on a very small scale to test your ability to create and sell your own perfume.

Cons

If your intention is to produce a significant number of bottles of perfume, say 500, 1,000 or more, obtaining oil directly off a website may prove more costly than buying directly from a fragrance house that sells to professionals. Quality could also be an issue.

Discussion

Much here depends on the level of sophistication of your intended customers. If they are aware of the current crop of best selling fragrances, they may spot yours as a smell-alike and judge your offering both on price and quality. If your price is low and your quality acceptably, you might make sales based on your low price but, unless you can achieve a high sales volume (which is unlikely!), this will not be a great money making strategy.

On the other hand, if your intended market are less sophisticated and you select a fragrance oil for "your" perfume they are very unlikely to recognize, your fragrance may be able to achieve a substantial markup.

Method II: Go to a professional fragrance house and ask for a fragrance with a smell like that of a major brand that has attracted you.

This is similar to Method I, finding a smell you like in a major brand and then purchasing an oil with a similar scent. The difference is you're likely to be offered two or more versions of the scent you like, each at a different price. It will be up to you to select the one most suitable for your quality, marketing, and budgetary goals.

Again, the fragrance will not be reserved exclusively for your but there is a good chance you won't find a competitor using the same oil. Once you have put your brand on it — the name under which you will sell it — it is unlikely that it will ever be thought of as anything other than what you have named it.

Pros

In working with a professional fragrance house you'll be introduced to the possibilities that exist for a fragrance oil such as how a particular scent can be achieved using more or less costly materials. You will also be establishing a connection for future projects and you should be able to get some guidance for your project from experienced professionals, guidance you would not get by simply ordered off a website.

Cons

To get the cooperation of a professional fragrance house you may have to demonstrate that you are an established business or a deep pocketed entrepreneur ready to deal on a professional level. And it's likely you'll encounter a minimum order requirement that should not be excessive if you're producing 1,000 bottles or more but could balk you if your plan is to test with just a few hundred bottles.

Discussion

If you're making an investment in your perfume and are willing to take some risks, this is an ideal solution. You'll be getting your fragrance oil at a price that works for your budget and will be introduced to the price variations that can be found in trying to achieve the same smell.

Since you will be asking for a scent similar to one that already exists, the vendor will almost certainly have multiple formulas available and will not have to go through the steps of building a custom -- a unique, original -- fragrance for you. Hence both a lower cost to you and a lower minimum order requirement.

Method III: Work a perfumer to create an original fragrance.

If you want an original fragrance and you are not a skilled perfumer yourself, you'll go to a fragrance company that can offer the services of a perfumer who will work with you to create the fragrance you want.

If you just have a general idea of what you want, the perfumer can guide. If you have a strong idea of what you want, you can guide the perfumer.

Pros

By working with a professional perfumer and paying for a custom fragrance, an original fragrance that only you will have, you gain a strong marketing point.

Cons

To obtain the services of a skilled perfumer you will either be required to pay for the development costs or to guarantee the purchase of a certain minimum quantity of the perfume oil thus created.

Your idea for a unique fragrance may not yield a market success. You may have trouble communicating your idea to a perfumer, making it difficult for him or her to give you what you want. This can lead to costly trials and dead ends.

While you may be providing the creative ideas for the fragrance, the perfumer who has translated your ideas into a practical formula, will own the formula and you will never see it. If you need more of this fragrance oil, you must come back to this same perfumer or fragrance house. This is standard industry practice although it may be possible to negotiate a different arrangement.

Discussion

Your success in creating an original fragrance will depend on your having a clear idea of what you want and finding a perfumer able to create what you want. This is a costly approach to getting your perfume oil and you must consider whether the cost will be commensurate with your goals for the project.

Method IV: Make it yourself.

If you feel comfortable developing a perfume oil on your own, do it!

Pros

The fragrance oil you develop will be original and exclusively your own and you have the satisfaction of being the creator.

Cons

To develop your own perfume oil you'll need perfumery skills and materials to work with. If your goal is to create a commercial success you must question whether your skill will be up to the challenge. Investing money in your own skill as a perfumer can be risky and few "first time" projects yield commercial success.

Discussion

If you are a perfumer, this may be the only path for you.

If you are an enthusiastic but less skilled, the fragrance you develop will give you an opportunity to share your idea with others and, while it may be difficult to sell what you have made, you might find great satisfaction in putting your own original fragrance "out there."


How to create an international production formula for your homemade perfume
How to create an international production formula for your homemade perfume

Homemade perfumes generally lack commercial value, regardless of how wonderful they may be, because their creators fail to record how their perfumes were made. To profit from a perfume, to sell it, to sell the rights to it, or have somebody sell it for you, you must be able to make more of it. To make more you need the formula, the record of how the perfume was made: what materials were used and how much of each material was used. While the formula is nothing more than a recipe, a simple piece of paper, it is the key to unlocking your perfume's commercial potential. With the formula in your hand you have the ability to make a few dozen bottles more or, like the celebrities, tens of thousands of bottles. How to create an international production formula for your homemade perfume is a guide to getting you started on the right foot, correctly documenting everything you do as you are doing it, and then using these notes with some basic mathematics to write a simple, accurate, universal formula for your perfume. Writing formulas for your perfumes can change the way you think about them. With your formulas in hand your creations are no longer "here today, gone tomorrow." Now, thanks to your library of formulas, your perfumes become immortal!


Making perfume by the quart
Making Perfume By The Quart: A do-it-yourself project book

While much is written about perfume – the beautiful fragrances... the beautiful bottles – little is available on the "mechanics" of perfume production – the steps that take place on the "factory floor" where a beautiful vision is turned into a finished product, a "ready to sell" perfume. Now you can experience all of these steps, hands on, by making just one quart of your own perfume. If you follow each chapter and do what you are instructed to do, you will end up with from 8 to 64 bottles of your own perfume, depending on the capacity of the bottles you select. Along this "insiders journey," each step is profusely illustrated with professional color photographs and you'll learn — • Exactly what alcohol you'll need and where to get it • Why you'll want (just a little!) water in your perfume • What type bottles you'll need and why you cannot use others • Why you will use a spray and not a cap • How to fill and seal your bottles • How to label your bottles with the correct information so they will be legal for sale • How to select a name for your perfume that will allow you to acquire powerful trademark rights free. If you are a developer of scents you are encouraged to use one of your own for this project. If you are not a scent creator yourself you'll learn how to get a fragrance oil that is exactly right for this project. Online sources are given for all required supplies and materials. Nothing can hold you back from starting your project immediately!


Creating your own perfume with a 1700 percent markup
Creating Your Own Perfume With A 1700 Percent Markup! (3rd edition)

Perfume is famous for the markup it can achieve, even for a middle market fragrance. While "everybody knows" that perfume costs next to nothing to make (not completely true) the making of it is often considered an esoteric secret. "Creating Your Own Perfume With A 1700 Percent Markup!" details how a 3-person company with no experience created their own fragrance in response to a marketing opportunity that was too good to pass up. The book explains exactly what was done to create a fragrance for that opportunity but it is far more than a history of the author's project. "Creating Your Own Perfume With A 1700 Percent Markup!" lays out every step in the process of creating your own perfume, either as a do-it-yourself project – and without the benefit of automated equipment some compromises and workarounds are required – or full bore professional production under your supervision. Either way you will be producing a quality fragrance at a remarkably low cost. Do you have a marketing opportunity that would be wildly profitable if only you could obtain your fragrance at a ridiculously low cost? "Creating Your Own Perfume With A 1700 Percent Markup!" is the guide you need to do it.


Creating your own perfume from dropper bottles
Creating your own perfume from dropper bottles: Methods, mechanics, and mathematics

Now when you make your own perfume you can make it fully "commercial" meaning you will be creating a product ready for regular, continuous sales to friends, relatives, and the public! If the fragrance you've made has already won praise, why not share it with others? Some might pay you for it and want it for their web stores or retail boutiques! Creating your own perfume from dropper bottles: Methods, mechanics, and mathematics guides you through steps that can turn your hobby project into a perfume business. Discover how close you are now and how little more you must do to take what you made with essential oils and dropper bottles into a business of your own! For an introduction to this book, watch this video.


How to launch your own business
How To Launch Your Own Perfume Company: A Simple Business Plan

You can build a perfume business of your own using this business plan as a guide. By following its detailed strategy you learn to identify motivated groups of potential perfume buyers. Members of these groups are near the tipping point of desire for a new perfume. You don't know these people and they don't know you but you know a marketer they trust, one who does not currently sell perfume and might never think of selling perfume were it not for your approach. Here is where you step in with a professional plan, promotion, and perfume to take advantage of this ripe opportunity for mutual profit. Before your first promotion has peaked, you will already be developing a relationship with your next marketing partner. Following this plan, you will gain more and more profit with each new marketing partnership.


naming your perfume and protecting your name
Naming Your Perfume And Protecting Your Name

A really great name, a special name that is just right for a particular perfume or perfume marketer (or entrepreneur with money to invest!) can be worth a ton of money. But few individuals with great ideas ever manage to cash in on those brilliant ideas. Instead they wait while others "discover" their idea, acquire legal rights to it and make all the money while they are left out in the cold without a penny having been earned for what was once THEIR idea.

If you are struggling to name your perfume and are looking for a name that will have real value, "Naming Your Perfume And Protecting Your Name" will help you weed out low value names and point you to names that have better marketing value plus the potential to become valuable assets in themselves.

If you have a great name you want to protect but no fragrance, "Naming Your Perfume And Protecting Your Name" will guide you through the simple steps you must take to acquire a legal right to that name before someone else grabs it! Best of all, "Naming Your Perfume And Protecting Your Name" shows you how to gain strong legal protection for your name without a lawyer and without spending more than pocket change.

Never had an idea for a product name? Never thought much about perfume? "Naming Your Perfume And Protecting Your Name" may stimulate your interest in a whole new game that, when played well, can make you lots of money without your having to leave the comfort of your home office.


creating a more valuable name
How To Create A More Valuable Name For Your Perfume

When you name a perfume you create a valuable asset – the name itself. To sell your perfume you want the most effective name possible. But a good name can have value beyond the edge it gives your sales. In naming your fragrance you are creating a trademark and a trademark can have value independent of the product. The value of that trademark can vary. Much depends on how well, in naming your perfume, you follow the trademark "rules." How To Create A More Valuable Name For Your Perfume first helps you develop a name that will be effective in selling your perfume. It then prods you to make use of certain techniques that can turn a good name into a great trademark, strong and valuable. If you have questions about how to protect a name, How To Create A More Valuable Name For Your Perfume will answer many such as:

  • Can you protect your name yourself or do you need a lawyer?
  • Can you register a trademark without a lawyer?
  • What does it cost to register a trademark?
  • How do I enforce the rights I have established?

How To Create A More Valuable Name For Your Perfume covers both state, federal, and international protection.


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Philip Goutell
Lightyears, Inc.