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From plant to perfume
Before manufacturing can begin, the initial ingredients, whether natural or synthetic, must be brought together.
For natural ingredients – such as flowers, grasses, spices, fruit, wood, roots, resins, leaves and gums – this can involve collecting natural materials from around the world.
Often, these ingredients are hand-picked and distilled or extracted in the field to preserve their fragrance. Oils are extracted from plants via several methods, such as steam distillation, solvent extraction and expression.
Synthetic materials such as alcohol and petrochemicals are also used to ‘recreate’ natural scents – which may make their use less expensive and resource-intensive.
With these ingredients, perfumers can blend a formula that matches their customer’s request.
The journey from source to scent
1 · Gathering ingredients Harvested flowers, woods, resins and fruit zests are distilled, expressed or extracted next to the fields to lock in aroma. In parallel, specialty chemists make complementary molecules — often to recreate rare notes or boost performance.
2 · The perfumer’s palette Around one thousand trained “noses” worldwide spend years learning to identify thousands of smells and to write formulas — balancing top, middle and base notes so the fragrance unfolds over seconds, minutes and hours.
3 · Evaluation & refinement Trial blends are placed in shampoos, candles or fine-fragrance bases and tested for intensity, longevity and how they interact with other ingredients. Dozens of adjustments later, the winning formula is locked.
4 · Manufacture & quality checks The final oil is produced in stainless-steel reactors under strict quality controls, then shipped to brand partners who dose it into finished consumer products at precisely the right concentration.
““Creating a fragrance is where chemistry meets poetry.””
From blend to product
Once the creative brief is approved, automated blending systems reproduce the formula with part-per-million precision under Good Manufacturing Practice. Brand owners and fragrance houses work closely to match scent performance to product function — fresh laundry, long-lasting deodorant, sophisticated fine fragrance or welcoming home care.
Throughout manufacturing and distribution, strict quality controls, sustainability audits and the global IFRA Code of Practice guide every batch, so the fragrance that reaches consumers delivers pleasure and problem-solving performance in equal measure.