Three types of fragrance ingredients that make up perfume and their meanings and differences: natural fragrance, synthetic fragrance, and compound fragrance.

What is fragrance?

When you hold a bottle of perfume in your hand and spray it, sometimes violet brushes past, sometimes warm wood lingers, and sometimes a subtle musk settles on the skin.

The material that creates all those impressions is precisely Fragrance Ingredient / Aroma Materialall.

Fragrance refers to fragrant substances and is a key ingredient in almost all scented products in daily life, ranging from perfumes and cosmetics to detergents, candles, and diffusers.

The types of fragrance raw materials currently used in the perfume industry are Over 3,000 speciesIt reaches. These vast spices are broadly divided into three categories.

natural fragrances

Natural fragrances are scent substances extracted from raw materials collected from nature, such as plants, animals, and minerals.

It is the oldest form of fragrance since humanity began using scents, and even today, natural fragrances are used as a key ingredient in high-end perfumes to add depth and complexity to the scent.

Plant-based flavorings — flowers, leaves, roots, resins

Vegetable fragrances are extracted from almost all parts of plants, including flowers, leaves, stems, roots, seeds, bark, wood, and resin.

Even a single orange tree has leaves and stemsPetitgrain, Three raw materials with completely different scents can be obtained from the flowers, such as neroli and orange flower absolute, and from the peel, orange essential oil.

The extraction method for obtaining plant-based flavors varies depending on the properties of the raw materials.

Main extraction methods

Steam DistillationThis is the most common method. When steam is passed through plant raw materials, fragrance molecules evaporate along with the steam, and when cooled, they separate into water and essential oil. lavender, sandalwood, It is suitable for relatively hardy ingredients like peppermint.

Cold Expression은 Bergamot, This method obtains oil by mechanically pressing the peels of citrus fruits such as lemons and oranges. Since no heat is used, the fresh and bright scent characteristic of citrus is preserved intact.

Solvent ExtractionIt is a method to preserve heat-sensitive floral scents.

Jasmine, rose, because fragrance molecules in delicate flowers like tuberose are damaged during the steam distillation process, the fragrance components are dissolved using solvents such as hexane and then solidified together with wax components into a semi-solid state ConcreteMake it first.

If this concrete is treated again with ethanol to remove the wax, a highly concentrated fragrance liquid that is completely soluble in alcohol, AbsoluteThe is completed.

Absolute is the most concentrated and delicate of all perfume ingredients, and accordingly, it is also the most expensive.

Cold maceration (Enfleurage)This is a traditional method that originated in ancient Egypt and was used until the 19th century. It utilizes the principle that fragrance molecules gradually seep into the fat when flower petals are placed on a layer of refined fat.

Currently, it is rarely used commercially, and only a few small-scale artisan perfumers continue the tradition.

Supercritical CO₂ ExtractionThis is a relatively recently developed method. When carbon dioxide is brought to a high pressure of 73.8 bar or higher, it behaves like a liquid and acts as a solvent.

Since extraction is performed at low temperatures, heat-induced damage to fragrance molecules is minimized, and a result closest to the original scent of the raw materials can be obtained.

Animal-derived flavoring

Fragrance ingredients derived from animals are an indispensable part of the history of perfume. Intense, sensual, and harmonizing exceptionally well with the skin, these animal-derived scents were once the core ingredients of all luxury perfumes.

However, due to animal ethics, price issues, and the emergence of synthetic substitutes, most have disappeared from modern perfumes. There are four representative animal-derived fragrances.

The commonality among these ingredients is that they become more attractive the more they are diluted.

In its undiluted state, it has an intense animalistic odor, but when diluted to the extreme, it adds an indescribable depth and sensuality to perfumes and exhibits a fixation power incomparable to other fragrance ingredients.

Perfumer Mandy Aftel described Civet as follows: “It moves quietly within the blend, transforming every element and giving the whole remarkable depth.”

In the current perfume industry, musk has been virtually replaced by synthetic ingredients.

Long before ethical awareness regarding animal-derived flavorings increased, synthetic substitutes were already chosen by the industry because they were cheaper and more stable.

synthetic fragrance

Synthetic fragrances are scent molecules created through a chemical synthesis process. Today, approximately 70 to 801 TP3T of commercial perfumes consist of synthetic fragrances, and 591 TP3T of the global perfume industry's raw material expenditure goes into synthetic ingredients.

The emergence of synthetic fragrances was a revolution that completely rewrote the history of perfume.

The Birth of Synthetic Fragrances

The official birthday of perfume chemistry dates back to 1868.

British chemist William Perkin [identified] the main flavor component of tonka bean CoumarinIt is the first successful synthesis of.

Coumarin, which is sweet, hay-like, and has a slight tobacco scent, was a very expensive raw material at the time, but thanks to Perkin's synthesis method, it became possible to supply it in large quantities at a much lower cost.

Fourteen years later, in 1882, perfumer Paul Parquet used this synthetic coumarin in Houbigant's perfume Fougère RoyaleIt was used in. This perfume is considered the true starting point of modern perfumery.

Since then, the discovery and development of synthetic fragrance molecules continued at a rapid pace. Examining the timeline of the discovery of major synthetic fragrances provides a clear overview of how the modern perfume industry was formed.

Luca Turin, a perfumer and chemist, defined the relationship between synthetic and natural fragrances as follows.

“Synthetic ingredients are the bones of perfume, and natural ingredients are the flesh.” No one wants perfume without bones. However, perfume without flesh is also cold and empty.

Types of Synthetic Fragrances — Identical Natural Fragrance and Pure Synthetic Fragrance

Synthetic fragrances can be further divided into two categories.

First is Nature-IdenticalIt is made by chemically synthesizing fragrance molecules that actually exist in nature, and its structure is identical to that of natural ingredients.

The previously mentioned vanillin, coumarin, geraniol, and linalool belong to this category.
It is much cheaper than extracting from nature and has stable quality.

The second one is Pure Synthetic Scent (Novel Synthetic / De Novo Synthetic)am.
Humans created fragrance molecules that do not exist in nature for the first time. Polycyclic compounds such as aliphatic aldehydes and galaxolide Musk, Calone, etc. are representative examples.

These cannot be found in nature, but they enable a new dimension of expression in perfume.

For example, Kalon is a molecule discovered in 1951 that produces a marine and fresh melon-watermelon scent, which was a completely new sense of scent not found anywhere in nature.

Compound fragrance

In addition to natural and synthetic fragrances, there is a third category that cannot be overlooked in the actual perfume industry.
as soon as Compound flavoring, commonly Fragrance BaseIt is called that.

Compound fragrances are made by pre-mixing natural and synthetic fragrance ingredients in specific proportions to form a single finished fragrance block.

For example, 'jasmine base' is used to emulate the scent of jasmine. Jasmine It is a complex fragrance composed of absolute, synthetic indole, hedione, linalool, benzyl acetate, etc., mixed in specific proportions.

A perfumer can use this single base like a 'ingredient' to compose a perfume.

According to the dictionary of perfume industry terms, "scenting base" is used in two senses.

The first is “a subunit or building block of perfume, which, unlike an accord, is a complete fragrance structure with balanced top, middle, and end notes,” and,

The second refers to non-perfume media, namely soap bases or lotion bases. In the context of perfumery, the term "perfume base" refers to the former.

Accord — Harmony of scents

To understand blended flavors, first AccordYou need to know what it is.
An accord is a mixture in which the intensities of fragrance components are balanced to produce a harmonious effect, and it is used as a building block for perfumes.
You can already tell a lot from the fact that the name itself comes from the musical word 'chord'.

Jean-Claude Ellena explained the accord as follows.
When a piano has 88 keys, pressing them all at once produces an unpleasant noise.
However, even if you select only three keys out of those 88, mathematically 109,736 different combinations are generated.
The same goes for fragrance ingredients.

When you gather the blotter containing the three ingredients under your nose and shake it, each scent does not disappear, yet together they create a new impression that they could not have created on their own.
Fragrance ingredients do not erase the original to become a new color, as if mixing colors.
It maintains its individual existence while simultaneously creating new meaning.
As Elena put it, in the world of smell 1+1=3, and 1 is still perceived.

However, the accord does not always operate strictly according to this principle.
When a critical point is reached at a specific ratio, the two components completely fuse, giving birth to a completely new scent that is unrecognizable from the original.
This is a much rarer phenomenon that occurs when the principles of a general accord are pushed to the extreme.

Difference between Accord and steering base

Although the terms accord and fragrance base are sometimes used interchangeably, they are distinguished in the perfume industry.

In actual steering practice, these two concepts are closely linked.

The perfumer first experiments with accords using two or three ingredients, and once a satisfactory combination is found, develops it into a finished base with a flow of top, middle, and base.

Much like the perfumery process described by Charles Sell, it involves creating separate accords of moist and floral ingredients and exotic and fruity ingredients, and then mixing the two accords in various proportions to find the optimal balance.

Representative accords that made perfume history

In the history of perfume, there are many instances where a single accord has shaped a perfume lineage for decades.

As described by Luca Turin, Guerlain's Mitsuko was a structure that added a peach-based persicole to Coty's chypre accord.
However, the result was not simply a mixture of two things. It was a completely new being—Mitsuko herself—whom, despite being met for the first time on an autumn day, felt as though she had been known for a long time.
This is the power of the Accord.

Types and Applications of Steering Bases

Steering bases can be classified as follows according to their characteristics.

Steering bases are widely used by everyone from hobbyists (DIY steering) to professional perfumers.
In particular, as the number of consumers making their own perfumes has recently increased in Korea, fragrance base products sold under names such as 'plum base,' 'amber base,' and 'jasmine base' can be easily found at Bangsan Market or specialized fragrance shopping malls.

Using a fragrance base has the advantage of allowing complex fragrance structures to be quickly realized without having to combine individual ingredients one by one.
On the other hand, since the scent of the base itself fixes the direction, the freedom of creation may be somewhat limited compared to directly combining individual ingredients.
As professional perfumer Luca Turin said in his analogy, the base is “starting from the work of senior perfumers.”.

Comparison of Three Flavorings — How They Differ and How They Are Used Together

Fragrance ratio in the modern perfume industry

Modern commercial perfumes are made by combining three fragrance ingredients almost without exception.

IFRA (International Fragrance Association)According to [source], approximately 751 TP3T of the fragrances currently used worldwide are produced in synthetic factories, while the remaining approximately 251 TP3T comes from natural raw materials.

Behind this ratio lies not merely a matter of cost, but also aesthetic and creative reasons. Jean-Claude Ellena expressed the significance of synthetic ingredients to perfumers in this way.

When early perfumers first encountered synthetic materials, they experienced it as a “liberation that broke free from compulsory references to nature and opened up new possibilities for creation.”.

For example, 'Perfumer's Amber' has nothing to do with natural amber or ambergris.

It is a completely new fragrance structure created by combining synthetic vanillin and natural labdanum absolute, and this combination itself has become a standard serving as the basis for countless modern perfumes.

In addition, fragrances that cannot be naturally extracted for technical or economic reasons, such as lily of the valley (Muguet) or lilac, can only be realized through a combination of synthetic molecules.

As such The boundary between natural and synthetic is increasingly being creatively blurred.