Help me create (Beginner)

[Amberbreens]

Hello everyone,

so I'd use this thread for all my questions regarding attar-making.

I experimented a bit already by mixing some things - was not bad, but I think I don't have a good feeling for ratio yet.

I'd love to tell you what all I have and asked you to please give me some advice on what I blend together and how much.

From Apothecary's Garden:

Musk rat oil and tincture
Ambergris 10% tincture
Hyraceum absolu
Musk root absolue
Mastix chios oil
Storax oil (very thin)
Tonka tincture
Benzoin Sumatra absolutely
Benzoin siam absolutely
Bushman's candle tincture
Myrrh absolutely
Benzyl Benzoate


From Duftkumpels (Germany):
Patchouli Alhambra oil
Castoreum tincture
Iso e Super

From India
20 year old Mysore sandalwood oil

From here and there

Clary sage essential oil
Vanilla absolutely
Frangipani oil


I think that's it. I sadly don't have more ready to use ambergris, my macerations just started.

Can anyone give me advice on how to make a nice and slightly sweet attar from (some of) those ingredients? What would you do?

Also any recommendations on where to buy a small amount (1 ml wold be enough) ready to use deer musk oil or tincture would be much appreciated.

Best wishes
Amberbreens

 

[Amberbreens]

Oh, and I soooo wanna get a honey note. Tried 2 types of beeswax now, mimosa, manuka, Linden blossom...only honeysuckle I don't have yet. What do you make a honey note with?

 

[Bonjt]

Hello everyone,

so I'd use this thread for all my questions regarding attar-making.

I experimented a bit already by mixing some things - was not bad, but I think I don't have a good feeling for ratio yet.

I'd love to tell you what all I have and asked you to please give me some advice on what I blend together and how much.

From Apothecary's Garden:

Musk rat oil and tincture
Ambergris 10% tincture
Hyraceum absolu
Musk root absolue
Mastix chios oil
Storax oil (very thin)
Tonka tincture
Benzoin Sumatra absolutely
Benzoin siam absolutely
Bushman's candle tincture
Myrrh absolutely
Benzyl Benzoate


From Duftkumpels (Germany):
Patchouli Alhambra oil
Castoreum tincture
Iso e Super

From India
20 year old Mysore sandalwood oil

From here and there

Clary sage essential oil
Vanilla absolutely
Frangipani oil


I think that's it. I sadly don't have more ready to use ambergris, my macerations just started.

Can anyone give me advice on how to make a nice and slightly sweet attar from (some of) those ingredients? What would you do?

Also any recommendations on where to buy a small amount (1 ml wold be enough) ready to use deer musk oil or tincture would be much appreciated.

Best wishes
Amberbreens

I saw the iso e super in that shop or other one and they said its natural iso e super. Its even possible to have natural iso e super, just wondering

 

[Mr.P]

I saw the iso e super in that shop or other one and they said its natural iso e super. Its even possible to have natural iso e super, just wondering

It's my understanding that this is entirely synthetic, not a naturally occurring substance. Unlike muscone and ambroxide which naturally occurring molecules and also made synthetically.

 

[Mr.P]

Oh, and I soooo wanna get a honey note. Tried 2 types of beeswax now, mimosa, manuka, Linden blossom...only honeysuckle I don't have yet. What do you make a honey note with?

OUD!! 🙂 🙂 Some Hainan co2 extracts have a salivary note that's also very similar to clover honey and certain other types of honey. I have smelled notes in crassna oil that remind me of beeswax and honey in a different sense as well.

and honey absolute exists!

 

[Amberbreens]

OUD!! 🙂 🙂 Some Hainan co2 extracts have a salivary note that's also very similar to clover honey and certain other types of honey. I have smelled notes in crassna oil that remind me of beeswax and honey in a different sense as well.

and honey absolute exists!

Ok thanks a lot!
I saw honey absolutes, but they were all made from the honey-comb/from beeswax so I guess they'd just smell like beeswax absolute, which is also awesome, but not exactly what I want.

I also asked AI and it said pure honey can not be used for perfume making.

 

[Amberbreens]

I saw the iso e super in that shop or other one and they said its natural iso e super. Its even possible to have natural iso e super, just wondering

I really don't think there is anything like a natural iso e super or hedione, these are completely synthetic pheromones - the ones I had smelled pretty much like nothing. Maybe the said vendors were referring to the natural pheromones that are in musks and other animalics.

Greets
Breens

 

[Bonjt]

I really don't think there is anything like a natural iso e super or hedione, these are completely synthetic pheromones - the ones I had smelled pretty much like nothing. Maybe the said vendors were referring to the natural pheromones that are in musks and other animalics.

Greets
Breens

Or it was “natural” ambroxan, dont remember it very much. But was curious cause that shop was selling only natutals and only 1 synthetic, so it somehow keep stucked in my mind. Nevermind

 

[Mr.P]

Or it was “natural” ambroxan, dont remember it very much. But was curious cause that shop was selling only natutals and only 1 synthetic, so it somehow keep stucked in my mind. Nevermind

Ambroxan is a brand of ambroxide. Ambroxide occurs in nature. there is now a version that is made by fermentation, not by chemical synthesis so in fact you can buy natural ambroxide isolate. I picked up a few grams, it has a great aroma

 

[Mr.P]

it's so similar to the synthetic ambergris that I have not yet been able to bring myself to use it in any of my perfumes.

Kind of been agonizing over this… I could use it to good effect, but purified ambroxide is such a signature of chem perfumes that it feels wrong to me somehow. diluted way down and mixed with other things it can add a very nice authentic feeling ambegris aroma.

 

[Amberbreens]

Or it was “natural” ambroxan, dont remember it very much. But was curious cause that shop was selling only natutals and only 1 synthetic, so it somehow keep stucked in my mind. Nevermind

What shop are you referring to?

 

[Amberbreens]

Ambroxan is a brand of ambroxide. Ambroxide occurs in nature. there is now a version that is made by fermentation, not by chemical synthesis so in fact you can buy natural ambroxide isolate. I picked up a few grams, it has a great aroma

Where did you buy it?

 

[Bonjt]

it's so similar to the synthetic ambergris that I have not yet been able to bring myself to use it in any of my perfumes.

Kind of been agonizing over this… I could use it to good effect, but purified ambroxide is such a signature of chem perfumes that it feels wrong to me somehow. diluted way down and mixed with other things it can add a very nice authentic feeling ambegris aroma.

So despite the fact that some materials are isolated in natural way, there is no such difference opposite to synthetic?

 

[Mr.P]

So despite the fact that some materials are isolated in natural way, there is no such difference opposite to synthetic?

The natural isolate and the synthesized product will be similar in many ways. They will both mostly be made up of whatever the target molecule is and they will both also include an entourage of other molecules in trace amounts that reflect the origin of the material.

It is technically impossible to reach 100% purity with anything. You can get close but never really reach 100% purity is just a function of the nature of reality. so when you isolate a chemical from an essential oil, it's never really just that one chemical even though it may be close to being pure.

Likewise when you synthesize a molecule, you might reach close to 100% purity but there will always be traces of all of the ingredients that were used in the steps along the way - there are always traces and residue and they impact the aroma.

Finally, for any particular molecule there are different forms of it known as isomers. Kind of like your right and left hand, they are the same but not exactly the same. Mirror images. Any given molecule can come in different forms and the ratio of those forms will determine the particular aroma of the mixture. When things are synthesized they tend to be an even mixture of "right handed" and "left-handed" isomers. this will have a particular impact on the olfactory system. When those same chemicals are made by the metabolism of living things the left-hand version of the molecule is either exclusively made or highly favored, giving a slightly different aroma.

 

[Mr.P]

an example… You can buy synthetic muscone, intended to be nature identical to the main odorous molecule found in musk pods. But it's not nature identical because it's a mix of right handed and left-handed versions of muscone.

You can also buy "laevo-muscone" which is more expensive and is mostly the left-handed isomers. They have eliminated 50% of the mixture by removing the right handed versions of the molecule which don't smell the same as the one that's found in nature. So it's both more concentrated and more close to what is in natural deer musk.

 

[Bonjt]

an example… You can buy synthetic muscone, intended to be nature identical to the main odorous molecule found in musk pods. But it's not nature identical because it's a mix of right handed and left-handed versions of muscone.

You can also buy "laevo-muscone" which is more expensive and is mostly the left-handed isomers. They have eliminated 50% of the mixture by removing the right handed versions of the molecule which don't smell the same as the one that's found in nature. So it's both more concentrated and more close to what is in natural deer musk.

But is there some different in aroma in natural isolates and synthetic molecules. Can you say this natural isolates of ambroxan smell more “natural” than the synthetic one? If you compose with this natural isolates will you fragrance smell at the end more like the “commercial” perfumes than a natural/botanical perfumes? Its maybe not correct formulation of my question, in case of musk, really good synthetic musk or accord can smell really close to the original, but in case of other molecules, like ambroxan, which reminds personally in my opinion more something of unnatural than a real ambergris.
People are saying you cant achieve “commercial ” perfume character only with naturals, despite tha fact that you cand find so many natural isolates.
Still dont know how to perceive some of the isolates.

 

[Mr.P]

That's what I was trying to address in my previous post. The natural isolates do not smell the same as the synthetic but they can be similar overall. Maybe to an inexperienced nose they will smell the same. The reason they do not smell the same is because they are not actually chemically the same due to residual materials from the production process and different isomer ratios.

 

[Mr.P]

natural ambroxide isolate will only resemble ambergris under extreme dilution - in pure form it oversaturate and blows out the receptors and smell smells like weird candy chemical stuff.

 

[Mr.P]

I feel like part of what you're asking would be this: if you built a fragrance entirely from synthetic molecules, and then you made a copy of that entirely from natural isolate, how similar with the two smell?

if you literally used the same number of grams of each so it was identical on that level they would probably smell pretty different although clearly related.

You would probably have to make adjustments for the fact that some of the natural isolate will be more pure or concentrated in the left-handed isomers so they may need to be balanced differently by a skilled perfumer to really have a similar smell. But there would be a variety of chemicals in the synthetic mixture that were not found in the natural isolate mixture and vice versa and I'm sure someone who had a sharp nose would know the difference

what this means as far as the commercial potential of natural isolates versus synthetics I have no idea but one thing about this business is people are always trying to differentiate their little niche to give it a little extra cachet

 

[Bonjt]

I feel like part of what you're asking would be this: if you built a fragrance entirely from synthetic molecules, and then you made a copy of that entirely from natural isolate, how similar with the two smell?

if you literally used the same number of grams of each so it was identical on that level they would probably smell pretty different although clearly related.

You would probably have to make adjustments for the fact that some of the natural isolate will be more pure or concentrated in the left-handed isomers so they may need to be balanced differently by a skilled perfumer to really have a similar smell. But there would be a variety of chemicals in the synthetic mixture that were not found in the natural isolate mixture and vice versa and I'm sure someone who had a sharp nose would know the difference

what this means as far as the commercial potential of natural isolates versus synthetics I have no idea but one thing about this business is people are always trying to differentiate their little niche to give it a little extra cachet

Thank you for explanation, i get the theory somehow. In my mind i have some quite strict line between naturals and synthetics. When i see somewhere natural version of molecule which i have categorized as synthetic and know it mainly from commercial/mainstream perfumes, im very curios what does it smell in practice, and what it will do if you include it in natural composition. Will need to probably test it somehow in praxis. When i checked the itinerary of member, question about this topic also poped in my mind, why naturals and one synthetic material, is this also some natural version of iso e super ? 😅

 

[Mr.P]

Thank you for explanation, i get the theory somehow. In my mind i have some quite strict line between naturals and synthetics. When i see somewhere natural version of molecule which i have categorized as synthetic and know it mainly from commercial/mainstream perfumes, im very curios what does it smell in practice, and what it will do if you include it in natural composition. Will need to probably test it somehow in praxis. When i checked the itinerary of member, question about this topic also poped in my mind, why naturals and one synthetic material, is this also some natural version of iso e super ? 😅

I agree I find the idea of these isolates pretty fascinating, and I greatly enjoy tinkering with them in blending. Some smell pretty wacky and artificial, other others are beautiful and elegant. I have a handful…