Scaling up: From drops to liters
Note: This article is a follow-up on a blog post found here — And I've posted a video showing how we set up the electronic balance here.
When creating a fragrance, I work with dropper bottles and small mixing cups which have screw-on caps. My initial sketch for a fragrance may involve from 50 down to 10 or fewer drops total. Dropper bottles are a handy, but not precise, tool for developing a new fragrance.
Mixing pots with screw-on caps, in use ... lots of them!
Here's the formula, in drops, of a fragrance I developed.
Pictured above is my formula measured in drops, the way I originally developed it.
And here are some of the dropper bottles I've used to develop this formula.
Pictured above are some of the dropper bottles I used to develop my formula.
If I was going to produce several kilos of oil—juice—for this fragrance, I would not do it based on my satisfaction with a very small trial batch of the fragrance measuring only a handful of drops. Nor would I be writing my formula out in drops. At this point I want to convert my formula to weights and percentages. To do this I must weigh out each ingredient and then, after totaling the weights, calculate the percentage, by weight, of each material.
Weighing out the formula requires the use of a good scale (called a balance) and mine (Acculab VIC-123) is reasonably good, showing weights down to 1/1000th of a gram. A professional perfume creation company would, no doubt, have equipment that was considerably more sensitive and accurate.
Before weighing each ingredient in my formula, I'll bump up the number of drops for each ingredient so that small variations in drop size will be canceled out. Rather than mix a formula with just 30 or even 50 drips, I'll bump the drops total up to 100. Even then if there are some materials I have used in small quantities, say 1/2 or 1/4 drop, I'll bump the total quantity up higher so that no ingredient will get less than two drops in the enlarged batch. In the example shown, my new total was 150 drops.
NOTE: Professional perfumers will almost always use some ingredients in amounts so small that my equipment would have no way of dispensing them properly or measuring their weights. For the independent, "part time" perfumer, ultra small touches must generally be ignored, although there are some tricks that can be used to include faint touches of these materials, albeit with imprecise measurement.
Here now is my setup for weighing out my formula. Notice that I have my notebook handy, ready for me to mark down the weight of each material.
Here's my setup for weighing out each aroma material I've used in my formula.
NOTE: If you've never used an electronic balance it's a good idea to test with some junk material, to get the hang of it. They can do some tricks on you if you're not alert.
Now let's get down to business.
First we zero out the scale to make sure our weighing will be accurate. Then we place a mixing pot—one large enough to hold all the drops we will be mixing—onto the balance, weigh it, and record this weight. This is known as the tare weight, the weight of the container itself.
The electronic balance is now set to zero, ready to begin measuring our project.
At this point you can proceed in several ways. The point is, as you add each ingredient to the mix, you must capture the weight of that ingredient. As for me, after weighing the container, I zero out the scale again with the container on the scale. Now I begin adding drops.
As I add, drop by drop, the drops for each material, I record the new weight after I've finished adding each new material. When I'm finished I have the total weight of the full formula plus, after some subtractions, the weight of each individual material in the formula.
Here's the bottle again, on the electronic balance (scale) now holding the 150 drops of my formula.
Now, since I have the total weight and the weight of each material, I can calculate the percentage—by weight—of each material in the formula. This allows me to scale up production for any size batch. Once I determine the batch size I want, I know what weight each ingredient will contribute to that batch.
Before going into production I will repeat the weighting procedure a second time, as a check against my weight calculations. If my weights the second time vary too much from my weights the first time, through human error in adding drops or by the size of the drops themselves, I'll weigh out a third batch.
The spreadsheet above shows the final results. The first column is the original number of drops. The second column is the cumulative weight of the formula as each material is added, the third column is the actual weight of the material, and the fourth column is the percentage, by weight, that material contributes to the formula. You can do the math by hand but in this case I chose to do it on a spreadsheet.
Also—essential—I'll test each finished batch with a test blotter to make sure that I've really mixed the fragrance I intended to mix. At this point if it doesn't smell right I can go back and make adjustments. After this, my measurements and percentages ARE the formula.
Here's the newest addition to our bookstore!
Creating your own perfume from dropper bottles:
Methods, mechanics, and mathematics
If you are an independent creator of perfumes, chances are you will begin your projects with dropper bottles. But you know that drops are inconsistent in size and weight and to develop a repeatable formula, you will convert your "drops" formula into a "grams" formula and then into a "percents" formula. Now you can produce any amount of your fragrance that a client might require and it will be a perfect match – the same smell, the same evaporation factor – as your original sample.
You also know that it's handy to know the relationship between a pound of your perfume and a gallon. If you're given a large order in gallons, you don't want to under produce your oil (and have to wait weeks until a second batch is ready) or over produce your oil (and tie up your capital by stocking oil that might never be sold.) Following the development of the author's newest perfume, the book shows the importance of being able to convert weights (grams, ounces, kilos, pounds) to volumes (milliliters, fluid ounces, liters, gallons) and from metric measurements to American customary units. Rather than finding yourself confused by these conversions, the author's example demonstrated both the importance and the simplicity of making these conversions "on the fly." The $9.99 pdf version, available here, comes in 6x9 format giving you good viewing on mobile devices. If you are printing your copy on standard letter size sheets, we recommend that you print to "fit", which will slightly enlarge the text. In addition to the $9.99 pdf version, a paperback edition is available at Amazon ($29.99).
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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!
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!
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.
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.
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.
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.
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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.
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:
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- What does it cost to register a trademark?
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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.
