The Perfume Brief

fragrances are created to represent experiences sometimes the whim of an individual or sometimes a deliberate recreation of a popular aspiration. The smell of an Arabian souk was explored literally by a team of perfume hunters , touring a souk in Marrakesh, picking up the wood, spices and incense from such a scene that are the essence Arabie, editing out the inevitable environmental malodours, which may come with such territory. A funfair becomes a melee of candyfloss, chocolate 

Communication is one of the main challenges faced by the fragrance industry. Fragrance experts, like many experts, have their own language. Clients and consumers speak of scent in different terms. For most people, the ability to describe a smell is limited to like or dislike terms, or at 

The 13 P s that constitute the building bricks of a substantial fragrance brief with a general outline of the key thoughts linked to them 

Product What is the product formula What chemical environment will the perfume face Does the product have colour or any other physical characteristics such as base odour Any special ingredients  

Positioning Place Production What is the intended market position of the product Is the product intended for the national, regional or global marketplace What production process will the product undergo, at what time and how will it be dosed  

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Figure 5.1 General structure of an international fragrance company around the perfume brief (adaptedfrom Curtis and Williams, 1995)...

Over time these constraints become part and parcel of the perfumer s work. They are embodied in the range of materials that the perfumer can use they are tacitly implied in every briefing and naturally and universally respected by perfumers. To exemplify the point by a dramatic example the extract from the skin of young women used by the hero in Patrick Suskind s novel The Perfume may be a wonderful perfumery material, but no perfumer considers him- or herself handicapped by the impossibility of using this extract. 

In the main, however, the task is simplified by guiding clients by means of a printed Perfume Brief Document or by catalysing their thoughts by using an aide-memoire, which sales and marketing people carry in their faithful filofaxes The majority of briefs received are not... 

You are familiar with all our production methods for fine fragrances, soaps, shower gels, shampoos and antiperspirants, having had the details of equipment from the Ninevah brief of 1994. Direct contact with our contract packers is recommended to review and update your knowledge of these methods, and how they impact on perfume dosage. 

The brief from Business Scents Ltd requests submissions for a feminine luxury line that includes a fine fragrance, antiperspirant, shampoo/ shower gel and soap. The perfumer has asked for guidelines for the appropriate odour area as soon as possible so that the creative work can begin. 

Beginning with the history of perfumes, which goes back over fifty thousand years, the book goes on to discuss the structure of the Perfume Industry today. The focus then turns to an imaginary brief to create a perfume, and the response to it, including that of the chemist and the creative perfumer. Consumer research, toxicological concerns, and the use of the electronic nose are some of the topics discussed on this journey of discovery. 

Now inside the head of this imaginary consumer and brand, with the fragrance selected and perfected by the perfumer, the team venture forth to the client clutching fragrance samples, concept boards and research data to support their interpretation of the brief. The fate of the fragrance is in the hands of the client and possibly depends on future market research. What happens next will vary widely from one manufacturer to another. For some, the submission will be scrutinised by an independent expert nose , employed for the purpose of selecting market winners others will send the submission to consumer panels to test their response, while in other companies one individual will drive the product development and make the fragrance selection. 

The information presented in this chapter is intended to provide a brief overview of the composition, performance, and formulation properties of LAS by itself and in combination with other surfactants. The particular performance synergies and processing characteristics of certain combinations of surfactants are discussed briefly. The examples of mixed active formulations provided herein represent to the best of the author s knowledge the approximate levels of major surfactants in actual household detergent products both past and present. This does not imply that these formulations are complete because many additives, such as bleaches, enzymes, builders, hydrotropes, thickeners, perfumes, and coloring agents, may also be present in varying amounts. 

The practical problem stems from the fact that briefings calling for close matches are often based on a fundamental misconception. In thinking that they can capture the model s success for their own product by closely matching the model s physical features and perfume, the manufacturers and marketers of imitative products overestimate the... 

Should the demand for "renewability" become a common one in fragrance briefings, it would cause a switch, wherever possible, from oil- and natural gas-derived aroma chemicals to turpentine-derived ones. Demands that a high proportion of the components of perfumes be derived from renewable resources would not constitute a very severe constraint upon perfume creation, but demands that all or nearly all components be so derived would necessitate a radical reorientation including, say, the abandonment of all synthetic musks known today. 

In the brief discussion that follows, we will again restrict ourselves to those aspects of the subject that have direct and practical application to perfumers work. They relate only to relations between concentration and perception, for although considerable research has been and is being conducted upon the perception of mixtures of odorants, this research has not, so far, generated findings of immediate interest to perfumers. 

For that matter, in my search through Bartlett s and other quotation encyclopedias for a suitable epigraph to this Chapter 5, looking under smell, odor, olfaction, perfume, and the like, I found very few quotations at all, and those I did find were really about something else (e.g., "A rose by any other name would smell as sweet"). Somewhat spitefully, I have made do with Bienfang. For the reader s delectation, I have appended a brief selection from my own more extensive catalogue of specifically olfactory quotations. 

In answering a customer brief such as that from Business Scents Ltd, a perfumer welcomes as much guidance as possible in how to win that brief successfully. The four disciplines mentioned above (sensory analysis, market research, statistics and psychology) together form a powerful analytical and predictive tool, different aspects of which can be used for guidance in perfume creation depending on the requirements of the brief. In the sections that follow in this chapter, a brief outline of the techniques currently used within each of these areas of expertise is given, as are examples of how they could be used to fulfil the Business Scents brief. 

Perfume Does your final submission meet all the criteria above If the customer mentions a fine fragrance by name does he or she really mean that particular brand or fragrance direction Probe. How much fragrance is required for the brief testing What regulations must the fragrance meet ... 

Security was quite different from all the other chapters in the book. It was very brief at 12 pages, tied as shortest with the introductory chapter Nature Points the Way . The chapter was also very vague compared to the lists and descriptions that accompanied the other sections. There was no mention of the U S. Chemical Warfare Service, the main source of chemical weapons for the American forces in World War I. In fact, no specific war chemicals were referred to by name and Morrison did not name a single chemist, unlike the other chapters that list materials and note the work of famous scientists. About a third of the chapter is devoted to fire fighting, police work, and safety at sea rather than warfare. Morrison deals with actual gas warfare in a mere two paragraphs, comparing it to perfume. 

Perfumers were familiar neither with sensory analysis nor with the Flash Profile procedure. They were therefore first given a brief outline of the methodology and procedure. They were then introduced to the 12 samples of perfumes simultaneously. Paper strips were provided for evaluation. 

First, a qualitative free association stage, followed by a quantitative evaluation stage. During the first stage, a briefing on the methodology was held before the products were distributed to the participants. Perfumes were evaluated in monadic sequential fashion. 

D. H. Pybus, The history of aroma chemistry and perfumes. The Chemistry of Fragrance Perfume Creativity from Brief to Market Place, ch. 2 (D. H. Pybus and C. S. Sell, eds). Royal Society of Chemistry, Cambridge, UK, 1999. 

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