Fragrance making workshop

"Fragrance is a way of communicating without words"

Last week we took part in a fragrance workshop with fragrance expert Karen Gilbert. We learnt about all of the vital elements that make for a bespoke fragrance. Karen taught us about mixing different notes to create a desired smell, whether it be fruity, fresh, earthy or more traditional.

In order to create a successful fragrance, it is key that the scent engages with all of the senses and not just through smell. It has to engage with the consumer through a narrative element in order for the consumer to be able to make a personal bond with the scent that is given off, whether it is used to evoke memories or a particular time in the consumers life that they wish they could return to.

"Fragrance makes us think, feel and react without ever knowing why"

In the workshop we got a chance to test lots of different notes to pick out our 5 favourite within the 3 categories: Heart, Fixtative, Accessory or a combination of 2 together. After testing the scents and deciding on what notes we wanted to combine in order to create our final fragrance, we then had to decide on how many drops of each element we wanted to add, in order to total a final number of 120 drops. Our final notes that we decided on were Vanilla, Fruity, Naturelle, Woody and Mossy. We decided to use Naturalle and Woody as our main notes with the majority of drops and used the stronger notes such as vanilla and fruity for an added element to the fragrance in order for it to not be too overpowering or sweet/sickly.

We were really pleased with our final fragrance as I feel it perfectly encapsulated what we wanted our final product to present. The outcome that we created was a soft, luxurious, slightly peachy fragrance that engaged each of us with the memories of childhood and being carefree.

I found the workshop to be extremely interesting as not only did we get to create our own fragrance, we also got the chance to learn about what lies beneath the scent of a fragrance and how it is influenced and created.