Home Lab | PPE 004 Podcast All Paths Lead to Aroma

January 20, 2025

The podcast 'Todos os caminhos vão dar ao aroma' is sponsored by Jarilo. In this podcast, Mariana, the founder of Jarilo, explores the world of perfumery and tries to discover how perfume is made.

This article is the transcript of EP4 001. Home laboratory

[Start of transcript]

↳Today I'm going to tell you what I needed to set up my mini perfumery laboratory at home.

↳In fact, it was very simple. When I started the perfumery course at the Experimental Perfume Club, I was sent a kit with everything needed to get started.

↳In addition to the raw materials, this kit included a scale with two decimal places, i.e. 0.01, plastic pipettes, blotter strips, 15 ml bottles and 30 ml bottles.

↳As you can imagine, over time I have needed to buy more material than what came in the kit.

↳These materials can all be bought on Amazon, with the exception of the raw materials, but I prefer more specialized stores, such as Olfatorium, a Spanish store dedicated to perfumery that has a laboratory material section where we can find scales, blotter strips, pipettes, Erlenmeyer flasks, funnels, spatulas, paper filters and everything else needed to have a mini laboratory at home.

↳One thing that wasn't included in the course kit, because the raw materials were already diluted, was alcohol. The alcohol used in perfumery is a little difficult to find because it is denatured with a specific material that has no smell. Unlike the alcohol we can find in supermarkets, which is denatured with a material that can influence the smell of the alcohol.

↳In the store I mentioned earlier, Olfatorium, it is possible to find alcohol suitable for use in perfumery, both for dilutions and for making a perfume.

↳Regarding the bottles, it's important that they are at least 15ml. The bottles are used to make dilutions of raw materials, and usually a bottle that can hold 10g of raw material plus alcohol is needed. Since alcohol is lighter than water, it takes up more space, so for 10g, a bottle that holds more than 10ml is needed, which is why 15ml bottles are usually used.

↳And regarding the blotter strips, sometimes when I run out and haven't bought another batch yet, I use watercolor paper, which is a thick paper that absorbs well and doesn't have a very dominant smell. It's not the same thing but it works in a pinch.

↳The most difficult part of having a mini perfumery laboratory at home is choosing which raw materials to start our study with.

↳If I were starting now and didn't have access to a kit like I did when I started the course, these would be the raw materials I would choose:

↳5 natural raw materials - Bergamot EO, from the citrus family, a top note that is very widely used in perfumes today; Ylang Ylang EO, from the floral family and a heart note; Lavandin EO, an aromatic family note and a heart note; Sandalwood EO, a woody family note and a base note; and Vanilla Absolute, an amber family note and a base note.

↳3 molecules; Hedione from the floral family; ISO e Super from the woody family and Ambroxan from the animalic family. These three molecules are widely used in the perfumes we find today in perfumeries.

↳With these 8 ingredients, it is possible to start olfactory training, study the volatility of materials, study various families, and create some accords.

↳I advise you to always buy the smallest possible amount of material. There's no point in buying large quantities at the beginning or spending a lot of money.

↳In summary, setting up a mini perfumery laboratory at home is much easier than most people imagine. The necessary materials are simple and not very expensive, such as the scale, blotter strips, pipettes, and bottles.

↳You also don't need to start with a huge palette of raw materials. The 8 I suggested are more than enough to get started.

↳I'll leave the link to the store I mentioned here and some materials you can find on Amazon.

↳In the next episode, I'll talk about the various types of raw materials that exist.

↳Thank you for listening to this episode of the podcast "Todos os caminhos vão dar ao aroma". If you enjoyed it, don't forget to subscribe, share with friends, leave a comment, or send an email to todososcaminhosvaodaraoaroma@gmail.com.

↳I'd like to know if you'd like to have your own perfumery laboratory at home; send me an email telling me all about it.

Until next time