The holiday season is a time when many of us are going to gift perfume. But do you know who is behind the development of the most famous fragrances? Both chemists and artists, perfume creators combine essences and extracts in search of a mysterious alchemy... To better understand their work, here are 5 things to know about the profession of the nose.
1- They work on their sense of smell.
Seen from the outside, there is something mysterious and magical about the nose job ... However, you should know that this profession also requires a lot of work. As true professionals of the sense of smell, noses never stop working on their gift to develop it . This learning takes time because perfumers have no less than 3000 ingredients available and you have to discover them all! They therefore spend thousands of hours smelling and memorizing extracts, essences or fragrant compounds.
On a daily basis, they use around 500 of them which they must not only keep in mind, but also know how to handle. At the end of their studies, new arrivals in the composition houses study for another two years before being able to claim to create perfumes. More than a gift, this profession therefore requires work, patience and humility...
These professionals improve with experience and must constantly maintain their sense of smell ., like working a muscle.
2- They have a sports mentality.
On a daily basis, perfumers are constantly in competition to win projects from major brands. In order to exercise the profession of nose, it is therefore better to have a sportsman's mind . For each project, three or four different companies are solicited and, within the same company, about twenty people are in competition. The development of a perfume lasts between two and three years , between the initial suggestion and the validation of the final formula. In order to go the distance, it takes stamina and tenacity .
Finally, the creation of a perfume sometimes requires team spirit: as perfumers carry out several projects in parallel, they often need help to finalize their formulas. Read more: https://www.hayatmed.com/
3- They set aside their own tastes.
To be able to create a perfume on any theme, the noses must be able to work on all the notes, even those they don't like ! Indeed, the creation of a fragrance is not only a matter of taste.
It is also an intellectual exercise where you write a formula by imagining the interaction of the ingredients before even testing it... Moreover, the profession of the nose often doubles as the role of tester . Most of these professionals do not wear perfume, but mostly wear their essays.
4- They create the trend.
Not content with creating this or that perfume, the noses are almost obsessively looking for an olfactory theme that will hit the mark . Each era has its own kind of perfumes and these creators strive to be visionaries to design the fragrances of tomorrow. To achieve this, they must be curious about everything and able to seek and find inspiration everywhere . They must show instinct, intuition and sensitivity to develop a formula that corresponds to the customer's wishes while being partly unique. To exercise the profession of nose, it is therefore necessary to take the risk of seducing... or displeasing!
5- They respect specifications.
If you dream of practicing this profession, don't believe that the profession of the nose consists in creating perfumes in complete freedom. Prior to the creation of a perfume, the marketing and artistic team of a brand draws up specifications .
These specifications are then given to the perfumers of several composition houses (which are put in competition as we explained to you above). It can already indicate a provisional name, images or abstract indications and the style of clientele targeted... Each nose then makes an olfactory proposition based on these elements . Only the exclusive perfumers of the big houses are free to create without real specifications, their role being rather to transcribe the "spirit" of the house into perfume.
