u/trumnam

Wanted to show off this formula I made for a custom handsoap that I made for my partner :)

I feel like most hobbyist perfumers (like me) tend to heavily gravitate towards fine fragrance, but since my partner loves candles and soaps and stuff I thought I would give functional fragrance a shot :D

and my god, safe to say I really really REALLY like this formula, so much so that I wish it was safe on skin as fine fragrance, but the heavy Peonile overdose makes that basically impossible... oh well. I chose to dose Peonile super high because it's one of my favorite AC's, and is basically made for alkaline environments like castile soap. It's rosey for sure, but even with a name like Peonile it's not super Peony like. I just really like the smell of it.

Overall the smell is obviously super sweet and vaniila heavy, with a nice and lush rosey drape over the entire scent. Plus the sort of like, fresh metallic smell that Peonile has combined with the fruity musk contributes a very interesting facet that for some reason reminds me A TON of the dry-down of Ghost in The Shell by État Libre d'Orange, which is interesting because that perfume is basically a captive AC powerhouse lmao. Olfactory phenomena be phenomenaing ig

This concentrate is meant to be added to plain castile soap along with some polysorbate-20 (for solubilizing and emulsifiying) at a 1% - 2% concentration. You could use it as a body wash I suppose, but I stopped using castile soap as body wash when I learned that it builds up soap scum much faster than regular ol' shower gel, plus it can def dry out your skin if you have a drier skin type.

If anyone here knows a lot about functional fragrance and has some critique / tips, I would definitely appreciate it, otherwise I am just wanting to show this formula off to y'all :)))))

Def recommend whipping up a batch if you have the ingredients, take my word for it. FYI the Vanilla Bean Key Accord is from Perfumers Apprentice (the formula is public) and the Honeysuckle Base + Fig Sig. base are from Fraterworks. You could probably do without the Fig Sig. but the Honeysuckle Base is integral, plus it's easily my favorite base I have ever smelled bar none.

Accidentally cooked tomatoes in my pan and it rusted. Used some bar keepers friend to strip the seasoning and re-season but now I’m worried I didn’t scrub enough. What do yall think?

Working on this formula concentrate and trying to round it out a bit more. Looking for some advice / recommendations / critique. This is my third revision. Concentration is still up in the air, have tried at 10% EDT 20% EDP and 30% Extrait and enjoy the EDP concentration the best, but that also is subject to change as I analyze post-maceration.

Smells like a sorta basic woody vanilla scent with some nice brightness in the opening, and I do like it, but feel that it's a bit flat in the dry down. Everyone who I've shown it to is generally a fan but also theres definitely a degree of friend/family bias there. My AC library is only about 50 chemicals right now, so whatever suggestions are given will probably take a bit for me to explore.

My first iteration was a bit more powdery than I was looking for, and I learned that the "Amber Key Accord" from PA already has a decent amount of ionones in it so I lowered the gamma ionone by around half. Played around by taking out some of the ISO E Super and replacing it with some ethlyne brasselyate to try and bolster the powdery vanilla notes, but I honestly prefer the more woody-amber leaning nature with just a *tad* bit of powderyness. I ain't tryna go full on Mind Games Queening with it haha.

Here is some of my thinking so far:

I was thinking of maybe adding some coumarin though I need to order more. Would probably help bolster the sweetness and give a bit more grit to the vanilla since the formula contains much more ethyl vanillin than vanillin (in the Vanilla Bean Key Accord).

I tried adding a touch of ethyl maltol and it takes it in a direction that I don't really enjoy. The maltol present in the Vanilla Bean Key Accord is enough to maintain the sweetness to my nose.

Not dead-set on the florol, I just really like the smell of that aromachemical and have been adding it at trace to overdose levels in most of my test-compositions. I thought that the subtle floral sweetness provided at low levels would help complement the vanilla. Same thing with the Muscenone and Ambroxan, I just love the smell of it and add it to almost everything lol. Plus Ambroxan pushed past 1% gives me a sort of BR540 sweetness that I really enjoy, maybe I could add some Veramoss to this too?

Ambrettolide is just for reducing the ethanol smell, might not be super important but I'm keeping it... IT'S MY FORMULA!!! Hehe

My first batch had no bergamot and I realized just how important bergamot is even in compositions that aren't fresh / citrus forward. Though maybe I could lower the amount I'm using? Idk, you let me know more experienced Redditors!

Tried adding some dihydromyrcenol to bridge the slight freshness of the opening to the dry down but it ended up just making my perfume smell like Azzaro the Most Wanted Parfum lol. Wonder if that's what makes the slightly fresh ginger-cardamom opening in the Parfum *pop* compared to the more subdued EDP, anyhow...

All n all I really like the smell, tho it's pretty basic at the end of the day. Which isn't inherently a bad thing, not expecting to be a master perfumer with only half a year of training, just wanna make nice smelling stuff to sell to my classmates to help out financially during my masters program hehe. But yeah, please critique away! I love learning how to get better at things and even just skimming posts from other people on this sub has been such a great help!