One of the real challenges facing newbie perfumistas (and even some of us seasoned perfumistas) is learning to pick out fragrance notes. As I've said before (see Perfumista tip: on getting to know fragrance notes), I don't think you need to be an expert either to enjoy perfume or to approach it as an art form, but a certain level of familiarity is certainly helpful — if everyone is talking about sandalwood and you have no idea what sandalwood smells like, you're left in the dark.
One alternative is to just keep on doggedly smelling different perfumes until you start to recognize and "pick out" fragrance notes, another is to smell the materials separately. The new Les coulisses du parfum kits from Osmoz, the consumer website of the fragrance & flavor company Firmenich, are designed to help you with the latter approach.
There are 3 kits in the series. Volume III, the one I'm reviewing today, is "Legendary woods & resins", and of necessity is the only one of the 3 made up entirely of natural raw materials.1 Volume III includes cedar, myrrh, sandalwood, benzoin, vetiver, patchouli, balsam fir, oak, galbanum resinoid, rockrose labdanum, oliban or incense and guaiac wood. Each is presented in a 7 ml bottle; the bottles are safely ensconced in foam inside a fold-out case that also includes 100 smelling strips.
The accompanying booklet starts with a brief foreword by perfumer Olivier Cresp. Double-page spreads on each of the 12 essences follow (see the pages for myrrh at right), providing background material on the note's origins, methods of extraction and use in perfumery. It's mostly geared towards beginners — don't go looking for technical detail — but even then, I learned a number of interesting new facts.
Some of the materials in the kit I had smelled on their own before, others I hadn't, and at least one was a revelation: I've never hated myrrh, but I've never loved it either — at least, not until I smelled myrrh "straight up" from this kit. Now I want the "necklace from Africa made of tiny lumps of dried myrrh resin" that Kevin talked about when he reviewed Diptyque's L'Eau Trois.
The first time I tried the kit, I dipped scent strips into each of the 12 essences, and went back and smelled them at various points over the course of the day. This exercise pretty much wore out my nose by the early evening; you might want to start by smelling only a few a time (although I have to say that having all 12 on paper also creates a lovely "home fragrance"). The booklet has space for you to record your impressions.
A few random notes:
The packaging and presentation is very attractive — these would make lovely gifts.
I found this kit very helpful, and it would have been absolutely wonderful to have had one of these in hand back in 2003 when I was brand new to perfume and had no idea what anyone was talking about over at MakeupAlley.
Volume III is an introduction to legendary woods and resins, not a definitive set. The booklet points out, to name just one example, that there are many kinds of cedar, each with very different characteristics — if you're the sort of completist that I am, you'll immediately feel that you really ought to be smelling all of them.
Unless for some reason you wanted to keep the kit over the long term (the essences should last up to 18 months before they begin to "evolve"), these are perfect for sharing. A few days with one kit ought to provide plenty of time to smell all of the materials, and then you could "pass it on" to someone else. I ended up smelling each of the materials on scent strips 3 times — even then, I had made no noticeable dent in the 7 ml bottles.
There was some discussion when I announced the kits of whether or not the essences could be worn on skin, so I should point out that there are warnings on the inside lid of the kit and in the booklet — they are not meant to be worn on skin, and they're in some unnamed solvent other than alcohol. I have no qualms against using things like room sprays on skin, but I did not mess with these, especially since I've already had allergic reactions to individual fragrance components that were appropriately diluted in alcohol. A few of the essences also should not be discarded with the household trash.
The Les coulisses du parfum kits are 59€ each, and can be ordered from the Osmoz website.
1. Volume I, Mythic Accords, and Volume II, Original Blossoms, both contain materials that are either only available as synthetics (such as lily of the valley), or that are now most commonly replaced with synthetics (such as musk).
Thank you Robin for posting your impression of this set. I have been on the fence about purchasing. You have done me a great service! ♥
Good, glad it helped! I hope they’ll do more of these…I’d esp. love to see more raw materials (the “mythical accords” set didn’t interest me, although it might interest others).
Maybe I shouldn’t have bought the new laptop!
Laptop is a necessity!! These can wait.
Thanks for taking notes (no pun intended) especially.
I believe the solvent must be propylene glycol which is widely used in skincare and perfumerie alcoholique (I do not have the kit, I am hypothesizing) 🙂
Could be!
Hi Robin, I ordered all three of these after I read about them here, and I spent quite a bit of time this weekend with them. I was a bit confused with the “Mythic Accords” volume—as you say, if you feel you really ought to be sampling all the different types of cedar in Volume III, then it’s frustrating to sniff something just called “spicy note” or “floral bouquet accord” in Volume I, because obviously what you’re getting is just one interpretation. Still, overall I found them very useful, and this one (woods & resins) most of all. (And yes, I’m still just about at that point where I’m wondering if what I’m picturing is sandalwood is what the rest of you are referring to!) It was fun to occasionally be able to recognize something—for example, galbanum, which was immediately familiar from a sample of Diptyque’s Eau de Lierre. I agree that 7 ml is a huge amount of stuff, though!
What would be perfect is to find 2 other interested people — each buys one kit, then you send them around as you’re done with them. Personally, I can’t see much point in keeping one over the long term, and if you really wanted to, you could use a pipette to make yourself small samples…7 ml is plenty.
Mythical accords didn’t interest me (for just the reason you said), but how is the Volume 2??
Another kit they ought to do: musks! I know there is a “musk” in Vol 1, but it would be great to have a kit w/ nothing but frequently used musk aromachemicals. Perhaps that is not the sort of thing that would have widespread appeal though.
I thought Volume 2 was helpful (there were a couple of things like mimosa that were quite different from what I’d thought they’d be), but probably not very useful for anyone who’s had more experience with different scents.
I think the musk one is a great idea. When I tried that one in Volume 1, I could smell almost nothing at all. I’d read that some people are anosmic to certain musks (or synthetics?), but I’d never had a problem with an actual perfume, just with this…
On the musk, I think the thing is that you don’t always know if you’re having a problem with a certain perfume…if they’ve used, say, 3 musks, and you can smell 2 of them but not the 3rd, you wouldn’t even know that you were missing anything. A kit would be cool in a way because you’d know which you could smell, but in the end, not all that helpful because you only very rarely know what musk(s) are in a particular scent.
Have smelled a fair number of floral essences from Eden Botanical & elsewhere, and many of them were surprising to me! More so, probably, than the woods & resins.
Fascinating, though I don’t think I could find a perfume newbie in my neck of the woods to share with, though my husband is becoming more and more interested in it. In addition to a musk kit, I would suggest a spices kit. I’ve been sampling spice-laden stuff lately.
That would be nice too! It really helps to have a fully stocked spice cabinet, since so many smell very much like the “real” counterpart.
I was thinking more of sharing via the mails…admittedly, somewhat of a pain.
I agree about the spices. I avoid fragrances that are described as “spicy” because there are so many spices that I don’t like… but I’m not sure what they are.
The other problem there is that they so rarely tell you all the spice notes involved in a fragrance. Lucky for me, I love almost all spices.
There’s a spices shop called Penzey’s near where I live; they’re high-quality importers of spices used in all kinds of cuisine. The great thing about Penzey’s (as opposed to, say, an ethnic grocery store or the supermarket) is that they have big mason jars of everything they sell set out, so that you can take off the cover and smell the spices before you buy them. Five kinds of cinnamon! Six kinds of pepper! Stuff I’d never heard of, like galengal and sumac! A real spices education, for free!
Penzey’s is wonderful, and they do sell online — that’s where I buy all my spices.
This is very tempting, as I never got that Junior Scientist kit as a child…
Hey, there’s another good argument for buying 🙂
Robin, thank you, thank you for reviewing this kit.
It’s serendipity–I was just thinking about getting the Woods and Resins kit with some birthday money. I agree with you and other posters–the accords kit didn’t really appeal. And I feel like I have more experience with identifying florals, being the floral lover I am. But I’m always stumbling over resins and woods.
I suppose the point of the mythical accords is that it would help you identify fragrance families? But I don’t care much about fragrance families anyway…the classifications have never seemed that useful to me.
At any rate, I think this would be a worthy use of some birthday funds 🙂
Oh, I want these! They sound like so much fun!
This one was!
Given infinite storage space and infinite funds, I would absolutely buy all of these pretty sets! But, 7 mls is simply too much juice if I can’t wear it. I really like the idea of passing it around — or maybe the local library could purchase the sets? Hmmm… (I do have some itty bitty essences from Eden Botanicals which I like.)
LOL…yes, wouldn’t it be nice to check one out from the library?
Eden Botanicals is another great source.
Go to The Perfumer’s Apprentice where you can order small (2.5 ml) bottles of many aromachemicals and naturals. If you wanted to smell several different synthetic musks, you can get them here!
Linda also has smelling kits, accords, and tools for anyone wishing to get in to making their own perfume.
http://www.perfumersapprentice.com/
Yes, I know many people at MakeupAlley have bought those kits and been happy with them.
Crow, thanks for the Perfumer’s Apprentice info. I think their beginner’s type kits might be just the thing for my woefully uneducated nostrils!
I’d been a little bit curious about these after receiving the Osmoz emails about them … but probably not curious enough to drop 59 euro.
I like Crowflower’s tip about Perfumer’s Apprentice, but I also found myself just ordering several soliflore and other dominant-single-note scents to get a feel for different accords. I like TPC’s different “sample sets” of particular notes/components. I know that even a soliflore has other elements, but it also helps me figure out how different compositions centered on a single note can smell. I’ve also ordered a few tiny vials of oils and absolutes of natural materials now and then.
I still struggle with knowing exactly what “galbanum” means, but I love my little vial of Le Labo Galbanum (enough to want a big quantity!).
Is that from the LL Olfactionary?? I’d love to see that set.
I had just received a sample from a nice swapper, but I looked it up and I think it’s just one of their regular scents: Labdanum 18 / Ciste 18. I was very smitten by it.
Oh duh, now I see what I did: I originally wrote Galbanum! Sorry. I think both of those confuse me. I don’t have a good sense of what either “galbanum” or “labdanum” smell like on their own.
And I always have to remember that “olibanum” is the same as “frankincense.”
Ah, gotcha. Galbanum is bitter green — what they often call “ivy” or “leaves” in many fragrances.
Sorry, and should have said labdanum is what most people think of as the smell of “amber” — it’s usually part of the amber accord.
Thanks for this review, Robin. A friend and I have ordered this one and the Mythic Accords one and will be splitting them (which reminds me I must go and get bottles and pipettes!). Against the trend here I was more interested in the mythic than the floral although I take your point about it being a lesson in fragrance families. Still I’m interested to check my own ideas against Ozmoz (can’t remember the perfumer on the mythic set). Was reading the bit about musks in Secret of Scent this morning on the bus and as I have some vintage No 5 edc I second your musk set idea.
Do we know the perfumer on the Mythic set? They did announce the names of the perfumers that wrote the forewords to the booklets, but didn’t know we knew who came up with the accords.
Sorry I didn’t mean to suggest that a perfumer had made the accords. I was referring to who had written the foreword and in the mythic series it is Alberto Morillas. I wonder if Ozmoz went to one of the big fragrance companies and asked some fragrance lab person to come up with them. Just musing.
Ah, gotcha. And hey — Osmoz is owned by Firmenich, so they didn’t have to go far 🙂
I remember seeing these announced – they do look quickly slickly packaged and nicely presented. I’ve had great use out of my Perfumer’s Apprentice Starter Kit and now I’m eyeing up two of these too (likewise, I’m not especially interested in the Mythical Accords set)…quite tempted to get the floral notes set next payday! 7mls is an awful lot though.
Is there much here that isn’t in the Perfumer’s Apprentice kit?
Yes, the PA kit is more focused on particular ‘known’ chemicals like Iso-E-Super, Adoxal or Calone. Out of the twelve florals listed, I only have a measly two (a rose and a jasmine natural). I’d be quite curious to see the difference in the ones chosen here, too :).
But then again, it’s nearly a full bottle of something…we shall see!
Ah — more of a “technical” set, then. Well, if you only want very specific floral notes, do check out Eden Botanicals.
Another option for sampling single notes and accords is the DSH Essence Oils website. Dawn has a HUGE selection of essential and perfume oils available as 1ml samples. Packages of 10 scents (you pick the scents) can be had between $18 and $22 including shipping. It’s a great deal. Granted a lot of these (especially accords) can be her own interpretation, but I find them quite enlightening.
Thanks!