It smells like Christmas!
Editor: Kerstin Stenger
Christmas is just around the corner. Just like every year, during Advent at the latest, we ask ourselves: “What on earth am I going to buy for gifts?” The possibilities are endless and finding the right gift is often quite a challenge. Fortunately, there is another classic gift other than socks & co. because perfumes are often at the top of wish lists. So far so good, if it weren’t for the large selection of perfumes, with an overwhelming variety from the great classics from famous fashion houses to small individual perfume makers.
The online portal parfumo.de lists the incredible number of 157,017 perfumes in its database in mid-November. And that’s not all, more are being added every day – just take a look.
From September at the latest, perfumers present us with many new fragrances that are now particularly suitable for the festive season. Warm notes are like a hug in a bottle, perfect for the dark months.
Perfumes are subject to trends. Just like with fashion, every year different fragrances or combinations are trendy and popular. In our search for the 2022 trends, we found these three, among others:
Trend #1 men’s perfumes now incorporate floral notes. Popular, warm scents such as patchouli or cinnamon are combined with floral notes, such as rose or iris.
Trend #2 caters to the desire for freshness and purity. Green notes such as citrus, green tea and herbs give many a classic fragrance that certain something.
Trend #3 is dominated by vanilla. The sensual fragrance reminds us of cozy hours and Christmas treats. This makes it particularly suitable for the festive season.
Many customers believe all these fragrances are produced naturally. But this is not true. Why?
Nature-identical fragrances
Nowadays, nature-identical substances are increasingly used in perfumes. The fragrances are therefore synthetically reproduced. The advantage: The substances themselves obtained in this way do not differ from the aroma chemicals of plants at molecular level, but no plant had to give up its bark, leaves or flowers for the production – not to mention animals. LANXESS produces a comprehensive range of synthetic fragrance raw materials, many of which are also used in perfumes.
This has a particularly positive effect on the naturally occurring populations of various plants, which are endangered in the long term despite cultivation. For example, the Agarwood tree is very popular because of its “oud” fragrance and its worldwide existence is endangered as a result.
But there are many more positive effects that come from the synthetic production of fragrances:
How do perfumes actually get their scent?
A perfume is a mixture of many different ingredients. The main components are:
- About 80 percent alcohol,
- distilled water,
- dissolved essences such as animal or vegetable essential oils,
- and increasingly synthetically produced substances.
As a manufacturer of synthetic raw materials, LANXESS supplies flavors & fragrances companies (F&F companies), which specialize in the development and composition of fragrances. There are very few of these in the world. The perfumers at F&F companies develop many new creations every year out of the raw materials mentioned above. Even today, the art is to strike a balance between the precious natural essences and the variety of synthetic substances. It’s all about finding the perfect harmony for an original and unique composition.
Fragrances are a triad
The fragrance created is divided into top, heart and base notes. The perfumer must know which scents harmonize together, which scents cancel each other out, clash with each other, or how a composition affects the skin.
We like scents. But not always.
Humans can distinguish between more than 10,000 scents. And that’s a good thing, because scents help us in all situations in life, for example, in the event of danger (fire), with memories (childhood) and also for health (freshness of food). Even though each person perceives a scent differently, the smell gives us a valuable information. It sometimes even helps us make decisions. Therefore, it is easy to imagine how difficult it is to compose a fragrance loved by many people.
The fragrance wheel by Michael Edwards, a world-renowned fragrance specialist who developed it in the 1980s, is often used as the basis for fragrance compositions. It helps perfumers understand fragrances better and in being able to combine them easier and faster. The four main notes on the wheel in the current version are:
Our LANXESS fragrances cover a wide range of these nuances. These include floral and spicy fragrances, citrus, woody or earthy notes, as well as fresh and soapy scents. As a leading global manufacturer of these aroma chemicals, we are known for our reliability, quality and expertise.
And who knows? Maybe some of our fragrances are already in your favorite perfume – or will soon be hidden in a gift under the Christmas tree…
