How Long Should A Men's Cologne Last?

The word is "tenacity." It refers to the duration of a fragrance's smell. A tenacious perfume lasts and lasts, for hours perhaps. A perfume that lacks tenacity may be "unsmellable" after an hour or two. Manama is a good example of a perfume that has wonderful tenacity. From your own experience buying and using perfume you could probably name more than one heavily advertised perfume entirely lacking in tenacity.

Tenacity is not always desirable. In bath products it's nice to enjoy the fragrance released by water in a shower gel. But is that the aroma you want lingering on your body all day?

Even more so for dish washing detergents. It's nice to open the dishwasher and find a fresh, pleasant odor. But do you really want your dishes to be perfumed?

Now what about men's colognes?

When I was developing Blackberry I was concerned that it lacked tenacity. (It does.) Toxic, my "modern art" men's fragrance, shares this quality, or "defect" if you will. I've even had people point this out to me.

Then one day I was talking to a friend about fragrance. He said he had long favored Eau Sauvage (1966) created for Christian Dior by perfumer Edmond Roudnitska. My friend then added, "it doesn't last very long." Roudnitska is considered one of the all time greats in perfumery so this comment got me thinking.

How long do we want a men's cologne to last? Is tenacity always a virtue? Friends who know me know I have an almost anti-fragrance attitude toward men's colognes at times, sometimes because a man has drenched himself with it; sometimes because I hate the overpowering sweet, citrus aroma that can hang so heavily in the air, even in modest use. That hateful aroma can fill a room and make me want to gag and I can only think the man is wearing it because a woman of simple, unsophisticated tastes bought it for him, to make him smell more sophisticated!

Some of the men's colognes I truly hate have lots and lots of tenacity. And they would be far more pleasant if they did not.

So I've been thinking of the "mechanics" of men's cologne and why a man would want to use it in the first place. I think sometimes that men don't think much about fragrance unless the fragrance is from food. Red meat on the barbecue. But men DO like to freshen up in the morning -- the shave ... the shower ... deodorant ... maybe a splash of aftershave. And that, I think, is where men's fragrances of LOW tenacity fit in perfectly.

Of course I'm thinking of my own lifestyle and my own men's fragrances, Toxic and Blackberry, but I suspect that Eau Sauvage fits into the same category, as do the older classics, Mennen's Skin Bracer and Shulton's Old Spice.

The object wasn't to "perfume" a man all day long. It was simply to give him a nice "wake up" jolt in the morning and any lingering fragrance was light and pleasant -- too light to offend. In short, they freshen you up and then disappear, exactly as they were intended.

So having recalibrated my thinking about men's fragrances, I'm no longer embarrassed over the lack of tenacity shown by both Toxic and Blackberry. Do you really want to smell "toxic" all day? Of course not! And Blackberry too, because of its initial intensity. No, you would want only a light, lingering note -- exactly what it delivers.

So now I can go out and sell my stuff without shame, embarrassment or a sense of failure. Now the pitch -- certain to work with those who have NOT ready this article -- is that these fragrances for men work exactly as good men's fragrances SHOULD work. Which is to say they should give the user -- the man -- a jolt of pleasure in the morning WITHOUT offending his co-workers. Even Toxic, for all its ominous sounding name, delivers on that promise.

But here's a "PS" that you may find enlightening. The first men's fragrance that I marketed (quite successfully, although I did not create the formula myself) was wonderfully tenacious. And the men who loved it were men who worked outdoors, doing physical work. THAT fragrance (which I no longer sell) was great for its ability to rise above a modest level of body odor. Desk guys -- artists and executives -- don't have this need.

Try, Try Again

When two knowledgeable friends gave me the thumbs up on "Manama", I felt perhaps I had "arrived," finally reaching the stage where my fragrances were actually admired. This made me want to abandon or rework some of my former efforts, one in particular that for now I'll just call "G".

"G" was a fragrance that I had never felt was really finished. There had been some technical problems. First I thought I had overcome them. Later I realized I had not. But I had reached a point where I had stopped working on "G" and was just going to let it be so I could get started on a fresh project.

Now I began to attack "G" again and soon I had made a dramatic improvement by leaving out about one third of its original ingredients, and swapping around a few others. Now I liked it a whole lot better.

So after giving a bottle to my wife (with no particular urging to use it), I put the "G" project back on the back burner, out of sight, out of mind. Actually I was delighted that she had started using "Manama" -- unprompted -- and I loved the way "Manama" softly lingered on her from morning to afternoon. (Most fragrances you buy at the mall won't do that!) Then last weekend I noticed she was using "G." "G" is now a lighter fragrance, quite contemporary, and yes, I did enjoy standing next to her when she was wearing it.

This went on for two days. My nose was evaluating. It was good but, by Sunday evening, it struck me once again that it still could be better. The fragrance had more clarity now and because of that clarity I could "smell" something that wasn't there. So I had more work to do. It was on the "good" side of mediocre but with additional work, I felt it could be a classic. So today I'm back at the drawing board, not ripping it apart but trying to feel what it needs to take if from "good" to "excellent."

The reason I tell you all this is simple. If you want to grow as a perfumer, you have to strive for excellence. Excellence comes at a high cost. Before you can expect to achieve excellence you have to "just get out there and do it." You have to start making perfume. You have to overcome the fear of putting your creation out there where it will be criticized -- or, still worse, totally ignored. You have to create bench marks that will give you a standard on which to improve.

When I created "Incantation," my first perfume, I thought I was brilliant. I thought others would praise my work, I thought I was on my way to becoming celebrity perfumer. My wife gave it a polite reception but wasn't reaching for it in the morning. Friends who I gave it to were polite in their comments, but I never noticed them wearing it. In time I realized that I still had a long way to go and today, while I still kept a few bottles of "Incantation" around and give it an occasional sniff to remind myself of how crude and inept my first efforts were, today I know the difference.

Yes, when you create something you get very involved with it and it is hard to see it as others would see it. If your goal is to create something others will enjoy you need to be able to see through their eyes.

For me that has meant producing -- for it you don't produce, there is nothing to critique -- and then putting a bit of time between yourself and your creation, time that allows you to see it more how others are seeing it. And time for you to see it through a fresh nose -- to smell without being swayed by what you expect to smell or hope to smell but rather what you really DO smell, just as if this fragrance had nothing to do with you.

To grow as a perfumer you have to keep creating, even if some of what you create it junk. But you also have to develop the ability to stand back and recognize that which is junk and that which has potential -- and then keep working on those themes that have potential until they rise from "good" to "excellent."

The Steps In Making A New Perfume

There is much interest on the internet in making perfume. There are those websites that urge you to "save money" by making your own perfume; there are those websites that encourage you to "mix oils" to make your own perfume, and there may be other encouragements for you to make your own perfume. I have no argument with any of them.

But I will point out that NONE (with the exception of the PerfumersWorld home study course which I sell) will teach you perfumery in the sense of commercial perfumery -- the art of making fragrances such as are found in drugstores, department stores, and at leading mass merchants. High end niche perfumeries too. In fact, many of the "how to make your own perfume" websites on the internet website discount the artistry and skill of perfumers who have spend a lifetime in the industry and whose training has introduced them to, and taught them to use, thousands of aroma materials. In spite of what some may tell you, making a credible perfume is not simple.

Let's face it. If we are making perfume "part time," no matter how creative we may be and no matter how well developed our noses may be, and ignoring the fact that we may succeed in creating a handful of really great fragrances (or perhaps just two or three in a lifetime) we are a long way from possessing the skills -- and noses -- of the masters, the full time professionals. This need not stop us from enjoying what we do, or profiting from it.

The reason for this lengthy introduction is simply this. I get calls and emails from people who want me to create fragrances for them. Sometimes it is an "anything will do because we have a market now" request. Sometimes it is a request for "original" perfume that (closely) matches a well known commercial fragrance. If the person has a realistic budget and a realistic understanding of what is involved, and is contemplating a realistic order, I can render assistance by guiding them to an appropriate private label service.

But more frequently the initial proposed "order" is for 100 or fewer bottles, with the bottles themselves being of an original design. And of course they are needed in just a month or two. I can only say, "Sorry, I can't help."

What frustrates me is that if the person making the request had done their homework, I might have been able to give them some assistance. What doubly frustrates me is that the research they should have done is laid out for them in two books I have written on the subject, explaining what steps must be taken to accomplish the goal of "having your own perfume" and HOW to carry out each of these steps. (Book 1) (Book 2)

In a recent burst of frustration after going round and round with an "assistant to a celebrity," I wrote up a Perfumers Developer's Checklist which simply outlines the steps involved in creating a perfume.

For the person who has never read Book 1 or Book 2, the checklist will seem overwhelming -- too many decisions to make. But the Checklist itself urges you to first read either Book 1 or Book 2. After that, the Checklist becomes simple because you now have a sense of what you can do practically on your budget and what you cannot expect. Thus you avoid the frustrating conclusion that putting out a new perfume is too complicated when, in fact, it is not.

The point of Book 1 and Book 2 is to help you succeed ... on your budget ... without getting bogged down in attempting to achieve that which is neither practical or affordable.

Even as I began to write up the Checklist I sensed that those for whom it was written would probably ignore it. It will probably gather dust on my hard drive. But I can tell you this. When someone comes to me with a serious inquiry about having a fragrance produced for them, if they have not done their homework by reading Book 1 or Book 2, I sure am going to use the Checklist -- to complicate their lives -- unless they start, right up front, by talking budget ... and what part of that budget they've budgeted for me.

When is a perfume finished?

If you are developing a perfume to sell, at some point you have to stop developing and start selling. Or do you? Can you continue to develop your fragrance AFTER you've started to sell it?

I recently introduced a fragrance I'd been working on since last April. ("Manama", at FrankBush.com) At this point it was finished. Now, in my mind, the only work to be done is to produce it in a larger quantity (which I am doing now) and sell it. Simple.

But life isn't always so simple, not when you have an open mind and take seriously helpful suggestions from knowledgeable friends whose feedback just MIGHT guide you toward IMPROVING a fragrance you consider quite good, even when these respected "coaches" AGREE that you have put together a really nice fragrance -- perhaps the best you've ever done. (I shared this feeling they had about Manama.)

I've done this before -- with Blackberry (FrankBush.com) even AFTER it was finished. I tested some ideas that were given to me and, while I respected them, they were rejected because I liked Blackberry just the way it was -- and I still do.

My post introduction experiments with Manama were interesting, educational, and food for thought for future projects. But the Manama formula has stayed the way it was on the day I pronounced it "finished."

It may come as news to some, but long lived, famous fragrances have been tinkered with over the years. this happens for several reasons. The first and most urgent is when a traditional raw material falls under suspicion (rightly or wrongly) and its use becomes restricted (or politically incorrect.) A substitute is now called for that can be used in such a way that the odor impression of the fragrance is unchanged.

A second reason for tinkering with a proven formula would be when one or more ingredients becomes prohibitively costly -- or simply unavailable in the quantity needed. The perfumer turns to the research chemist in the hopes of obtaining a less expensive, more available, synthetic substitute with the result often being the salvation of an endangered species while the product suffers only the slightest quality downgrade, so slight that even the most sensitive noses would be unlikely to notice the difference.

Finally there is the tweaking of a formula to bring it "up to date," to modify it to meet contemporary tastes and trends. This was the reason for the suggestions I received on Manama. A friend, who is enthusiastic about very modern fragrances that use the latest synthetics from research chemistry, suggested a few substitutions that might give Manama more of a state-of-the-art, cutting edge, feeling.

I would have been an arrogant fool NOT to have experimented with these suggestions. I did and I experienced the effect he had described to me. But I didn't make the changes. Not to Manama. I prefer this fragrance just the way it is.

But, going forward, I have already begun to use some of these ideas, and some new raw materials I had not encountered before, in my work to finalize ANOTHER fragrance I'm working on. And, as a result of these ideas and materials, this other fragrance is showing improvement. Very nice improvement.

Finally there is a new fragrance on my drawing board I'm developing to impress a particular person who has a particular market in mind. The suggestions and aroma materials I rejected for Manama will be the STARTING point of this new fragrance.

Yes, you can keep developing a fragrance AFTER you've started to sell it. The results might be a subtle improvement -- or they might be a whole new fragrance.

Do you REALLY want to know how to make perfume?

I started a new perfume in April (2009) and just produced a small batch of the final result last night -- three months later. Some samples of this fragrance in its not quite final form were tossed into my Sample Bag at the end of June. Hopefully I'll have an ad ready for it by mid-August and the first bottles ready to sell in September. I won't tell you the name in case I change it at the last minute but you'll be able to guess my working title if you purchase the Sample Bag. It's the fragrance that has only one sample.

Looking at the finished result (see the photo at the right), I find myself fascinated by the aesthetics of the golden color of the compound -- the "juice" as perfumers would call it. Once I've added the alcohol, it will take on a much lighter coloring but still have a golden tone to it, thanks to the particular materials I used.

This fragrance came together rather quickly in "outline" form. (I sketch my perfume outlines, for the most part, with the 25 aroma bases included in the PerfumersWorld Foundation Course.) Then, after I had my outline, the slow and sometimes painfully frustrating work of making the modifications and decorations began. Those who tell you that 95 percent of the time you spend on a perfume go into the final few adjustments speak the truth.

The purpose of this blog is twofold. First, I want to make you aware of my fragrances which I sell at my Frank Bush online store. But it's more likely you are reading this blog because you have an interest in making perfume yourself and the second purpose of this blog is to encourage you in that interest. Yes, you can learn perfumery and make your own perfumes -- to sell, if that's what you want. And I'd like to help you. But I get frustrated at times (and so I'm venting a bit here) because too many people who ask me how to make perfume seem to think this is knowledge I can reveal to them in an email, or even a tweet.

Learning to make perfume requires study, discipline, materials, and a qualified teacher. It requires a commitment of years (not minutes). It's true that, as a student, you can often produce some gratifying results in a short period of time -- sometimes in just a few days or weeks. But at that point, unless you develop a passion for perfumery -- a desire to explore the world of aromatic substances and how they might be blended together -- you are a bit like the weekend painter hobbyist who struggles to copy the teacher's work, or even paints by the numbers. But at least these would-be artists are working with paint.

The most frustrating cases to me are those who say they want to make perfume but, when you tell them exactly how to get started (with materials and lessons -- lessons that require WORK!) they just ask the same question over again without taking the first step themselves. It's like somebody saying they want to play hockey yet they won't buy a pair of skates.

Last night I started a new perfume project. I have a theme. I want to play around with some aroma materials to see if I can find a favorable starting point. The theme was suggested to me by someone in another country and she will be among the first to receive a sample when it gets close to being finished.

How do I get started on a new fragrance? In this case I have an "idea," I have some "research," and my challenge is to create a fragrance that will please a select group of women who have never heard of me, who have never seen this blog, and who have never been exposed to my ideas on fragrance creation.

I love the challenge. The fragrance I finished yesterday is my new favorite. But the one I started yesterday has me really excited.

If you can feel that excitement over aroma and if you can commit yourself to hours of study and more hours of experimentation and learning, I really do encourage you to take up the study of perfumery yourself. You'll find all the resources you need to get started in the PerfumersWorld Foundation Course. This is what got me started in perfumery and the British perfumer who created this home study course has been a most wonderful mentor.

And then we wait

A well known photographer was asked how he got the light "just right" in his scenics. His answer was, "I wait." Getting your perfume "just right" involves waiting too.

We've all had the experience where, for one reason or another, we've been pressured to rush our fragrance into bottles and into the hands of a customer. Some things you can rush. You can work longer hours (up to 24 each day), you can bring people in to help you, you can purchase equipment to automate filling. But you can't rush the chemistry that allows ingredients to blend together and bring the fragrance to perfection. This requires time, and waiting.

Recently I was presented with several examples of this need to wait -- and the client's impatience to receive the finished perfume. In the first example, a person acting as a middleman in a "deal" inquired about getting a private label fragrance. We went over the issues: custom or stock bottle, custom or stock fragrance, time considerations, etc. I thought we had an understanding and passed this person on to a friend who had, at hand, all that was needed.

Then the fun began. Suddenly stock bottles weren't good enough, a custom design would be required. The existing fragrance compound that was immediately available wasn't good enough and a new fragrance would have to be created. And all of this had to be done in ... a couple of weeks! In spite of the coaching, the client had no understanding of what was involved in creating a new perfume. Their planning made no sense.

Less than two weeks later I had a similar experience. This time it was someone else's client. A perfume had been accepted; an order had been placed. But it was needed in a week or two. What was the perfumer to do? The perfumer KNEW that the perfume needed more time to blend to perfection. But, it the perfume wasn't delivered as requested, the order would be lost.

For anyone who hasn't encountered it yet, in the business world being pushy is considered a virtue -- a sign that you care -- that you understand that you can make things happen faster by being outspoken and aggressive. At times this can be effective. At times it can be essential. But when the pushy, client side contact DOES NOT UNDERSTAND the mechanics of making perfume, does not understand of what can be rushed and what cannot, both sides quickly become losers.

Agreeing to give the client less than your best makes you a loser. Your reputation as an artist suffers. Pushing the perfumer to deliver what should not yet be delivered makes the client a loser, for the client is paying the full price for that which is not of full quality.

Proper planning will generally eliminate the problem. There are times when YOU have to take charge and set the schedule yourself and, if it doesn't work for the client, it may be more profitable to you in the long run ... just to walk away.

The costs involved in making your own perfume

The bottle on the right is 2.5 liters of PEA, the bottle next to it is about 10 grams.

Everyone knows that when you buy a bottle of perfume at retail, most of what you are paying goes into advertising expense and profit. The bottle and packaging have SOME costs associated with them but the fragrance itself? Why THAT costs almost nothing! That is, if you are a BIG perfume company.

I recently had the opportunity to discuss costs with a friend and business associate who is also the source of my own perfumery raw materials. I'm going to speak a little in general terms here as some of what I'm writing about is a bit confidential. And also, I don't want to destroy the "mystique" of perfume which is what helps us all make money.

I know from personal experience that it is not easy to find suppliers who will sell the raw materials of perfumery in small quantities to people like myself. For example, if I want Lyral -- a beautiful lily of the valley aroma chemical made by IFF in New Jersey -- I can buy it directly from IFF at a very good price ... if I am willing to take a DRUM.

But Lyral may be only one of 100 raw materials I need. My office doesn't have room for 100 DRUMS of aroma chemicals, nor do I have the MONEY to buy that much, nor would I have the equipment necessary to TRANSFER chemicals out of drums and into smaller containers.

Realistically, when I am working on a new fragrance, I might only want 20 or 30 GRAMS of each aroma material I am using, which would be a "sample" quantity for a company like IFF. The big fragrance companies WILL send samples to customers -- "customers" meaning companies that will ultimately buy by the drum. And -- irony -- speaking to a chemist for a major U.S. household products company, he complained that when his company made a sample request, the fragrance houses sent them a LARGER sample than they really wanted because their need in developing a product wasn't much bigger than my own but, while I hoard any aroma materials I can get my hands on, this giant company DOES NOT keep a "library" of fragrances and has to DISPOSE of what is left over from their experiments using VERY STRICT AND EXPENSIVE techniques to safeguard the environment.

So back to making perfume. In need of smaller quantities of aroma materials, I have a limited choice of sources. And to get what I need, I have to go to a source who buys from ANOTHER source who may buy from a THIRD source who buys it directly from the manufacturer or processor.

Let me do that again, in reverses. The big company like IFF sells a drum to a smaller company like Vigon (in reality Vigon stocks the Givaudan line) who sell by the KILO and (this is speculation on my part) sell to a smaller operation like The Good Scents Company, who will then sell in an every smaller quantity to people like myself.

But lets now consider the costs. When Estee Lauder or Coty makes a fragrance they are buying "direct from the factory" at the lowest cost possible. They probably even negotiate a LOWER than list price based on the size of their order.

But when I buy aroma materials, they go through a series of middlemen before they reach me. At each there are repackaging expenses and profit to be taken out. Thus at each level the cost per kilo ... or per gram ... increases so that when I finally place my very small order (compared to those ordering by the drum!) I am going to pay a good deal more per gram or kilo than a larger company would pay, but this cost, for me, is still "workable."

So the materials I use in my perfumes COST ME MORE than they would cost Estee Lauder or Coty. Fortunately ALCOHOL -- which is cheap compared to the cost of aroma materials -- is the great leveler. Unless I am selling an "extrait" with a low percentage of alcohol, the 70 to 80 percent alcohol used to make the perfume helps bring my overall costs within reason. And what I "lose" on my higher cost for raw materials can be made up in in my lower overhead, advertising, and promotional expenses.

To put this picture in focus, as you become a smaller and smaller perfumery, your costs for aroma materials get higher and higher per gram or kilo but you're generally delighted if you can simply FIND a supplier for the materials you want to use who will sell to you in the small quantities you want.

To lay it out in dollars and cents, when a major fragrance marketer puts out a GOOD ("fine fragrance") perfume, their cost for the fragrance compound -- the "juice" -- may be around $30 per kilo (fragrance compound is sold by weight.) MY cost for a typical composition is over $200 per kilos and rising (with the cost of oil -- and remember, oil isn't just a source of petro aroma chemicals, it is also the ENERGY source used to process and transport natural aroma materials.)

Anyway, in talking to my supplier friend, I discovered that HE goes through many of the same problems in obtaining aroma materials that I go through, and his company is a lot larger than mine. But if you love perfume and want to keep creating -- and selling -- you do find a way, even if finding the materials you need can be a bit difficult.

And yes, there can be a great deal of profit in perfume, but you can't MAKE perfume without first INVESTING a bit of money.