Perfume Making -- the vital step people ignore

(Which is why their perfumes tend to fail)

Are you preparing to develop a new perfume? How do you plan to get started? If you were Coty or Chanel or Elizabeth Arden your first step would be to define, with words, the perfume you wanted developed for you. Your words, which could run dozens of pages, would be called a "perfume brief." But you're not Coty, you're not Chanel, you're not Elizabeth Arden , so how do YOU get started? If you want to develop a perfume to make sales, you start by creating your own perfume brief, before you start smelling anything; before you start mixing anything.

This first step stumps many because they haven't defined what their perfume should be. More important, they haven't thought clearly about who they expect to buy this perfume. To write a perfume brief you need a well defined target market. The fastest way to begin your brief is to select ONE PERSON who will act as the center of your target market. Then it all becomes easy.

Now you just write up everything you know about this ONE PERSON. What are their likes? Their dislikes? Where to they shop? How much will they pay for a bottle of perfume? How would they like it packaged? You want your perfume to be pleasing to this ONE PERSON.

Spend a few days – or weeks – writing down everything you know about this person. The work you do now, which you may think is silly, will make your life a whole lot easier once you start to select materials for your perfume.

Now find a name.

You want a name that will appeal to your ONE PERSON, that will entice him or her to want to try your (their!) perfume. All the rules of naming apply of course but, although some of your ideas might have to be rejected due to conflicts with existing names, keep trying until you have a name that "fits" your target and is available for use, i.e., not in use by anyone else.

If you really "know" the ONE PERSON you are targeting, a name will not be that hard to select. Think of all the nicknames that ONE PERSON has been given, nicknames that are unique to that ONE PERSON. This can be a good starting point.

Where will you go from there? My suggestion is to watch this video. I've watched it three times in recent weeks -- and I've sat though the same lecture "live" another three times -- but it takes time for the lessons to sink in.

Pinning down exactly what you want your perfume to be is the hardest part of the creative process. It is easier just to sniff a bit and experiment a bit, which can be useful, but if your object is to develop a perfume that people will buy, don't skip over this first step of closely defining your target ONE PERSON and they tastes. Think in your head that all of this fuss of making a perfume is about selling ONE BOTTLE to this ONE PERSON you have targeted. From this, everything else will follow.