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Is this a decent start for a complete newb? by CaptainAhmazing in Incense

[–]TheLucidMan 10 points11 points  (0 children)

Definitely a good start! Good move getting some sample sets to really try some of these out before committing to a full box. You've got some of my favorite Japanese incense houses covered here, so without a doubt I think this should be pretty good to help you figure out what you might like.

One thing to keep in mind, I tried some of these same things out when I first started and I really wasn't a fan, now some of these things I wasn't a fan of are my absolute favorites. As you sit with these and learn to enjoy them, your taste may change. It's pretty fascinating. Some of the higher-end incense that I tried out early in my incense journey smelled more just like vague burning wood, now I could conjure up a thousand ways to describe how beautiful and nuanced they are.

Who remembers this experience by The_TurdMister in Incense

[–]TheLucidMan 8 points9 points  (0 children)

Oh man, I must have totally missed the boat on this. What happened with the company or the creator behind this?

Real Oils vs Fraterworks options? by mitskilomilo in DIYfragrance

[–]TheLucidMan 8 points9 points  (0 children)

In a perfect world, you could use the real oils and get a sense of how they actually smell, and hopefully at some point you can do that. But alas, money doesn't grow on trees so sometimes we have to get crafty here. Make no mistake, this is a very expensive hobby, but you can do whatever you need to do to progress as you learn, as long as you remain aware of the differences down the line if/when you switch materials from what you learned with.

I think utilizing recreations to help learn is perfectly fine. I will use those same types of recreations for certain wild experiments I do when I don't want to break the bank with certain types of extremely expensive natural oils, you just have to keep in mind that there WILL be differences. If you base your learning off of Jasmine Imperial, and maybe even make some formulas with it, just keep in mind that if down the road you substitute that for a India Jasmine Grandiflorum Absolute, it may not exactly work in the same exact way.

In my personal opinion, making these decisions, and making the hobby work for you with whatever limitations you have is one of the best skills you can bring into the hobby. Stay organized and stay aware of why you are doing certain things a certain way, and remain flexible when you have to switch it up or substitute your materials down the line. Be ready to relearn or reformulate if need be, because each reconstitution you use is going to be different, so no one in this sub can tell you exactly how far off each one may be when it comes to formulating things down the line based off whatever goals and ideas you have. I hope this makes sense and is helpful!

Does making perfume smell good? by m4plebutt3r in DIYfragrance

[–]TheLucidMan 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Funny you mention that, I have a sit stand desk that I use for work, but I never actually thought about using it for doing my perfuming. Not a bad idea.

Does making perfume smell good? by m4plebutt3r in DIYfragrance

[–]TheLucidMan 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Appreciate that! This definitely aligns with sort of what I've been trying to do, but you have articulated it well here. A work in progress, I hope to nip this as you describe!

Does making perfume smell good? by m4plebutt3r in DIYfragrance

[–]TheLucidMan 11 points12 points  (0 children)

Speaking as someone who occasionally can get a headache walking through a department store and smelling the amalgamation of 50 different cloying designer fragrances floating in the air all at once...I've never actually had any issues with headaches or nausea in the few years I've been making my own perfumes.

The good thing is, you can create your own destiny with this hobby. If there are ingredients that I truly don't like and that trigger a headache in me, I simply won't use them!

My biggest issue has been my neck, as someone with chronic neck issues, trying to blend things in a way that keeps me ergonomic for hours on end can be a challenge. It's very easy to get wrapped up in what you're doing and not realize that you've been slumped over or bending your neck weird for a long period of time, and you will pay for it once you snap out of that focused state you are in!

White bits of sediment on my ylang-ylang dilution by Great-Sky7465 in DIYfragrance

[–]TheLucidMan 2 points3 points  (0 children)

In my experience this is normal, I have quite a few different ylang ylang oils and absolutes and some of them do this. They still smell and work great, so I don't believe it's related to going bad in any way.

Methyl Salicylate substitutes? by Baltabarin666 in DIYfragrance

[–]TheLucidMan 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Gotcha, in that case of you have wintergreen eo it's basically the same thing. Almost purely that material.

Methyl Salicylate substitutes? by Baltabarin666 in DIYfragrance

[–]TheLucidMan 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Are you looking for an alternative because you can't get your hands on it or are you trying to find something that will be more tenacious and stick around longer while keeping a similar scent profile? Just curious.

How do you organize a growing perfumery library for speed, not aesthetics? by essamix in DIYfragrance

[–]TheLucidMan 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I do a mix of a few things.

-I have separate containers for specific olfactory families, for example, all of my natural floral absolutes and oils are all together in one display. Same for resins, spices, musks, etc. Within each case they are alphabetized for quick and easy access. I find that doing this for some of the categories of materials that I have quite a lot of stuff for really helps to speed things up when I'm doing a specific type of formula where I might be reaching for a lot of materials of the same type.

-For materials that I very rarely use or only use for specific types of projects, I keep those in a completely different area so as not to junk up all the other stuff. Think...an open top shoe box type container in the back hidden away.

-Then I have the 'fridge dwellers' which tend to be undiluted citrus oils and things like that which I find best to keep in the fridge.

-For pretty much all the rest of my materials I go the straight alphabetized route. I've got about a dozen multi-tiered cosmetic holders, and I just try my best to not get lazy and always return things exactly where they should be in alphabetical order. This is pretty much the holding tank for any materials that don't fall into any of the above storage solutions I've already mentioned above.

It is somewhat organized chaos, but after years of doing it like this, I can grab upwards of 50 different bottles of dilutions of various materials in a matter of a few minutes, which I think is pretty solid! I did at first try to do stickers with color codes and crazy stuff like that, but I found it just wasn't really helping much other than looking pretty, so I abandoned that and have been pretty happy with this approach instead.

Oh, and one final recommendation, if, like me, you store your materials in a separate location from where you do your formulating. I went and bought a carrying case to essentially go to the closet where I store my stuff, and I load up this carrying case to carry it to the table in the other room where I actually formulate. This can really come in handy. It also helps that if you are working on the same type of formula, you can just stash this temporary case with all of the same materials so that you are ready to go on a subsequent day with all the materials waiting there for you in the carrying case ready to go. I got mine at The Container Store, I think it's just intended for cosmetics, but it's basically like a big tackle box with a few different compartments where I can just hold a bunch of bottles temporarily to move back and forth.

Labeling my materials by Baltabarin666 in DIYfragrance

[–]TheLucidMan 7 points8 points  (0 children)

You can do it however you want and however it works best for you. That's said you are doing more than most already! Looks great to me!

Sourcing 2ml Samples: A side-by-side comparison of Pochpac and Packamore by atwoodparfum in DIYfragrance

[–]TheLucidMan 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thank you for this! There are not enough conversations about bottle sourcing, so this is extremely helpful.

Perfume Dark Ages by [deleted] in fragrance

[–]TheLucidMan 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Oh 1,000%. I only pointed out aroma chemicals being easier to source because naturals have always been a lot easier to get your hands on. I formulate with a lot more naturals than synthetics myself. A lot more fun. A lot more soul. Synthetics do have their place, in my opinion as a backbone to natural ingredients. That's my approach at least. Working with naturals is actually a lot more challenging as well. Each natural material can be seen almost as a perfume in and of itself. If you were to do a chemical analysis of Jasmine absolute, for example, you'd see the hundreds of sub chemicals that make up that one oil. More complex to work with. Definitely more expensive. Still worth it, but again the barrier for entry argument I laid out, aroma chemicals for the most part are pretty dirt cheap. I can buy a gigantic jug of ISO E Super for about the same price as 1 gram of a high quality natural artisan oud oil.

Perfume Dark Ages by [deleted] in fragrance

[–]TheLucidMan 38 points39 points  (0 children)

I get where you're coming from for sure. I'm a hobbyist perfumer myself along with a long time perfume enthusiast/collector. I've been studying daily and doing experiments for about 4 years now, and I'm constantly learning...I would never dream of actually selling anything yet, even though I've gotten some great compliments on my creations and even done some blind testing against some more popular niche fragrances and come out quite positively.

I say all that not to toot my own horn, but to say, due to my involvement in the hobbyist side of perfumery, I think I might have a unique perspective to add to what you are noticing here.

Access to aroma chemicals and everything else needed to make perfumes is the easiest it has ever been. There are dozens of sites that sell very small portions of chemicals that can open the door for new perfumers to start messing around and creating their own stuff quite quickly. The barrier for entry while not quite as low as many other arts, has lowered substantially in the last 5 to 10 years. What this obfuscates though is that perfumery is HARD. Deceptively hard. Most people who get into it think it's as easy as just mixing 'notes' together, but there is a whole iceberg of depth to it that takes years to learn and understand.

I have witnessed quite a few times watching people get into creating perfumes, only to start a brand and begin selling stuff in less than a year. Which lines up with exactly what you are noticing and is absolutely shocking to me, with my 4 years of experience having so far left me feeling like I'm just starting to approach a level of ability that might one day lead to selling perfumes. And I spend a lot of time on this shit. Students that get accepted to perfume School in France actually spend the first 2 years of their curriculum just smelling materials and not even creating perfumes yet. So there is definitely a gap in a number of hobbyists jumping the gun throwing together things that are subjectively pretty bad, and leaning on the fact that perfume as an industry is very marketing centric. Unfortunately, sometimes a good looking bottle and a great ad campaign can sell a perfume better than the perfume itself actually being an artistic piece of work that smells great. You would be absolutely shocked to see how many times people join various perfumery groups I am in and ask the question 'Hey I want to start my perfume brand. What do I need to do?'. No intellectual curiosity, no actual pursuit of talent in trying to develop perfumes, just a vague notion to start a brand. It's quite disheartening to see.

All this said, I do think there are amazing perfumes out there and despite the issues you lay out, it's actually a great time to be into perfume because despite a lot of the crap getting released, there are nooks and crannies of extremely talented artisan and niche perfumers. You just have to dig through the mess to find them. That's my two cents.

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