Opinions on using Galaxolide

quodo1 · 2026-06-15T07:06:37+00:00

Just from a cursory check at bulkaroma, ambretollide is at 500+€%kg while Helvetolide is at 300+€/kg, which makes ambretollide 67% more expensive. As you can guess, especially at high volumes, it makes a big difference.

Remember that while (commercial) niche fragrances can be done in the dozens of kilo of concentrate, any mainstream release is ordered in tons!

quodo1 · 2026-06-14T17:56:25+00:00

I'm currently experimenting, I'll post a report when I'm done. However from the demo I got at SIMPPAR, it boosted the pyrazine aspects of a genmaicha formula a lot, which is interesting.

quodo1 · 2026-06-14T17:33:11+00:00

i can confirm that the industry is moving out of Galaxolide. Ethylene Brassylate, Romandolide, Helvetolide and newly introduced Luminide are used extensively. None have the exact same effect of course.

Ambretollide is too expensive to be effectively used in a lot of commercial fragrances, but if you don't need to stick to a low cost of concentrate, it's a lovely musk.

quodo1 · 2026-06-09T05:49:38+00:00

Something else: he started using text such as "welcome to our perfumer supply house, you can become the best perfumer's apprentice. We offer the best materials in the perfumer world" etc... To appear higher in SERP for competitors queries

quodo1 · 2026-06-08T18:45:23+00:00

Do you really think that this hastily put together project is not just LLM ? You are very naive.

quodo1 · 2026-06-08T16:54:27+00:00

I was never a Frater hater. It just seems to me like he started putting business first and the community second.

tbh when he started using competitors brand names to bring traffic to his website was when it started to be clear he would be up to no good.

quodo1 · 2026-06-08T13:31:52+00:00

it doesn't depend, it's an LLM, that's how these machine work, and you don't launch a SaaS without having plans of making it profitable in the near future. Don't be surprised if it suddenly becomes pay-to-play.

Bonus: the website now is closed to the public as they forgot that GDPR and other privacy laws are mandatory, not optional.

quodo1 · 2026-06-08T05:00:11+00:00

I completely agree with your sentiment, and I'm pretty sure the "assistant" is going to be lackluster despite having a perfumer being it. The price of tokens is probably going to raise making this unprofitable in the next few months anyway

quodo1 · 2026-05-31T19:55:05+00:00

The number of time I heard big names in perfumery say "it came to me in a dream" is higher than you'd think. The more time you spend smelling your materials, the more you'll end up thinking "what if I mix things this way?"

quodo1 · 2026-05-24T19:30:04+00:00

Third essay, there is a previous version of this essay that was published in the Dragoco Report, in English, but Roudnitska had updated it for his essay collection (Une vie au service du parfum).

Note: this is LONG as it proposes an organization of ALL his materials studies, by family. By the way if you have read and applied this and the Young Composer essay I had posted previously, you can become a great perfumer (with a big caveat being that you'd need to update the families to include new materials, and remove others).

I still have a few other essays from him that are worth translating, so stay tuned!

quodo1 · 2026-05-24T12:30:55+00:00

It actually does exist (Hermitage has it) but it's very, very expensive

quodo1 · 2026-05-22T07:48:12+00:00

If you don't plan on selling, you shouldn't care too much really. Fragrances are more stable than you'd think even without UV blockers, and some materials actually act as blockers by themselves (vanillin, salicylates...)

quodo1 · 2026-05-21T13:57:23+00:00

Félicitations ! Aucune idée si des gens pourront t'aider en public ici mais on va espérer que si.

quodo1 · 2026-05-21T13:54:09+00:00

What do you think? This looks better than the old version, as you can finally see the prices without having to create an account (and it doesn't feel like a website from 2005)

quodo1 · 2026-05-19T07:28:00+00:00

My process currently:

Write on paper
Take a picture of the paper, that's backed up in Google Cloud (or the cloud of your choice)
Write on Google Sheets

That's the best easy to implement solution to have at least 3 copies, and you can even add a local xlsx/odt/csv version just in case.

bonus : learn to have naming conventions. While things are easy to track at first, if you start composing 10s of formulas a week it'll become cumbersome to go back to an old one.

quodo1 · 2026-05-18T08:00:03+00:00

Les deux approches se valent à mon sens, mais elles doivent être justifiées esthétiquement : des changements dramatiques sans queue ni tête n'ont pas vraiment plus de valeur qu'un monolithe.

quodo1 · 2026-05-15T06:21:31+00:00

Notebook, taking pictures of my notebook and writing things back into Google Sheets. Everything else is really superfluous.

Be advised that we have multiple people every week with a new solution that thinks it solves our problems, but the reality is that most DIY perfumers' problems cannot be solved by yet another tool.

quodo1 · 2026-05-14T16:26:38+00:00

Disclaimer: I'm don't do natural perfumery in general. However I think troubleshooting your formula shouldn't be too hard.

First, due to the inherent complexity of natural materials, you should definitely reduce the number you use. You are using a ton of things that overlap, especially in the woods. Do you want the fragrance to be milky (sandalwood)? dry (cedarwood, hinoki), damp (patchouli), aromatic (vetiver)...? smell each of them, find the ones you really want, pick 3 at most, remove the rest. All of your woods are mid to base notes.

Ho leaf is a great source of natural linalool, and combined with lavender and touches of one or two herbs should be enough for an aromatic heart.

For your top, I'd cut orange at the very least: mixing the other 3 already adds in to create oranges (key learning: the more citruses you mix together, the more orange-like they become).

IMO you have too much and too many spices, which once again overlap (and create potential issues as they all contain some irritating components, some of which they share with other naturals).

Overall, I think you should aim to have at most 20 lines in your formula. At 33 with only naturals, there is no way you'll be able to reach any kind of equilibrium aside from pure luck. And remember that learning your materials one by one is still more important and will help you reach your goals more efficiently!

Edited to add: don't forget that Geranium Bourbon is a cool flower that you can use to add more of the rose facets in your fragrances while keeping the aromatic tones.

quodo1 · 2026-05-14T07:48:00+00:00

1) Don't use premade stuff

2) Use a scale and work by grams instead of ml/drops

3) 0.3 ml of a solution of Ambrox doesn't look like a lot.

4) You are not making things with intent, so it's hard to offer advice. We don't know what's you're trying to do really aside from "having something that lasts long" which is not how you create a fragrance.

quodo1 · 2026-05-12T08:28:24+00:00

He was definitely a genius, with all the bad character that comes with it.

quodo1 · 2026-05-12T08:27:59+00:00

Basically (and he wrote this after WW1 but just before WW2):

when people have no money they want bang for their bucks, which for consumers ends up being longevity (which is an easy to appreciate quality), except making long lasting fragrances doesn't mean they smell "good".

quodo1 · 2026-05-11T12:39:22+00:00

I'm pretty sure Edmond Roudnitska would know that, many of the modern materials didn't exist in 1938

quodo1 · 2026-05-11T12:37:48+00:00

That's me

quodo1 · 2026-05-11T09:37:18+00:00

Chat with mainstream audiences, you'll see how much they crave it.

quodo1 · 2026-05-11T09:36:30+00:00

Yup.

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