What Does a Perfumer Do?

Behind each of your favorite Snif products is a team of dedicated perfumers who came together to bring it to life. 

All of these perfumers combine cutting-edge technical knowledge with game-changing creativity — and thanks to this dedicated team, each spritz of your favorite Snif fragrance offers an unforgettable scent experience. 

In this guide, we’re going to shine a spotlight on the work of our perfumers. 

We’ll explore the nuances of a perfumer’s work, look at how they choose the ingredients that take center stage in each scent, and talk about the time it takes for a fragrance idea to become a bottle in your hands. 

What Is a Perfumer?

You might hear perfumers referred to as flavorists or fragrance chemists because the heart of their work is developing scents and flavors for different products. 

At Snif, those products fall into one of three categories: fragrances, candles, and laundry. To be a perfumer, it’s important to have a keen sense of smell and awareness of how different scents work together to evoke emotional responses from wearers. 

Along with the more creative side of perfumery, which involves coming up with new ideas for fragrances, perfumers must also have the scientific knowledge to be able to make their ideas a reality. 

For this reason, many perfumers have a degree in biology, chemistry, or another science field because they’ll be expected to work with and manipulate the raw materials that go into each fragrance. Given that the job of a perfumer blends the creative and scientific worlds, it’s not uncommon to find perfumers who, along with their science degree, also have an interest in art. 

What Does a Perfumer Do?

Now that you know have a general overview of the work of a perfumer, it’s time to take a close look at the three main elements of their work: sourcing ingredients, curating formulas, and testing and iterating scents. 

Source Ingredients

The ingredients are the base of any fragrance, whether for a signature perfume or a laundry scent booster — and that’s why the first part of a perfumer’s job involves sourcing ingredients. What sets Snif apart from other brands is the investment our perfumers make in sourcing high-end materials. 

Even when compared to luxury and designer brands, Snif outspends our competitors in terms of investment in quality fragrance oils… because our perfumers know that the ingredients are what make a fragrance truly exceptional. 

Curate Formulas

With pure, potent ingredients at the ready, it’s time for our perfumers to curate formulas. This is where the real fragrance magic happens. When setting out to create a new scent, our perfumers always start with one key note or accord. 

From there, they begin to layer in different notes in function of the story they’re trying to tell with the fragrance. This dedication to storytelling through scent is part of what makes Snif products so individual and evocative. 

Test and Iterate Scents

Once the scents are ready, our perfumers begin to test and iterate scents until they’re perfect. Part of testing our fragrances involves ensuring they stand the test of time. To achieve this, our perfumers intentionally blend higher concentrations of fragrance oils into our products than other brands. 

The result? Scents that stick around, candles with an impressive scent throw and longevity, and laundry products that leave your clothes smelling better for longer. 

How Do Perfumers Choose Ingredients?

Maybe the most unclear part of a perfumer's work is the selection of different ingredients. Each product contains a specific blend of fragrance ingredients that transport you to a Miami beach in July or the forest you used to explore as a child, but how? 

This section will explore how perfumers choose different ingredients to create scents that are nostalgic, flirtatious, clean, juicy, and everything in between. 

Natural vs. Synthetic Ingredients

When you see the words “natural vs. synthetic,” you might automatically apply the logic you use when buying your groceries and think that natural ingredients are always preferable. 

Although that logic certainly applies in some industries, it’s more complex when it comes to perfumery. 

Natural ingredients, as you might imagine, refer to any ingredient that comes from nature. These ingredients are made by extracting the essential oils from different plants, flowers, fruits, and, in the past, animals. Our perfumers travel around the world to find the best ingredients, many of which come directly from or are heavily inspired by natural fragrances. 

For example, one of our perfumers, Patricia, has traveled to Tahiti many times, where the vanilla found in Vanilla Vice is grown. 

Synthetic ingredients are created in a laboratory to mimic the smell of scents found in nature or in the world around us. Sustainable ingredients are often more stable and last longer than natural ingredients. 

Also, they tend to be more sustainable than natural ingredients which are not sustainable to harvest. The important elements to keep in mind with synthetic ingredients is how they are made and what production standards they must meet which varies from brand to brand. 

Take, for example, our Me fragrance. This scent is subtle and luxurious and is specifically designed to reflect your skin’s chemistry. One of the top notes found in this fragrance is plum, and our fragrance house used whole dried plums (even the pits) to capture the essence of the fruit’s scent profile — a classic example of a natural ingredient. 

On the other hand, you’ll also find musk in this fragrance. Musk was traditionally harvested from the musk deer. This practice is now banned, and the musk you find in Me is synthetically derived in a way that is sustainable, ethical, vegan, and cruelty-free. 

Musk is a great example of a synthetic ingredient that’s used in place of a natural ingredient to ensure that our fragrances continue to meet our high standards for consciously made, certified clean products. 

That said, there are some synthetic ingredients that you want to avoid when picking your next signature scent. One big culprit is phthalates, a family of chemicals often used to enhance and stabilize scents. Although you can still find them in many fragrances, we avoid them completely because they are considered endocrine disruptors and may pose potential health risks. 

Another synthetic you’ll never find in our fragrances or laundry products is synthetic dyes. Given that synthetic dyes can irritate sensitive skin, we don’t add them to any of our fragrances. Instead, the color of our scents reflects the safe, pure raw materials that go into them. 

Our candles are also free from parabens, preservatives, and harmful dyes. 

Working With Different Notes

When crafting a new fragrance, perfumers also have to consider how all the different notes will interact. Generally speaking, fragrance notes are divided into three main categories: top notes, middle notes, and base notes. 

Top notes are the ones you smell right away with the first spritz. Middle notes are those that come through after the top notes fade and are often referred to as the heart of the scent, and the base notes are the smells that linger throughout the day. A perfumer has to consider the balance of these notes in each fragrance and how it will smell over time. 

How Long Does It Take To Create a Perfume?

Like any creative endeavor, the amount of time it takes to create a perfume varies from fragrance to fragrance. The first stages involve coming up with a concept for the perfume which can take up to several months. 

How long this process takes also depends on if the perfumer is working alone or with someone else. For example, with our Rose Era scent, the perfumer is Mathilde, but she worked with Monet McMichael to develop the fragrance. 

Once the concept is there, the perfumer will work with different raw ingredients to formulate the fragrance. It will then pass through several rounds of testing and refining to make sure you get the best possible version of the fragrance. This might involve tweaking different notes, testing how the perfume ages over time, and making the necessary adjustments. 

The Science of Scent

You now know all about the science, creativity, and love that perfumers dedicate to every Snif product. From sourcing the best ingredients to rigorously testing and perfecting, each Snif scent has been intentionally crafted to tell a specific story and resonate with something in you. 

All that’s up to you now is to get out there and start sniffing to find your next signature scent!

Sources:

Essential Oils as Natural Sources of Fragrance Compounds for Cosmetics and Cosmeceuticals | NIH 

Synthetic Musk Compounds and Effects on Human Health? | NIH 

Effects and Mechanisms of Phthalates’ Action on Reproductive Processes and Reproductive Health: A Literature Review | NIH

Textile dye allergy | DermNet