Perfumer's Organ

Perfumer's Organ, a photo by Ayala Moriel on Flickr.

As I mentioned earlier in the week, this was one busy week! I had new students here doing a crash course in perfumery lab orientation - learning all the basic skills required for perfumery lab work, including using the scale, calculating ratios, learning how to work with sticky, solid, resinous materials and how to weight and measure them accurately.
As is always my teaching style, I cover both theory and practice, so while working on diluting different types of essences, and weighing a given formula, the students learned the proper practices of how to document and label everything properly. And last but not least - how to write a formula that could be understood industry-wide by other professionals.

We also covered theoretical aspects such as methods of extractions of essences (absolutes, essential oils, extracts, etc.) and tackled the very tricky question of what is the definition of "natural". There will be more about that in a different post. For now, let me just brag about my new perfumer's organ, which will be permanently displayed in the studio's "showroom" and be used by students in my workshops and courses from now on. There are still much more space to put more essences there, which is still a work in progress. But the students loved using it this week, and I've also used it in my Bridal Stagette Perfume Making Party today (will write more about that tomorrow!).