Agilex Perfumer Shares Insights on Formulating with Gourmand Family

Okhade shares her discovery that matcha not only enhances gourmand fragrances, but blends beautifully with jasmine, bergamot and lavender to create luxurious spa impressions.
Okhade shares her discovery that matcha not only enhances gourmand fragrances, but blends beautifully with jasmine, bergamot and lavender to create luxurious spa impressions.

There are multiple definitions of the word gourmand, but the one I like the best is by Luxury Scent Box, defining it as “an olfactory dessert.” Gourmand notes in fragrances are from the same palette as food, sweet to savory and can give a fragrance a distinct depth, warmth and complexity. Creating a mouth-watering gourmand fragrance is challenging and exemplifies how a few drops of an ingredient can bring magic and life to a fragrance. Perfumers need to use caution with some ingredients; they are so powerful, they are used in very small dilutions. A touch of these high impact ingredients will make the difference between a scrumptious, stomach-growling creation versus a fragrance that makes you wonder where the gas leak is. The balancing act with raw materials when creating a gourmand fragrance takes experience, but I still like to test the limits and see what new combinations, or how much more of the high impact ingredients I can use, to create new and different mouthwatering gourmands—always hoping to start my own trend.

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