Perfume and Cologne Today

There is a great and ever increasing number of uses for scented, odorant or perfumed products.  They can be found all around us in our everyday lives.  They can be found in everything from cleaning agents to powders, gels and soaps but the most common uses are in perfume and cologne, deodorant and eau du toilettes.  The list can go on, we have scented candles, baby care lotions and air fresheners.

As there is such a wide use for scented and perfumed products, their content and make-up caries substantially.  Industrial odorants are used to mask or disguise nasty smelling odors that can occur in products and in using them it makes the product more appealing to the customer.  The ingredients of industrial odorants would be of a low priced variety.  This is also the case with soaps, bars of soap, gels, lotions and cosmetics.

Liquids that are used specifically for scenting of the body, such as perfume and cologne or eau du toilettes, differ from the industrial odorants in that they can be said to be more like “true perfumes” which are perfumes that contain a much higher amount of perfume oils and are therefore more expensive.  The term “true perfume” is also commonly referred to as essences or extracts.

Generally perfume contains ten to twenty percent perfume oils, which are dissolved in an alcohol base whereas cologne would usually have around three to five percent of essences mixed with eighty to ninety alcohols with the remainder being made up of water.  Eau du toilette on the other hand is much less concentrated with only two percent essence dissolved in sixty to eighty percent alcohol, with water making up the remainder, which can sometimes be as much as thirty eight percent.

More specifically perfumes are blends of animal substances, plant and/or flower oils, synthetics, alcohol and water.

The use of animal substances in perfumes is solely for the longevity of the fragrance.  Animal substances slow down the evaporation of perfume oils and because of this they are also known as fixatives.  An example of these substances are civet musk, castor and ambergris.  With the increased use of synthetic substances in recent years the use of animal substances in perfume has been for the most part replaced and they are now less commonly used.

We are all aware of the fragrant qualities of flowers but the reason flowers give a pleasant scent is not for our benefit; the scent given off from a flower is produced to attract animals to help the pollination process.  Plants store the substances that release their pleasant aroma in tiny sacs.  These substances are also known as “essential oils” These essential oils are widely used in the most expensive perfumed products on the market while the cheaper variations tend to use the synthetic variations to create a similar scent.

Some of the main plants that are used for their essential oils are Jasmine, lavender, patchouli, rose and citronella.  There are four main methods of obtaining these oils from plants; they are steam distillation, boiling the petals in water, enfleurage and solvent extraction. 

Naturally occurring materials such as coal tar or petrochemicals can be used in the creation of synthetic substances, which account for the greatest amount of ingredients used in the perfume industry today.  Synthetic scents have been formulated to meet the increasing demand for discounted perfumed products.

Alcohol is used to dissolve the essential oils or perfume oils and the percentage used varies from product to product with perfume and cologne having a slightly higher concentration of essences and alcohol than eau du toilette, which usually has more water, added to its composition.

In the past the use of scented fragrances was a sign of wealth and status, today, thanks to the commercialization of these products due to the use of synthetic substances, perfume and cologne is so widely available it can be bought in almost any store in almost any country.

Like many things the price usually depicts the quality of the product, the composition of discount perfumes rarely features any of the true essences, making them an inexpensive option, whereas the designer brands such as Versace perfume use the “true perfume oils” in their fragrances. Although there is very little discernable difference between the scents from the two methods of manufacturing of perfumes many believe that the beneficial properties gained from essential oils enhance the appeal and effect of the perfume and cologne that includes them.