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How To Macerate Your Perfume and Do You Really Need To Do It?
How do you macerate your perfume and do you really need to macerate a perfume? In order to understand the art of maceration one must first know what it is.
Macerating a perfume is a lot the concept of curing a new bar of Lush soap. It basically means you’re allowing the perfume to age and sometimes this can consist of introducing oxygen to it. How do you macerate a fragrance? The concept is fairly simple. After purchasing a new fragrance you can introduce oxygen to the bottle simply by misting it on. Go ahead, wear it, enjoy it. But after that one wear you’ll want to take the fragrance and tuck it away in a dark cabinet for a few weeks and allow the fragrance and alcohol to mix into a beautiful harmony.
I’m actually not a huge fan or supporter of maceration in main stream fragrance. I think many mid-range and luxury brands already take care of the process for you. For example, Frederic Malle addresses their maceration process on their website:
Do you macerate your perfumes before bottling them?
“Of course we do, as one should! Like wines, perfumes have to age in large containers to come into their own. This is even truer if one uses lots of natural ingredients or lots of rich base notes. (An Eau de Cologne requires less maceration than heavy Chypres, for instance).
Every “classic” used to be macerated for a period between 4 and 8 weeks. Some mass-market companies eliminated this practice in the 80’s, to increase money flow. Once we are done developing a perfume, we always decide on an aging protocol for it with its author. Some perfumers favor long maturation (aging the perfume concentrate before mixing it with alcohol), others prefer long maceration (aging the finished solution).
Portrait of a Lady, for instance, matured for 2 weeks and macerated for 4- a 6-week aging process in total. When working with fresh lab samples, one notices that they are much less powerful, less beautiful, and often less stable, than properly aged products. Time and mass are critical. As a rule of thumb, we find that one must manufacture a minimum of 5 Kg of concentrate at a time to get the extra body needed in a perfume.”
I do think macerating fragrances purchased across the mass and luxury market is probably a bit of an old wives tale. However, that being said, I do think maceration in fragrance oils or even across indie fragrance houses makes the maceration process very valuable to the scent you purchase.
I have BPAL oils that smell nicer now than they did five plus years ago that I purchased them. The fragrances have morphed and have become richer. Another very good example is when I purchase a seasonal blend from indie brands like Solstice Scents. Remember places like Solstice Scents do not have a huge back log of products. They are making their fragrances as they release them which means you’ll get a nice, fresh blend. But this also means the fragrance hasn’t had time to age and the formula hasn’t had enough time to combine. Allowing perfumes from smaller indie houses to slowly age will actually benefit the scent in the long run in my humble opinion. In this case, I think the art of maceration can come in handy.
Do you macerate your fragrances?
Do you find it benefits the perfume?
Do share!
