Perfume working dilutions

Make up a stock solution of a material too strong to dose neat — from what you have, or back from what you want — and see what a formula row is really delivering.

INPUTS
Velvety, woody and nearly transparent. Used at loads that would be absurd for a natural — it pushes everything around it forward rather than smelling of much itself.
g
%
1% · 5% · 10% · 20% · 50%
The default for anything going into a spray perfume. Evaporates cleanly, so the dilution adds nothing to the finished blend but the material itself.
What a formula row is really dosing
g
That row is delivering 0.300 g of actual iso e super. Getting this backwards is the commonest way a trial comes out ten times off.
Label the bottle with the material AND the strength, every time. An unlabelled dilution is indistinguishable from the neat material six months later, and using one where you meant the other is a factor-of-ten mistake in whichever direction hurts more.
RESULTS
Perfumer's alcohol to add
45.00 g
10% solution 50.00 g finished
Weigh out
IngredientShareAmount
Iso E Super10%5.00 g
Perfumer's alcohol90.0%45.00 g
Finished dilution100%50.00 g
3 g of this delivers
0.300 g
Bottle it needs
65 ml
Strength is by weight, which is how dilutions are always quoted. The millilitre figures use each material's own density, so they will not match the weights divided by anything — that is the point of doing it here rather than on the back of an envelope.

How this is worked out

A working dilution is a stock solution: a material cut with a diluent so it can be dosed accurately and judged fairly. The arithmetic is trivial — total = material ÷ strength, diluent = total − material — and it is worth a tool because of the direction it usually gets asked in and because of what happens afterwards. Both directions are here: "I have this much material, what do I end up with", and "I want this much solution, what do I weigh". The number that matters most is the one at the bottom of the results: a formula row calling for 3 g of a 10% dilution is delivering 0.3 g of actual material. Substituting the neat material at the same weight makes that row ten times stronger, which is the commonest factor-of-ten mistake in the craft. Millilitre figures use each material's own density, so they will not equal the weights divided by anything — which is exactly why doing this on the back of an envelope goes wrong.

total = material ÷ strength
diluent = total − material
a formula row of D grams at S% delivers D × S ÷ 100 of material

Questions makers ask

How do I make a 10% dilution for perfume?
Weigh the material, then add nine times its weight in diluent. 5 g of material plus 45.00 g of perfumer's alcohol gives 50.00 g of a 10% solution. The arithmetic is total = material ÷ strength, and the tool above runs it in both directions.
Why dilute a perfume material at all?
Two reasons. Accuracy: a formula might need a hundredth of a gram of something, which no home scale can weigh — but a tenth of a gram of a 10% solution is the same dose and is easy. And judgement: several materials smell frankly unpleasant neat. Jasmine absolute is the classic case — indolic and almost off-putting undiluted, transformed at a fraction of a percent.
How much material is in 3 g of a 10% dilution?
0.3 g. This is the number people forget, and forgetting it is the commonest way a trial comes out ten times off. A formula row calling for a dilution is dosing that fraction of what the row says — so if you substitute the neat material for the dilution at the same weight, you have made it ten times stronger.
What should I dilute perfume materials in?
Perfumer's alcohol for anything going into a spray perfume — it evaporates cleanly, so the dilution adds nothing to the finished blend but the material itself. Dipropylene glycol (DPG) is the industry diluent and what most pre-diluted materials arrive in; it is odourless and does not evaporate, so it stays in the formula, which is fine at these amounts. Isopropyl myristate is for oil-based work only.
What strength dilution should I make?
Ten per cent, unless you have a reason not to. It is the convention, it is what suppliers mean by "pre-diluted", and it is the strength most published formulae assume. One per cent is worth making for a handful of extremely powerful aroma chemicals — make a 10% first and dilute that again, which is both more accurate and how it is normally done.
Do working dilutions expire?
In alcohol, they keep about as long as the material does — years for woods, resins and aroma chemicals, less for citrus. In DPG they keep effectively indefinitely. Label the bottle with the material and the strength every time: an unlabelled dilution is indistinguishable from the neat material six months later.

Read before your next batch

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