Perfumery Intensives

Perfumery Intensives
Ongoing, with Spyros Drosopoulos
Locations Variable / Online

This comprehensive overview of technical perfumery is geared to beginner and intermediate independent practitioners with scent, and will help you understand the art and science of perfumery, while enhancing your existing practice with technical knowledge.

Our intensives are designed to help independent perfumers kick their proficiency levels up a notch, and to help beginners take the dive into scent-making as a creative practice. This is accomplished through a facts-based curriculum that covers the most crucial elements of perfumery. The course will enhance your artisan, independent or experimental scent practice by showing you how to professionalize your work, while avoiding reliance on those omnipresent pre-fabricated bases. As a participant, you will learn (or re-learn) the basics and get a sense of some of the special tricks you can use to deploy your own compositional prowess, and – ultimately – rely on your own skills for a greater adeptness in formulating.

Join us!

COMING UP

5-Day Perfume Intensive with Spyros Drosopoulos
Los Angeles
Unfortunately this course is sold out.

Monday 13 January to Friday 17 January, 2025
10:00am to 5:00pm, daily
at the Institute for Art and Olfaction, Los Angeles

The Institute for Art and Olfaction is pleased to team up with independent perfumer Spyros Drosopoulos to offer an ongoing series of intensives; an introduction to perfumery, science, formulating, and – of course – all the materials and tips an independent perfumer could ask for. This comprehensive overview of technical perfumery is geared to beginner and intermediate independent practitioners with scent, and will help you understand the art and science of perfumery, while enhancing your existing practice with technical knowledge.

Questions? Email us at hello@artandolfaction.com.

COSTS

Class fee: $1,800.00 for the course, inclusive of materials and instruction.
Deposit: We require a $150.00 deposit to hold your place. This deposit is non-refundable (unless the course cancels). The remainder ($1,650.00) will be due December 15, 2024.

+ This class is sold out.
Email us at hello@artandolfaction.com if you want to be placed on the waitlist, or be alerted to future editions.

SCHEDULE

Mornings will be spent in instruction, and afternoons in practice.

Day 1 – Classic Fragrance Types: Chypre
Morning: We kickoff the class by exploring the materials in our palette and we do that while studying the key materials to build Chypre type formulas. The aim of session 1 is to familiarize you with the terminology, the type of materials in our pallet, the stylistic and technical choices to pay attention to and basic principles for formulation.
Afternoon: Afternoons will be spent blending the morning’s accords in our fully stocked laboratory.

Day 2 – Classic Fragrance Types: Fougère, Cologne, Vanilla & Amber Accords
Morning: In order to ensure a good familiarity with important classical fragrance types, on day two we’ll continue to explore important fragrance families and their related materials. Today we will smell and discuss the materials relating to the fougère, cologne, vanilla, and amber families. We will also do a brief cover of some “fantasy” fragrance types.
Afternoon: Afternoons will be spent blending the morning’s accords in our fully stocked laboratory.

Day 3 –  Flowers: Part 1
Morning: Most flowers smell great, however only a few of them return good oils or absolutes, and in most cases those materials are very expensive or restricted due to allergens. For this reason, every perfumer is well served by learning to make their own reconstructions or accords. We will start our morning with an overview of materials that are present in different flowers, and how nature has organized them. We will discover common denominators between different flowers and how changing the proportions will give you a whole different flower. Also we will propose alternative materials to work with than the ones present in the actual flowers. We will start this exploration with rose, violet and iris.
Afternoon: Afternoons will be spent blending the morning’s accords in our fully stocked laboratory.

Day 4 – Flowers: Part 2
Morning: We will continue our exploration of floral accords with a thorough analysis of the aromatic components of the so-called “white flowers” (though we prefer to use the term “hedonistic”) – including the delectable jasmine, tuberose, with an examination of gardenia and magnolia.
Afternoon: Afternoons will be spent blending the morning’s accords in our fully stocked laboratory.

Day 5 –  Fruity Accords, Green &  Woody Notes, Textures
Morning: After the flowers, fruits. As fruit extracts are so rare, a perfumer must often rely on skill to make a good, fully-fleshed fruit reproduction. As we explore the aromatics, we will experiment with how to vary proportions to create the effect of different fruits, how to funk up or tone down a fruit aroma, and much more. Specifically, we will focus on yellow, red and tropical fruits and a fig thrown in for good measure. We will continue by covering green and woody notes.  Finally, we will briefly cover some texture effects. Many materials are incorporated into a formula not for their own odor but for the effect they can elicit on the overall result. Mastering these subtle details are as important to your perfume as your formula’s star players: they give your perfume its character. We will study materials that will allow you to manipulate the texture of your perfume, its longevity, projection and much much more.
Afternoon: Afternoons will be spent blending the morning’s accords in our fully stocked laboratory.

COMING SOON

Lab Expansion Course with Spyros Drosopoulos

January 7 + 21, 2025

Spyros Drosopoulos returns to the IAO community for an online expansion on his popular intensives. Designed for people who have taken his past courses, or who have prior experience in formulating for fine fragrance, this two part (online) session will build on the previous formulas to teach how new materials can add a special effect or nuance to your blends.

The course will help participants forge new territory with their perfume practice through a detail-oriented examination of the purpose and uses of approximately 50 new materials.
In each session, Spyros will lead the class in advanced, applied technical knowledge. The course will cover:
+ 50 new raw materials
+ How to implement these new materials in existing formulas (specifically, the formulas shared in the intensive course including red florals, cologne, and etc.
+ How to implement these new materials to create novel structures and formulas
+ How to use materials to create special effects or nuances.
If you have not taken the intensive course with Spyros, but have demonstrated experience as a perfumer, you are able to take the class with an additional fee (this is due to the access to the formulas from the intensive.)

MATERIALS

Materials must be ordered separately in advance.

Perfumers Apprentice has prepared an expansion course kit. We will provide information about how to purchase the kit within 48 hours of signup. If you have an existing lab, we will send you the materials list within 48 hours of signup. The cost of the materials is $433.00, but IAO students receive a discount to $303.10.

CLASS INFORMATION

There are two sessions of 3.5 hours each (with short breaks for nose resting). These sessions take place:
– January 7, from 9am to 12:30pm PT
– January 21, 9am to 12:30pm PT

Class takes place over Zoom. The sessions will be recorded and will be available for three weeks after each class takes place.

COST
+ Former 5-day intensive participants: $425.00
+ Participants who haven’t taken the 5-day intensive will be charged an additional fee of $350. This additional fee provides access to all the formulas from the 5-day perfume intensive.

+ SIGN UP