Tidbits

The cheapest raw material in the world is benzyl acetate, at about 3.50 euros per kilo. It's in quite a few floral notes, including jasmine, and smells like fake bananas. I recognize it as the product most likely to give me an instant headache. (Anything that ends in -ate can cause no small amout of pain if you inhale with too much enthusiasm).

The most expensive material is iris root absolute, at about 100,000.00 euros per kilo. Getting this fragrance takes up to six years while you wait for the roots to mature underground. It smells kind of floral, kind of plant-like, green, and mild, not what you'd imagine the 'Kohinor' of perfume materials to smell like!

Today we had a guest speaker who used to work for Chanel. He showed us some extremely old perfumes that are no longer on the market, such as one created 2,000 years ago called "Perfume Royale." Main ingredients? Honey, cinnamon, and cloves. Yum.