How I Organize Perfumes

Perfume organs, categories, simple sniffing

People always ask me how I know where everything is on my perfume organ. Though it looks chaotic, it’s actually quite organized. Everything is organized alphabetically and separated by its family. As a self-taught perfumer, I developed my own system for observing & categorizing what I smelled. I use it for my office, but also in a streamlined version for the DSD fragrances. There is a lot of overlap with molecules – sometimes a material is between fruit-herb-flower. Sometimes they are green-wood. You can get lost in sub-genres, but I like to simplify & have less sections to confuse people. All labs are strictly alphabetical. When I started making fumes, I didn’t know that. My system helped me organize what I was sniffing. Here’s how I do it:

Note: My organ wraps around the wall in an L shape, so it creates a nice break between a few families.

Bottom Shelf

Left – Animalics – Musks, Ambergris, Civet, Castoreum.

Anything based on animal origin. I don’t use anything that comes from a dead or tortured animal. So my civet & castoreum oils are synthetic copies. I am ok to use beeswax but rarely do. I would also be ok to use Africa Stone that is fossilized pee-pee from the Hyrax millions of years long gone, but I’ve never used it anything that wasn’t very experimental/one-off. Musks & Ambergris notes are the backbone of perfumery but are almost always synthetic in the Western world. I’ve smelled the real stuff, but don’t own & wouldn’t use them.

Right -

Violet Materials – anything in the ionone camp and beyond that provides sweet woody heart notes.

Radiant Molecules – my own name for molecules like iso e super that help perfumes radiate.

Ozones – Things that smell like or help build the scent of water & air.

Aldehydes – Strong metallic-fruity-waxy molecules that smell futuristic & Art Deco at the same time.

2^nd Shelf

Woods & Ambers –

This goes the whole length. It contains anything that I would consider woody or amber (resins from trees that are usually balsamic & vanillic). Balsams, cedars, cypress, fir, guaicwood, hinoki, labdanum, myrhh, olibanim (frankincense), pine, sandalwoods, styrax, vetiver & more.

3rd Shelf

Left –

Green Materials – all the most green molecules that suggest vegetation. Includes galbanums, grass molecules, leaf molecules, stem molecules & moss materials.

Right –

Flower Extracts. The realest. The finest. Little bits of these guys beautify everything they touch. Some of my faves are chamomile, champaca, ginger lily, geranium, iris, jasmines, mimosa, lotus, orange blossom, rose, tuberose, & ylang.

4^th Shelf

Flower Molecules. These are the pieces of the pie that make flowers sing.

5^th Shelf

Fruit/Fruit Molecules/Citrus/Lactones/Gourmands. Anything I deem more fruity that flower (which can sometimes go either way). I keep lactones here – though they are often milky, they generally smell edible. Anything edible like chocolate & vanilla also go here.

Top Shelf

Herbs & Spices. I put patchouli in here because it comes from a leaf.

I also have a lil’ portion on the end for true top shelf ouds & rarities.

The way I organize finished perfumes at DSD.

So many perfumes defy categorization. Like a symphony, most great ones have elements that are floral, fresh, woody, green, ambery all balanced perfectly to make a single statement. Though I love nerding out on subgenres, when you only have a moment to tell someone how things are laid out of the shelf, things need to be simple. So I locate the dominant family in all our fumes. I find everything can more or less fit into the following:

Fresh/Green – things that are lively or dominantly green. Cool spice, leaf, ether, ocean, air.

Citrus/Fruit – Anything that is dominated by a fruit.

Wood – All woody perfumes.

Flower – All flower dominant fumes.

Amber/Resin – A big catch all for perfumes driven by resinous substances that are often balsamic, vanillic, or spicy.

Smoke – A cool one where the smoke is the main attraction.

There are many perfumes that defy such simple breakdowns. But even the strangest stick out their head into one camp. Ozones are most often fresh & green, right? Gourmands are most likely to be in citrus/fruit, woody, or amber/resin. Chypre is usually Citrus/Fruit, Wood, or Amber/Resin. Herbal things are often green, woody, or Amber/Resin. And so on.

Breaking things down, helps us organize how we understand them. I love to make lists & diagrams to understand the movement of thoughts floating in my head. How do you all organize your fumes?