The Old School Vs The New Age in Concocting Perfumes

The traditional process in concocting perfumes is solely relying on the skilled noses of famous perfume connoisseurs and the ultra sensitivity to the meticulous process of extracting the precious essential oils from flowers, fruits, animal hide, and aromatics plants. In the most expensive and luxurious realm of perfumeries, the manufacturers employ the most sensitive and distinctive kinds of noses to do the job of creating a masterpiece of bottled luxurious fragrances.

In Cannes, they have launched an interesting competition labelled as the olfactory Olympics. Last year, they have introduced a new set of competition called the Sundance of Scent representatives of more than 50 top fragrance-and-flavour companies will converge at the World Perfumery Congress in Cannes, France, to charm potential customers and herald their latest innovations. During the competition, the speaker talked about the "Noses of Tomorrow" that discussed about the heated debate between the traditional processes of mixing different essences with complete reliance on the subjective noses of the perfumers or using the new age technique of the so-called robotic mixers.

Some experts focusing in the perfumery industry warned the new age capitalists who are after mass reproduction of bottled perfumes that using machines in handling a supposedly delicate task of concocting oils and essences destroys the refinement and frivolous reputation applied to perfumes and other kinds of fragrances. Jean-Pierre Subrenat, chairman of the World Perfumery Congress and former head of the American Society of Perfumers said that "we are in danger of losing our identity, becoming more concerned with Wall Street than our customers." He is worried that industry specialists will lose their jobs and that financial demands will squelch creative freedom. For traditional aficionados of perfumes, manual mixing of perfumes is a lengthy but deeply satisfying process and it adds a touch of personalized labour to the bottled fragrances making it more precious to the clienteles.

But because technological developments are inevitable and quite difficult to ignore, many industries of perfumes and scents employed robotic mixers to blend ingredients for samples that are sent to clients. Technicians still mix oils by hand when creating a new scent or flavour, but it is more efficient to use automated mixing when assembling batches of samples for outside clients. The research industry used to individually test the scents before they mix it using robotic mixers have asked 50 participants to sample each scent and give their comments and analysis to aid the company in determining what scent will become more palatable to the market.

But robotic mixers are relatively new to the market and many perfumeries are still apprehensive in using these machines knowing that a slight mistake or a malfunction could result to a massive wastage of expensive essences and oils. For research and development alone, perfume manufacturers allot a significant portion of capital in employing scientists and experts in creating a new blend of olfactory products. These companies still adhere to the old-school belief that the satisfaction rating of a person's noses cannot be replaced by a machine no matter how efficient and productive the outputs would be.