< Home

DUEL: Synthesis / Natural

Synthetic products

There are 2 types of synthetic raw materials:

those obtained by chemical reactions: esters, aldehydes, lactones, macrocyclic musks such as for certain white musks, methylionones for violet notes, etc.
isolates from natural products, such as indole found in jasmine, geraniol in rose or geranium, linalool and linalyl acetate in lavender and bergamot, certain musks found in animal musk. Many synthetic raw materials are constituents of natural products.

What does the synthesis provide?

1. It brings creativity: synthesis brings original notes to the perfume, like aldehydes or marine notes for example. They therefore enrich the perfumer's palette and give abstraction to the perfume. There are about 3000 synthetic products.

Synthesis has real advantages: synthetic products can be obtained at any time in the quantities desired. It allows the perfumer to reproduce fragrant floral notes that are too fragile to be distilled, notably flowers that do not give up their soul such as lily of the valley, lilac, freesia, lily, honeysuckle, gardenia, wisteria, peony, violet flower etc. They can also reproduce the smell of fruits whose essence is impossible to extract, such as strawberry (C16), peach (C14), coconut (C18), plum, raspberry (raspberryone), etc., with some exceptions.

2. It improves tenacity, adds power and sillage to the fragrance.

3. It enhances natural notes: for example, to give a natural vanilla a gourmand effect reminiscent of a pastry, an ingredient such as ethyl maltol, which smells like caramel, can be added. Thanks to research and advances in chemistry, it is possible to design ingredients that have an extraordinary evocative power from the outset. Perfumers are increasingly looking for "naturalness" that paradoxically some naturals can't offer. A hedonic note will enhance the rose better and bring more naturalness (freshness of morning dew) than bergamot or lemon.

Some new synthetic molecules are currently very popular

White musks, which give "soft" notes, "cashmere" notes and "baby" notes.
Addictive, powerful, diffusive notes like cashmeran or ambroxan.
Sweet notes like caramel: ethyl maltol.
Nervous woody amber notes that appeal to men. Like limbanol or cedarwood or ambrocenid, karanal or Z11.
True "oud" notes are rarely natural (very expensive) and are often replaced by a blend of natural and synthetic.

However, some preconceived ideas are still very much alive, such as the idea that a good fragrance is only natural. Without synthetic ingredients, modern perfumery would not exist.

Without aldehydes, Chanel's N°5 would never have been created.
Without coumarin, vanillin and linalool, Guerlain's first modern perfume Jicky would never have existed.
Without ethylvanillin, Guerlain's Shalimar would not have offered such a memorable trail.
Nor would Dior's Eau Sauvage without Hedione (an extremely transparent, jasmine-like floral note).
Acqua Di Gió without the calone (which reproduces the smell of the sea and iodine).
Mitsouko by Guerlain would not have been as perfect without the fruity peach note (aldehyde C14) that was first used in this fragrance.

Below are some commonly used synthetic products

Damascone Alpha, with an apple-cider smell, used in Nahema by Guerlain and Jardins de Bagatelle by Guerlain.
Ethyl-maltol, Maltol, molecules with a sweet, caramel odour, used in Angel by Thierry Mugler or in La Vie Est Belle by Lancôme, La Petite Robe Noire Intense by Guerlain.
Dihydromyrcenol, fresh citrus note, modern. Ex: CK One by Calvin Klein, Cool Water by Davidoff.
Heliotropin - white glue, almond smell. Ex: L'Heure Bleue by Guerlain, Après l'Ondée by Guerlain.
Galaxolide - powdery, ripe fruity, clean musk. Ex: White Musk by The Body Shop.
Cis 3 hexenol - cut grass smell. Ex : Herba Fresca by Guerlain.

Objections to synthesis

We often hear the comments: “A good perfume is one that contains only natural ingredients” or “the new fragrances are all synthetic!” Synthesis should not be seen as negative, even though natural has a real added value.

We also hear, "synthetic is cheaper". Irone is a synthetic molecule that exists in the iris and costs around 2000€ per kilo. A "luxury" molecule with a powdery scent (white musk) costs around 600€, while a natural essence of lavender costs 150€ per kilo, that of neroli is for 3000€ and an essence of orange only 10€.

It should be noted that it can take several years of research using very sophisticated techniques to discover certain odorant molecules that are of interest to perfumers and can then be produced on a large scale.

Natural

There are about 1000 natural raw materials. Natural materials are subject to climatic conditions or other disasters: crops can be shortened, for example during the great earthquake in Iran the entire Galbanum crop was wiped out.

Every year, new natural raw materials are discovered or rediscovered:

Classics are revisited, such as light patchouli or patchouli heart: a patchouli that has been stripped of its earthy, old-fashioned notes.
Recently, beautiful natural fruity notes are available: an apple-pear ester and some isolates etc.
Many new natural products have allowed creative perfumers to move forward with new accords, for example blackcurrant bud (1970) used for the first time in Chamade by Guerlain.
Canadian Pine Needle Absolute, Algae Absolute, Eucalyptus Absolute etc.

It would be wrong to say that natural products can be replaced by synthetic products knowing that, for example, a natural rose can contain up to 700 molecules and therefore irreplaceable by synthesis or by a tuning. On the other hand, when nature does not allow the distillation of certain flowers, the perfumer is able to recreate certain notes, e.g. lily of the valley, seringa, lilac, gardenia.

Naturalness gives perfume an extra soul! It evolves with the skin, it creates a unique alchemy, it has vibrations. One could say "It is the woman or the man who enhances the perfume". The same perfume on different skins is sometimes unrecognisable, or on the contrary sublimated, exquisite!

On the other hand, the natural product is less stable than the synthetic product. Depending on the climate, the soil, the treatment of the raw material, the quality can be different from one year to the next, hence the creation of communelles. Know that a perfume for babies contains very few natural products (for a baby's skin, let's avoid allergies due to natural essences, and moreover "sensitive" synthetic materials are also avoided). A 100% natural perfume is difficult to work with and sometimes has difficulty holding and diffusing. Some are successful but others can smell like a drugstore or be rough. It will also be very expensive when it is truly 100% natural. Sometimes a perfumer will favour synthetic products in a formula that are more modern than natural essential oils which can sometimes look old-fashioned.

History of synthetic products

1833/34: Dumas and Peligot isolate cinnamic aldehyde from cinnamon oil.
1844: Cahours finds its main constituent in aniseed oil: anethol.
In 1868, the English chemist William Henry Perkin synthesised the odorous principle of the tonka bean: coumarin.
Coumarin was used for the first time in 1882 in the Fougère Royale created for Houbigant.
1869: discovery of heliotropin used in Après l'Ondée, which also contains the anisic aldehyde molecule discovered in 1887.
1874: the chemists Tiemann and Reimer produce vanillin industrially.
1880 : discovery of the leather notes that are present in Russian leathers : quinolines, don't forget that there were several Russian leathers, Chanel's, Guerlain's and many others.
1888 : the chemist Baur produces an artificial musk that is much less expensive than tonkin musk (the latter is now forbidden)
1889 : Jicky Guerlain uses in many natural products (which give a unique alchemy with the skin), the first synthetic products : coumarin, vanillin and linalool to boost the real vanilla, and tonka bean.
In the 1900s, Moureu and Delange discovered Octine and Heptine carbonate of Methyl, with a violet note (leaves).
1903: Blaize and Darzens participate in the creation of aldehydes.
The Dupont company will have famous products such as ionones, methylionones, created around 1905, as well as alpha amylcinnamic aldehyde, acetivenol.
1908: creation of hydroxycitronellal from citronella oil etc. At that time, the creation of the note peach (C14) was used for the first time in Mitsouko.
Great discoveries such as Hedione 1962 (Firmenich) (isolated from jasmine) allowed the creation of the sublime perfume Eau Sauvage by Dior.
Sandalwood added to natural sandalwood allowed the creation of Samsara by Guerlain.
Ethyl maltol was created in 1963: the famous caramel note first used in Angel by Mugler.
1966: calone, the marine note first used in New West Aramis.
1970 damascones (isolated from the rose) (Firmenich) were first used to great effect in the creation of Nahéma and Jardins de Bagatelle by Guerlain.
1973 the creation of a widely used molecule: iso e super sweet woody note.
1990 Helvétolide: a powdery musk.

Creativity and discovery: every year new synthetic molecules appear as well as new natural products.

Conclusion

A perfumer builds his organ with about 1000 products in total, which he chooses according to his affinities from 4000/5000 natural and synthetic materials. Synthetic products have brought to perfumery notes that have enriched the perfumer's organ: the violet note, the lilac note, lilies, fruits that cannot be obtained naturally. All these discoveries contribute to the development, renewal and enrichment of perfumery creation.

A perfume containing a lot of synthetic products would be more linear and more stable on many supports: blotter, fabric, skin, etc. It would also be more tenacious and have more sillage. A perfume containing more natural products than synthetic products will evolve according to each skin, and will sometimes be unrecognisable, this kind of perfume has different vibrations. It will have an extra soul. So the ideal is to have a large proportion of natural products in a fragrance and synthetic products which will be more of a complement.

The most important thing beyond this natural/synthetic debate is to have a beautiful perfume, you need a strong creative idea, a beautiful olfactory aesthetic, and well mastered orchestration by a talented perfumer.

Sylvaine Delacourte perfumes

Discover Sylvaine Delacourte's brand with her Orange Blossom, Musk and Vanilla Collections. You can try them thanks to the Discovery Boxes (5 Eaux de Parfum x 2 ml) and rediscover these raw materials as you have never smelled them before.