Dr. Strange Smell or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Grojsman Accord

Like many other aspiring perfumers, we started out thinking that we could improve on commercial perfumes by using high quality natural ingredients and no “synthetic chemicals.”

Reflecting on the journey from trying to make all natural perfumes to integration of natural and synthetic materials (aroma chemicals or AC’s) has given us an opportunity to refine our concept of how to make perfumes that we enjoy.

It all started with a natural isolate, santalol (ex santalum album) to be exact. This was the magic ingredient that would lift our muddled sandalwood note up through a weedy attempt at something called “Meadowflower.” This did not break any rules because it was a natural isolate. We could stay all natural. It was quickly followed by a host of naturally-derived isolates: linaloool, natural ambrettolide, cis-3-hexenol, geraniol ex palmarosa, nerolidol. These are all chemicals that are employed with great regularity in perfumes with limited or no natural or naturally-derived ingredients.

Geosmin was the end of us. It is a mythical ingredient, petrichor, the smell of rain on dry soil. Although it is naturally occurring, there is no naturally-derived source. It can be smelled at concentrations as low as 10 parts per trillion. It was known since the late 1800’s, its composition defined in the 1960’s, but only synthesized in the 1980’s. This was what Meadowflower needed! It turns out that Geosmin is incredibly difficult to dose in a way that its impact is felt without overloading the brain’s circuits. It remains in deep seclusion in our portable perfumer’s organ.

Once the seal was broken, we just had to smell Hedione of Eau Sauvage fame and the darling of master perfumer Jean-Claude Ellena. Hedione is used in almost all modern perfumes to enhance perceived diffusion, add space to compositions, as a subtle floralizer that makes every other note seem more like itself. Hedione (Firmenich), or methyl dihydrojasmonate, is a naturally-occurring compound in jasmine and tea leaves. It was used at less than 1% in Eau Sauvage, but is currently used at levels between 2 and 15% and up to 35% in fragrance concentrates. In our attempt to make a classic neroli cologne, Hedione lifted the sharp, yet delicate brilliance of the neroli heart note out of a mess of citrus, petitgrain, and wood.

Could Iso E Super (IFF), or patchouli ethanone, perform the same magic as we move to the base? Yes, and no. It provides a velvety fullness with a woody, amber, ambergris smell that lasts just into the beginning of the base with under 200 hours on the blotter compared to the 400+ hours of many base notes, natural and synthetic. It is used in up to 20% of finished product, meaning the majority of some fragrance concentrates. It is most valuable for the space that it creates than for its smell, which is weak for most and imperceptible to many. We say that this is not as important in our work as Hedione is because there are other ways to achieve this effect with fractions of wood, vetiver, patchouli and other ingredients. We love nerolidol and benzyl salicylate, but they don’t achieve the transformation that Hedione can.

We tried to love Javanol, Ebanol, Santaliff, etc., but even at extreme dilution, their musk aspects took away from their diffusive and long-lasting sandalwood effects. We have not found a synthetic musk that outperforms the naturally-derived or synthetic ambrettolide without adding the noxious musk effects that led us away from commercial perfumery in the first place.

So to the title of this post. From coming out of the idea that we should use only natural ingredients to have the best perfume, to learning that there are many naturally-derived isolates that are identical (or nearly so depending on isomers) to fully synthesized compounds, to becoming enamored of a small set of aroma chemicals, we have finally understood that there is such a thing as the practice of creating accords with blends of natural and synthetic compounds that can result in better fragrances than using a binary approach to natural and synthetic. So we learned to stop worrying.

About loving the Grosjman Accord. Sofia Grojsman was born in Belarus in 1945, graduated with a B.S. in inorganic chemistry in Poland, and emigrated to the United States in 1965. Within a year, she was working as a lab technician at International Flavors and Fragrances (IFF), which is a global fragrance industry leader. She is a leader in the industry for many reason, but is best known for the accord she developed for Lancôme’s Trésor (1990). In this scent, it is reported that Grojsman used equal parts of Hedione, Iso E Super, Galaxolide (musk), and methyl ionone (iris).

As above, we haven’t found a musk we love, but are still open to it. As someone making perfume for fun, we would rather use orris butter than methyl ionone. So, ambrettolide, orris butter, Hedione, and Iso E Super is the current confused version of the Grojsman Accord that we enjoy.

The genius of the Grojsman Accord is that it creates an experience that is more than sum of its parts and that this experience can easily be tweaked to match a specific composition. You don’t want it so powdery, find the lower limit where dropping the ionones doesn’t shift the overall effect of the accord. Raise or lower all of the levels. We find that keeping the Hedione and Iso E Super levels at 5-6% of the fragrance concentrate or lower gets a lot of the benefit without obscuring the value of the natural materials. It is recommended that ambrettolide be limited to 5%. Assuming one keeps with that recommendation, keeping Hedione and Iso E Super at 5% gives the balance of the original Grojsman Accord.

The Grojsman Accord is really amazing. But it is not the destination of learning to create beautiful compositions. Jean-Claude Ellena may speak of Hedione, but he uses other surprising accords in spare compositions that delight.

The Grojsman Accord to us is the beginning of a beautiful journey to find the balance of natural and synthetic ingredients that combine in a balanced formula to communicate the deep meaning and artistry within the capacity of excellent perfumery.