Path for an amateur

[Sunnerlone]

Hello everyone. I need your opinions on my conflict.

Im a self educated try/error style perfume enjoyer. I started by aromatherapy and candles, then i convert to perfume making.

My goal is to open a small local perfume shop and when i started, i chose to go all natural to be different and achieve something. Its been months with 50 essential oils and 20 isolates but i haven’t create something that “bright,clean,polished,magical”. Even my best creations not even close to luxury brands. Since i have no chance to be as good as real/educated perfumers even with synthetics. Making something %100 natural would be the way i can follow. But after good amount of research and experience i am in doubt now. Synthetic doesnt mean bad. Actually they are very vital.

Now (thanks for reading this long story), What would you guys recommend me?

1-) Stay %100 natural and try your best and open a shop by hoping that some people prefer a natural perfume even they are not as charming as luxury brands.

2-) Give up on this way and create better perfumes with synthetics and open a shop anyway by hoping that eventhough mines are not the best some people still prefer mines.

I would like to know everything you could say and thank you again

 

[hednic]

You might want to address this to the experienced perfumers in the Fragrance DIY Forum for better insight to your questions.

 

[Ken_Russell]

Seconding the DIY forum recommendation.
As well as mentioning that ultimately testing, experimenting with as much as possible from both path 1) and 2) in ways that are affordable, interesting and hopefully entertaining at once can help in ultimately finding the method, attitude and/or style that finally suits you best.

 

[GWM]

You can't make a business selling natural perfume. Just won't work. Whatever brands appear to succeed are usually selling something else, most likely a lifestyle or image, and the perfume is just an accessory to that lifestyle. An example would be someone who only uses essential oils for health problems, who then goes on etsy to buy a 100% natural perfume -- the perfume could be anything, it's the "100% natural" lifestyle that's actually being sold.

Anyways, you could certainly try to become a self taught perfumer. Others have done it. I would keep in mind that perfume schools such as IFF's school instruct their pupils for years, and those teachers are some of the best the industry has to offer. It's going to take you a lot longer than those years to try and teach yourself.

Ask yourself why you want to be a perfumer. Are you a chemist looking for a new field? Or are you a creative who imagines new fragrances? If it's the latter, I think it would be much more productive creating businesses that can eventually fund a fragrance business, and then you become the creative director of your brand who commissions a perfumer to realize your ideas. Even if you learn to make a perfume that's interesting, you're still going to need to learn how to run a business and how to market yourself. That's a really big skill set, and would require a lot more work than you may be imagining.