Newbie questions regarding blending

[ZAKARIAN]

So when testing out different fragrance blends, do you first work with a diluted version of the materials? (I.e. 10% diluted)
And then once you decide on the actual formula for want to try out you use the raw material at a 100% Or neat I believe is the term.
Are there some scents or materials that you would almost always keep diluted at 10% and use them at those strengths?

Sorry for all the questions. Starting out fresh and want to be proactive in learning what to do and not to do before I waste time, money and materials.

Thank you in advance as always.

- Ara

 

[orestes13]

What I do is make a draft of whatever ingredients I plan to put into the mix. I usually make 5ml or 10ml testers, so I know approximately how much the final weight of the fragrance will be (for 10 ml it's about 8.5 grams and half of that for the 5ml testers). I then put all my ingredients into an excel sheet that calculates the percentages of each material, so I play around with the grams a bit until I have the percentages that I intend to use.

Now, if a certain material needs to be used at a very low percentage (let's say 0.2% or lower) and that corresponds to something ridiculously small (usually under 0.02 grams), then this can obviously not be added undiluted, as it would be impossible to add such a small amount with a pipette. That's when diluting comes into play. Obviously, if you have something extremely potent such as cade oil or birch tar, you probably want to have it diluted in advance as you will barely ever be using it undiluted.

 

[pkiler]

If you want to predilute most/all of *some of your material's quantity for testing, go ahead, but not at 10%, use 20%, 10% is too weak.

Personally, I only work neat, unless too strong or too sticky. Even solids are not diluted, unless too sticky gooey.

Working neat allows you to later choose the dilution rate better, much easier, certainly.
And, making your final blend concentrate neat is the way to go, so if you dilute for testing, don't dilute all of your stock, only that used for your trials.