Perfume goes through a long process before it is put out on the shelf but today we’ll just be talking about ageing/maturing.
Ageing is the process of molecules mixing together to age like a fine wine, creating perfumes can be a very lengthy business as they need to sit for months at a time. After the perfume compound has been created it then needs to sit for at least a month to allow maturation. The compound then needs to be diluted with a base to create the spray, perfumers choose different options to what works best for them but for us, we use perfumers alcohol. This is now a new compound molecule being added to the mix, this needs to sit for at least three months to reach maturity. This allows for the permanent bonding of the alcohol and oils.
We use a whole separate room for this process at Oud Attar, so you can only imagine the wonderful smells. The mixture of alcohol and oils is placed in large containers, labelled and dated to ensure we keep a track of how long each fragrance has been ageing. They are kept untouched for this period in a dark, cool room just like how you should store your perfumes at home.
Maturing does continue to happen while they are bottled and sent off to our lovely customers. This means that when you finish up your bottle and come back to order more you might notice the change compared to the newer bottle, even if there is no change in the production batch!