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Comment by ggm | Hacker News Reader

My partner complains that the economics of scent mean your signature smell can be deleted on a whim. She fell in love with a very unlikely scent, got 10 years, it's gone. It's actually happened twice to her, and these are not marginal brands either, Cacharel and Beckham, who (probably because they are ruthless with otherwise underperforming product) prune their range.

If the containers were uniform, it could be a robot production line and small runs wouldn't be an issue given the inputs are somewhat universal.

It's paint blending for the nose.

"War paint" (2003) by Liny Woodhead about Helena Rubenstein and Elizabeth Arden is a fascinating read. It was a book before a stage production.

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It's not only economics but also the ever-tightening IFRA rules that command the maximum content or even outright banning of various fragrance ingredients to reduce allergies or other health issues.

indeed

armani lui has been my "signature scent" since i've turned 18 in 1999 (give or take) and those bastards just randomly changed the formula at some point. i still use it, it's still my fav scent by a mile but it's not what i used to smell like and it makes me sad that it was just gone and i can never get it back

Scents, like people and memories, are impermanent.

It's a specific mix of certain chemicals, why is that impermanent?

Probably your sense of smell changes over time. Same with people entering/leaving your life and your memories being malleable.

It has been said of all the senses, scent, a sense of smell is amongst the last to go, possibly because it's amongst the first to make bindings in the brain, with a remarkably direct path. Old people with aphasia and dementia can be brought into quite alert states with smells from their past like horse manure, or old perfumes.

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9243450/

Perfumiers change recipes because CITES don't allow use of some animal derived products, and because of price, and changing health concerns with chemicals.

https://ifrafragrance.org/initiatives-positions/innovation-s...

Primo Levi writes of post war searches for snake shit, which contains a urea concentrate which makes lipstick bind to the skin. Circus snake handlers laugh at him because it's sold on contract to the big perfume houses, not to random chemists.

The Periodic Table https://share.google/rOmXYeiScZwBPCE40

It's a specific mix of components, each bearing important and usually volatile combinations of chemicals.

There's a scientific formula for artificial banana flavor, but none for bananas, by analogy.

And like bananas, the product is volatile. An unsealed 50yo bottle of Chanel No. 5 does not smell like it did when bottled.

There’s Chinese analytical labs which identify the fragrance molecules in a perfume. You just have to send them a sample. The caveat is if the perfume used natural oils or captive materials; then the lab won’t be able to identify everything. There are also leaks of formulas that are circulated in perfumery circles; many famous perfumes are already known. Anyway you can then purchase the individual materials and recreate the perfume.

Recipes for perfumes are a closely held trade secret, and not even chromatography is enough to get it right without an expert perfumer on board.

That’s unfortunately true for a lot of products.

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