About us The Perfumer's Resource

A. "PerfumersWorld, our clients best kept secret"

Increasingly, the perfumer has become just another member of the production team and the bulk of perfumery work has become restrictively controlled for commercial (cost) and regulatory (bureaucracy) purposes. Working for a commercial Flavor Fragrance company you can find the "Art of Perfumery" becomes a little shackled and jaded.

PerfumersWorld was established in 1998 to promote fine creative perfumery and open the art of perfumery to a much wider audience through training, materials, software, professional support, services and tools.

PerfumersWorld is a small family style company but now has graduated students working in 8 out of 10 of the top ten perfumery houses with clients and students from over 150 countries worldwide having had taken courses and workshops with us.

PerfumersWorld is one of those few places in the world where you can visit online or in person and chat with your instructors, buy raw materials, French perfumery bottles, cosmetic and toiletry bases or just smell our curated collection of over 1,000 of the finest industry standard perfumery materials from all around the world.

PerfumersWorld materials are only 1st grade commercial materials from the finest manufacturers of aroma chemicals and essential oils on the earth. In addition to sourcing from these first class manufacturers we also further refine some materials to even higher purity to meet our clients requirements or remove unwanted colour or furocoumarins etc.

"The materials PerfumersWorld offers are the same materials we use ourselves in the manufacture of fine fragrances for international houses and niche brands. We do not use 2nd grade materials, reaction residues or waste materials. The very reason for starting PerfumersWorld was I was tired of working on cheaper, cheaper projects and not having access to the materials I really wanted use myself, so I have tried to curate the best collection of materials we can find. We do not stock the generic grades even though they can be 1/3rd of the price of the original material." Stephen V. Dowthwaite (Founder)

We have the following missions:

• To be the resource for the creative perfumer.
• To promote perfumery as an art form.
• To assist those considering a career in perfumery.
• To maintain commercial independence.

What we do to make this possible:

Note: If you can't find something on the site, email us via the contact link. if it concerns perfumery, we probably do it. We sell all of our compounds, essential oils and aroma materials in any quanitity from grams to drums.

• Perfume Compounds: Concentrated perfume, what some call FO or "Fragrance Oils" for cosmetic, toiletry, candle, incense and other commercial applications.
• Essential Oil and Natural Blends: Signature scents, natural perfumes and therapeutic blends for aromatherapy and spa products.

So that you can create and make your own perfume, natural perfume, aromatherapy and aromachology products we offer:

• The Perfumery Training Kit — a kit of 26 materials that gets you started in creative perfumery gently and cost effectively. Designed to compliment our Foundation Course in The Art and Technology of Perfumery. Most styles of perfumes can be made. There are fine perfumes on the market that use only these kit materials.
• The Students Raw Materials Kit. Designed to compliment our Senior and Professional Courses in The Art and Technology of Perfumery. 166 materials that can be used with our kits and all standard quality perfumery and aromatherapy materials to make 95% plus of all commercial style perfumes.
• Software: With our materials and The Perfumer's Wizard (online) or The Perfumer's Workbook (Mac, PC) or you can create finished, professional-quality perfumes in just a few steps. Start with the free download, then get a registered version on a USB thumbdrive (also included with The Perfumery Training Kit) when you advance.
• The Art and Technology of Perfumery professional perfumery training courses that can be followed online or by live tuition in Workshops.
• Essential Oils, Absolutes, Resinoids and Gums for natural perfumery, aromatherapy, aromachology or general perfumery.
• Aroma Chemicals: Make your own modern perfumes for fine perfumery, cosmetics, aromachology and other commercial perfumery appications.
• Specialty Bases: Our range of Fleuressence & F-TEC bases for use in perfume compounding. Build professional perfumes quickly using these bases and replacements for hard to get naturals like animal products and floral absoutes.
• Isolates: natural aroma chemicals separated from essential oils such as Eugenol from Clove Oil, Menthol from Peppermint Oil, etc.
• Sample bottles, mixing pots, perfume bottles. Buy just what you need, from one to the thousands.
• Smelling Strips for analytical smelling or our unique Mini Sniffs for quick and economical smelling.
• Unperfumed cosmetic and toiletry bases: We sell literally tons of these. Usually these are only for local supply as the shipping ends up costing more than the bases themselves.
• Custom creation of perfumes for personal or product use.
• Professional troubleshooting and consultancy services.

What we don't do:

• We don't sell finished products — What we mean by that is that we don't sell retail-type products. We would rather support you in creating your own products and are never your competitor. We supply the smell — whether it be raw materials, essential oils, blends or compounds. We also supply unperfumed cosmetic bases, ingredients, raw soap bases, bottles, etc., which you then put together to create products.
• We don't sell brand name bottled perfumes — If you want Chanel No. 5, Guerlain's latest etc. then there are many retailers online. Check out our perfume compounds if you just want something like "............"
• Animal Products — We do not sell animal products but do have animal-friendly replacements for Ambergris, Castoreum, Civet and Musk.
• We don't yet stock books but we do have a list of recommended reading for you if you want to learn more, click on Recommended Book List.

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Meet our Founder

Stephen V. Dowthwaite is the principle instructor and founder of PerfumersWorld. He has been the industry since 1971 and trained in fine perfumery in the UK (Picot Laboratories - one of the last creative perfumery houses in the UK -the perfumes are now in the Jovan stable).

In the 70's he worked as a perfumer & cosmetic chemist with Grossmiths, Norda, and Sarant's in the UK and went on to become freelance consultant perfumer for 10 more years.

Travelled to Thailand in 1989, loved it and decided to stay. However, there being no perfumery manufacturing industry, first set up agencies for Quintessence Fragrances in the Pacific Rim then started the first perfume compounding facility in Thailand in 1992 at Adinop Co. Ltd.

• Then worked as a consultant for Thai-China Flavours and Fragrances, Thailand
• Guangzhou Baihua Flavours and Fragrances the largest Chinese FF house in mainland China
• Consultant with the National Science and Technology Development Agency
• Special Instructor at King Mongkut University (Masters degree option course) in Thailand
• Has at least 300 fragrances and flavours currently on the market in more than 14 countries.

The setting up of agencies and new projects required the development of intensive and efficient training programs and the seeds of a system were germinated. Teaching and computer programming (He is the co-writer of the program The Perfumer's Workbook) led to the first and perhaps only systematic method of odour description and perfume creation. This now forms the essence of PerfumersWorld training system - "The ABC's of Perfumery" (described in Perfumer&Flavorist, Allured Publishing May/June 1999).

PerfumersWorld was formed to focus on promoting fine creative perfumery and opening the art of perfumery to a much wider audience. Increasingly the perfumer has become just another member of the production team and the bulk of perfumery work has become restrictively cost controlled for purely commercial purposes. Did you know that some international perfumery companies in the top 10 don't even stock natural Jasmin, Tuberose or Iris ? In the 70's Picot Laboratories had typically 5% of natural flower absolutes in every perfume formulation.

Working in commercially oriented companies is only possible for a handful of people (there are only about 500 commercial perfumers world-wide). In order to open up the world of creative perfumery, would-be perfumers require information and training and most importantly access to materials.

Most international perfumery houses have no training facilities for perfumers. PerfumersWorld now have students working in 8 out of 10 of the top ten perfumery houses from more than 150 countries worldwide including USA, UK, Canada, France, Mexico, Germany, Holland, Spain, Finland, Italy, Singapore, Switzerland, Japan, Korea, China, Taiwan, Israel, Poland, India, Bangladesh, UAE, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Iran, Malayasia, Hong Kong, Australia, Columbia, Eritrea, South Africa, Russia, Brazil, Pakistan, Turkey, Taiwan, Venezeula.