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Reverse engineering lost fragrances

post #1 of 11
2/24/13 at 8:18pm
Thread Starter 
I was comparing the ingredients listed to older Kouros from 2010 to the new reformulated Kouros.

There was a change of six ingredients. They smell different. There is no civet. The musk scent is nuetered and tame compared to vintage. There is less oakmoss.

Is it possible to make a parfum of the missing ingredients and spray that before the new Kouros to imitate vintage Kouros?

Has anyone tried to reverse engineer parfums no longer in production?

I see many "our version of..." fragrances for sale at stores, so it must be possible to recreate a scent. Is this built from the top down or the base up?

If only one note was missing such as civet, is it possible to take civet and add it to Kouros and have it blend in and smell good. I would assume to start with the smallest amount and add until the desired stregnth of smell is achieved. Is this possible, or very difficult? I would assume it would only take a few drops to a 100ml bottle to achieve the desired results. Is this correct?
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post #2 of 11
2/24/13 at 8:30pm
Most of the times, when they take out an ingredient, they substitute with other things and reformulate the frag overall, so even if one knew exactly which ingredients are missing and their dosage, the frag would smell different.

That said, it's still possible that the result of such experiments could be better than the current version.

cacio
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post #3 of 11
2/24/13 at 9:34pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by cacio View Post

Most of the times, when they take out an ingredient, they substitute with other things and reformulate the frag overall, so even if one knew exactly which ingredients are missing and their dosage, the frag would smell different.

That said, it's still possible that the result of such experiments could be better than the current version.

cacio

I'll use Kouros as an example.

Vintage Kouros had civet.

Reformulated Kouros had civetone.

The newly reformulated modern does not have either.

Is it possible to add a few drops of civetone to reformulated modern Kouros to make it smell more like vintage Kouros?

Is it as simple as add one drop civetone, mix, smell. Add a second drop, mix, smell. Stop when it smells like vintage juice?
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post #4 of 11
2/24/13 at 9:45pm
First, where did you get the list of ingredients?
How many of them are in the list?
Could you show us?
Cause it`s doubtful that one can find it easily in Internet.

I believe that Couros The Original has no true animal civet - but synthetic analog described as "civet note".
And NO, it`s impossible to make vintage Couros just by adding a couple of drops of anything to a new juice. Perfume formulas are too long to correct them by one click or couple of drops
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post #5 of 11
2/24/13 at 11:02pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by moon_fish View Post

First, where did you get the list of ingredients?
How many of them are in the list?
Could you show us?
Cause it`s doubtful that one can find it easily in Internet.

I believe that Couros The Original has no true animal civet - but synthetic analog described as "civet note".
And NO, it`s impossible to make vintage Couros just by adding a couple of drops of anything to a new juice. Perfume formulas are too long to correct them by one click or couple of drops

The list of ingredients is printed on the back of the box in the USA.

- - - Updated - - -

The goal would be to add a scent that is absent in the reformulated version. In this case the missing scent is civet or civetone.

- - - Updated - - -

The goal would be to add a scent that is absent in the reformulated version. In this case the missing scent is civet or civetone.
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post #6 of 11
2/25/13 at 1:23am
IMHO, the listed ingredients are only a subset of the total list of ingredients which must be listed due IFRA regulations. Mostly because they are listed as allergenic.

My perfume formulation blog
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post #7 of 11
2/25/13 at 1:32am
There is no harm in layering it with civet if you feel that is all it is lacking, but you may find having done so that as Cacao says, they tend to reformulate the whole thing to rebalance it with the new ingredients.

If you wanted the full ingredient thing, then get both analysed to see the physical difference. Might be worth a couple of hundred dollars if you really love it.
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post #8 of 11
2/25/13 at 11:56am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by mumsy View Post

There is no harm in layering it with civet if you feel that is all it is lacking, but you may find having done so that as Cacao says, they tend to reformulate the whole thing to rebalance it with the new ingredients.

If you wanted the full ingredient thing, then get both analysed to see the physical difference. Might be worth a couple of hundred dollars if you really love it.

I remember from chemistry class an experiment to determine compounds by using weight and light. Different molecules reflect different light. I wonder how this would work for complex compounds?

This is interesting!
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post #9 of 11
2/25/13 at 7:25pm
Companies tend to over simplify their list of ingredients for marketing appeal. A perfume like Kouros could well have over 30 different notes.

I suspect Kouros was reformulated, not just for cost cutting, but it modernize it.
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post #10 of 11
2/26/13 at 11:02am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by noirdrakkar View Post

Companies tend to over simplify their list of ingredients for marketing appeal. A perfume like Kouros could well have over 30 different notes.

I suspect Kouros was reformulated, not just for cost cutting, but it modernize it.

They should make a new fragrance with a new name. Keep a classic in its original form.
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post #11 of 11
2/26/13 at 11:29am
Quote:
Originally Posted by smellgood4u View Post

I remember from chemistry class an experiment to determine compounds by using weight and light. Different molecules reflect different light. I wonder how this would work for complex compounds?

This is interesting!

The best tool for "reverse engineering" a fragrance would probably be gas chromatography with mass spectrometry detection. This will separate each chemical component of the fragrance and facilitate its identification through mass detection of molecular fragments.

If there are any crude plant extracts in the fragrance, that will likely complicate the matter due to the chemical complexity of such extracts.
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