Best way to dirty up a fragrance?

What do you mean by dirt?
Dirt as in waste?
Or dirt as in this-does-not-smell-nice scents?
I've books full of perfume formulations that did not succeed and i could qualify as DIRT

i suspect you are not looking for dirty as in 'smells like dirt (soil)' but rather the animalic type?

in that case, civet and castoreum are vastly different and both excellent ideas to start with. they are available as naturals (very expensive) or artificial bases (i use and recommend civet hx and castoreum givco). you need to dilute this stuff down in order to work with it, especially the civet. use gloves and great care when you deal with the neat stuff, you don't want a drop of this to spill on your wooden bench.

after that, there are many single aroma-chemicals you could play with, too. indole immediately springs to mind, but there are many more.

please browse http://www.thegoodscentscompany.com/allodor.html to get some ideas.

Im no pro but Cade oil and Birch tar are seriously dirty, in a meaty smokey kinda way. Potent stuff!

Try vetiver, tobacco, black pepper

Since "Dirty" is a poorly defined term, and you have modified that description with "Animalic", Then to fit these two descriptors, I'd suggest these:

Tonquitone
Animalid
Castoreum (of some type, synth replacement or not)
Goat hair Tincture
Hyraceum Tincture

I was coming back to this thread to update my list of civet hx and castoreum givco with tonquitone, but i see that paul has beaten me to it! Tonquitone is a musk tonkin (deer musk) base. Unlike most single musk molecules it is strongly animalic. I did get a small sample of this from janmeut, he might (or might not) add it to his stock in April. Remarkably, it smelled exactly as I had imagined it would.

If you are not restricted to Oils and Absolutes, you could try to get hold of some:- Phenylacetic Acid ( a solid that smells, to some,of honey and, to others, of pee); some para Cresyl Acetate (smells like horse pee); some para Cresyl Phenyl Acetate (like horse pee and honey); some Indole ( a solid found inJasmin, Honeysuckle and Tuberose, amongst others); some Skatole (a solid. Careful smells strong and unpleasant; a bit like poo. Used in synthetic Civet bases). Some Costus Oliffac (bas made by IFF to replace the now banned Costus Root Oil. Smells like wet dog).

Para Cresol is a good one too. Similar to para Cresyl Acetate but longer lasting, I think. Apparently excreted by pigs, elephants and humans.

I came across this snippet of a book too which talks about perfume materials reminiscent of human body odor - click on the "Look Inside" link.

Interesting thread. Fabulous snippet. Thank you.

You won't need to buy much cade or birch tar as they are incredibly powerful.

I have always wondered about tincturing skunk musk if it is so powerful. I read that it is a group of chemicals called Thiols which happen in chopped onions, petroleum and natural gas. What is it actually like? Is it just too revolting?

I have never smelled Skunk musk. Part of me wants to, part of me is disgusted that part of me wants to.

I suppose if it were of the slightest use in perfumery, then it would have been done. It is probably safe to assume that either skunks are very evasive or it just isn't worth further contemplation.

We have skunks here, and if the dilution of the odor is enough, like by wind, distance, or time, from the site of the dead skunk on the road, I have had a slight attraction to the scent. But I've never been able to gather a sample for experiments...

You are the perfect person to describe the smell. How lucky we are. If you had to dissect the aroma of skunk into top, middle and base notes. What might those words be?

that link! next time you'll go camping near a swamp, or in the tropics, please don't bring those leather perfumes! or you will be eaten alive.

That's so gross. It would need to be concentrated by like 1 billion times at least

i have to admit that i'm a bit curious about the skunk scent. the only skunk scent i have ever smelled is the one wafting from the so-called coffee shops here in town.

if you were to make creams, lanolin (at least the natural stuff, which is wool fat) has a pronounced animalic (and rather dirty!) odor aspect.

That is why it ought to be useful (and realising you meant diluted). All the valued smells in perfumery have something of that quality.

But can someone describe it for us please?

- - - Updated - - -


That is likely to be civet.

- - - Updated - - -

Patchouli and some smokier Vetivers are useful. Also mitti for clean dirt.

Oh mumsy, how naive! gido was talking about an entirely different sort of skunk.

Lol.... at myself..... How daft a bint am I? Gido knows that. I didn't look at the poster.

Mumsy, I'm sorry, but it has been quite a long time since I smelled skunk really up close, maybe even before I started perfumery, recently only faintly, and most often when driving through an odor cloud that has wafted from somewhere. So I haven't really smell analyzed it with my current level of knowledge and experience. I would really need a fresh animal to take a sample from, and then to dilute the heck out of it... even much more so than I have to many Pyrazines, or even like Geosmin which is perceptible in the low ppb odor thresholds.

My attraction to the highly diluted odor comes from say 40-15 years ago in time...

Years ago, I posed this question in the Yahoo Natural Perfumers group, and Anya pontificated her opinion about why it wouldn't work, which I never knew then how to validate this opinion/knowledge, or invalidate it.
It just hasn't been a pressing matter, and the opportunity hasn't presented itself.

You can find a comparative GC-MS analysis of four skunk sac odor samples here:
http://www.msb.unm.edu/mammals/publi...s/Wood2002.pdf

Here is the table of constituents:


TABLE 1.
COMPOSITION OF MAJOR VOLATILE COMPONENTS OF ANAL SAC SECRETION
FROM FOUR SPECIES OF NORTH AMERICAN SKUNKS (a)
Amount (%)
Compound
Hooded skunk(b) (First number), Striped skunk (c) (second number), Spotted skunk (third number), Hog-nosed skunk (fourth number)
(E)-2-Butene-1-thiol 32 38–40 30–36 71
3-Methyl-1-butanethiol 39 18–26 48–66
S-(E)-2-Butenyl thioacetate 16 12–18 X 17
S-3-Methylbutanyl thioacetate 7 2–3 X X
Phenylmethanethiol 0.3 X 0.2–0.8 1
2-Phenylethanethiol 1.4 X 2–5 X
2-Methylquinoline 2.3 4–11 0.3–0.9 2
Bis[(E)-2-butenyl] disulfide trace X trace 3
S-Phenylmethyl thioacetate trace X X X
(E)-2-Butenyl 3-methylbutyl disulfide 0.5 0.2–1.6 0.2–0.6 X
Bis(3-methylbutyl) disulfide trace X 0.1–0.2 X
S-2-Phenylethyl thioacetate 0.2 X X X
2-Quinolinemethanethiol 1.3 4–12 0.2–0.3 0.5
S-2-Quinolinemethyl thioacetate trace 1–4 X X


a In order of increasing retention times. Data from Wood (1990) and Wood et al. (1991, 1993).
b Variation of composition for the two anal sacs was small and disappeared on rounding to two figures.
c Compounds less than 1% were not identified in this study.

Haha cool. You could probably just use this for the skunk odor http://www.thegoodscentscompany.com/data/rw1129941.html

Thanks for that Paul. Lots of Sulphur containing chemicals; so a mixture of bad onions, garlic and bad drains. Nice!!

Grisalva smells exactly like the scent of a skunk. If your looking for a skunk scent this is it. It has some urine and ambergris like qualities to it also. The downside is it is rather expensive. Here is a link to the site to purchase Grisalva.

http://shop.perfumersapprentice.com/...-grisalva.aspx

Not sure if the Grisalva you smelled was off, but in my experience there is nothing unpleasant or sulphurous about it. It is a synthetic Ambergis accord; warm, amber, dry, woody and slightly aquatic. Not in the least unpleasant (my opinion, obviously); the very opposite, in fact.

David, I'm glad that you replied because I have 15ml on my list for my next order with PA. I was wondering how a skunk would enter the picture here.

Yes, I can't agree that Grisalva smells anything like a Skunk...

Interestingly, my perfumer friend that I drove to the San Francisco Artisan Fragrance Salon event last weekend, had received a package of Skunk Essence from another perfumer, who is looking to try to make perfumes with the skunk stuff, to see what they can do...

I'm going to ask for a vial of the same, and then I can continue this discussion, if I get it...
I'll most likely start a new thread if I do that...

Hope you are successful Paul; but be careful with it.