using other perfumer's single notes-- perfume plagiarism?

**Cantara** · 26th August 2006, 02:20 PM

hi new here. I was wondering if in making perfumes, you use several single notes or essences that other perfumer's created (example: House of Creative Scentualization, Dawn Spencer Hurwitz, BPAL, etc... single notes) and blend them in to your own perfume with the intention of selling; can you technically call it your own creation, or is this a form of perfume plagiarism if there is such a thing? Thank-you

**czesc** · 26th August 2006, 07:59 PM

Originally Posted by Cantara

hi new here. I was wondering if in making perfumes, you use several single notes or essences that other perfumer's created (example: House of Creative Scentualization, Dawn Spencer Hurwitz, BPAL, etc... single notes) and blend them in to your own perfume with the intention of selling; can you technically call it your own creation, or is this a form of perfume plagiarism if there is such a thing? Thank-you

you can "technically" just empty any bottle into your own bottle and sell it if you want as long as you call it by another name (the name is the only thing trademarked, you cannot trademark a scent), although I don't think you'd be able to charge much more than what you bought it for... so I don't really see the point... even with blending...

**Cantara** · 27th August 2006, 06:52 PM

thanks for the response. I like to blend essential oils, and occassionally add a single note fragrance oil that another perfumer blended, but am not sure if you are supposed to give "credit" when you list the notes.

**czesc** · 27th August 2006, 06:59 PM

Originally Posted by Cantara

thanks for the response. I like to blend essential oils, and occassionally add a single note fragrance oil that another perfumer blended, but am not sure if you are supposed to give "credit" when you list the notes.

well real perfumers use alot of synthetic aromachems that can be thought of as "single notes" that do or don't exist in nature and were therefore "blended" or created by companies such as givaudan etc (which make these aromachems). nobody credits them (for example company a's ozonic aromachem might smell slightly different than company b's), so I suppose you don't have to either.

**AlthaeaSoaps** · 30th August 2006, 11:19 PM

I suppose you could, although the idea makes me feel a bit dirty to contemplate. I do use single notes from aromachem firms, but I consider that quite different from repackaging an artisan's work, even if it's been changed a bit. It's like buying a pound cake from the store, slapping your own lemon glaze on top and calling it "homemade". Only worse, imo.

I suppose a person could make money that way, depending upon how good they are at marketing themselves. A lot of the prices for things seems to be based more on the mystique of the brand name than on any real difference in ingredients or workmanship, after all.

**Profumo** · 31st August 2006, 10:43 PM

I sometimes use some of my compositions as single notes in the construction of new fragrances but I never thought of using other's.
Sometimes I blend something which I know is not a wearable perfume but a very interesting note for blending.
I even have a perfume which is a blend of two others.
It is part of the horizon of possibilities for a composer to use blends as single notes in other blends. It comes naturally.
A great advantage for the perfumer is that the perfumes made that way become difficult to imitate.
Now, a deejay is not a music composer but it is generally admitted that he produces a music of his own.
It would be certainly possible for a composer to blend perfumes only with other perfumes and to express his own artistic sensibility and skill that way, just as deejays do.
I sometimes use some of my compositions as single notes in the construction of new fragrances but I never thought of using other's.
Sometimes I blend something which I know is not a wearable perfume but a very interesting note for blending.
I even have a perfume which is a blend of two others.
It is part of the horizon of possibilities for a composer to use blends as single notes in other blends. It comes naturally.
A great advantage for the perfumer is that the perfumes made that way become difficult to imitate.
Now, a deejay is not a music composer but it is generally admitted that he produces a music of his own.
It would be certainly possible for a composer to blend perfumes only with perfumes of others and to express his own artistic sensibility and skill that way, just as deejays do.
After all any essential oil which is composed of dozens of single different aromatic molecules, and there is not any good perfumery without some natural stuff in it.