
Originally Posted by
David Ruskin
Despite my earlier definition, I'm not really sure what "Natural" means, other than coming from Nature, and in the context of fragrance I'm at a loss. On the very crudest level, a fragrance or perfume can be defined as a mixture of chemicals that you can smell. Does it matter where the chemicals come from? I really don't know what a "Natural smell" is. When we creat perfumes we use any means to achieve the result we want. There are some odour areas (Muguet for example) where there are no natural materials, so we use chemicals that have been made in a lab.
Smell is evocative, and unless we recognise it and can describe it, it is very difficult to appreciate it. How can something be described if you do not have the vocabulary to do the job? Often the evocativness is the only means of description; "It smells like school" etc. However I do not agree that the only role of a synthetic is to modify naturals. Each material in a fragrance has its own job to do; there is no one more important than the others.