What Is Maceration How to Macerate Fragrances Explained Why Middle Eastern Perfumes Perfume Science

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🌟 About this video
Maceration! It's such a big topic! I really have asked a lot of questions about why fragrance maceration is such big news on YouTube and why it's so intimately associated with the affordable Middle Eastern fragrance market (Lattafa, Afnan, Swiss Arabian, Armaf, Paris Corner, Orientica etc). Is it something that is real and is required or is it superfluous and an urban myth? Can ageing your fragrances for just a few weeks or months really change a mediocre fragrance into a great fragrance? And how?

In this video, I discuss the three ways that maceration can be defined and discuss the new meaning of maceration formed through social media. I also try to dig into the science and seek perfume industry insights from perfumers and fragrance brands to try to illuminate what maceration truly means. I also highlight potential unconscious bias in how maceration is discussed on YouTube and I show you how to macerate your fragrances in the true social media way!

So what do you think about macerating fragrances?

🌟Timestamps:
0:00 Intro: What does maceration mean? What is maceration?
2:15 Maceration as a way of making perfume oils
4:11 How perfumers and fragrance companies would define maceration
12:35 How social media defines maceration. How to macerate your fragrances.

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[marywendt]

You are taking perfume love to whole different level. I so appreciate your educational efforts on the perfume industry.❤️

[TexasLyoness]

I remember first hearing the word macerate regarding perfume. I looked it up and it didn’t seem to be a match to what they were saying. I thought marinate was a better word. That still isn’t exactly the word. You’re right in saying the aging process. I bought an 8 ml decant of the now discontinued Bottega Veneta edp. So many influencers raved about it some years back. I was disgusted. It smelled like furniture polish. I would continue to go smell it again as it made yet another influencer’s top perfume list. Around 2 years later it smelled exquisite, expensive and downright regal. That was the first scent I experienced that with, but not the last.👃

[upsetuloss]

The fragrance that I had to seriously attempt to macerate and convinced me that maceration should always be done was Armaf Intense Man Limited Edition because upon opening and spraying it for the 1st time, it literally made me smell like a cigarette Astray. I let it macerate for an entire month and it was a night and day experience. I could easily tell that the smoky nuances blended with the other notes which made it an overall pleasant more harmonious scent. I did extensive testing to ascertain performance, longevity, and smell to be as thorough as possible before I attempted maceration as well as after. Anyone who isn't an advocate of macerating their fragrances is selling themselves short 100%.

[BGalwah]

It would be interesting to “macerate” a perfume, buy the same perfume and compare. there would be factors such as batch differences that might affect the smell but if the “maceration” process truly works, a significant difference should be detectable. Time to experiment Dr. Claire! ❤

[SueLloyd-bqoc]

This probably isn’t a helpful comment, but a fragrance can smell totally different on me, literally, from one day to the next! That’s when I usually think.. I’ve worn this too much … and I put it away for a few weeks and wear something else.
Thank you for the video, Claire .., It was informative. I’ve always beeen aware that perfumes ‘age’ but not at all convinced with the YT perception of Maceration 🤔

[allisonbotts]

Thanks Claire! Very interesting. Jax beautiful you explained something similar. Basically that when reviewers use the term maceration they really mean oxidation. And I definitely prefer your term of just "aging". I only own 1 ME fragrance and it didn't change in my opinion. What I do like is that some reviewers just receive the ME fragrance, spray it, let it sit & then review it. Giving it time to age before ever telling us their opinion. Thanks for the all the detailed information you provided!

[beaverd]

This is a topic near and dear to me as I realized quickly the term we use is not accurate, and I am an ME Frag fan, so it comes up a lot. The first time I heard the term, I thought of chewing or stomping on grapes for wine making... And yet people kept saying get air into the bottle, which sounded like a chemically different process to me than just letting scents marry together with time. After all, it's usually months before you get to a bottle from a manufacturer, which should be plenty of time for fragrances to marry and balance out.

I was super skeptical about the idea of "maceration" but every ME fragrance I have had a substantial change for the better. Usually two days makes some weird stuff wearable, two weeks gets you most of the way there, and two months you're getting very diminishing returns in terms of improvement and it's pretty stable scent wise.

Because getting air into the bottle was the key, I actually just said oxidation instead of maceration, albeit not to a point of degradation. Is what officially what is happening here?

In another life I worked in the vapor industry and eliquid uses flavors from the same houses/companies that do fragrance and also require maturation of the flavors for them to balance out.

It's rather uncanny how fresh ME frags are wonky in the same ways as fresh eliquid is. Just way out of balance and weird. (seriously, lemon flavor that hasn't melded yet is exactly the same as the floor cleaner lemon people say Club de Nuit Edt has... It never bothered me one bit likely due to all of the freshly mixed lemon flavored liquid I've vaped over the years)

We use the term steeping. There's a variation called 'streathing' which is steeping + breathing, I. E. Letting it marinate with the cap off, and squeezing the bottle to exchange the air periodically, which obviously added another chemical process to the, well, process.

Tricks used to quickly steep flavors together for eliquid might seem familiar.... A popular way is to use a shallow panned ultrasonic cleaner with warm water to get those molecules moving and mixing it up.

You touched on this in the video - storing and maintaining the aging fragrances is very costly and is a major factor in price differences. That is partially what you pay for with designer! (working on two cases at work involving lawsuits about warehousing of finished goods... It adds a substantial cost to running the business to maintain, staff, and secure a warehouse, and there are tax implications in the US on that as well in terms of inventory. Even if you pay someone else to warehouse it, you're at their mercy and is more costly long term than doing it yourself. )

Stray thoughts - it bugs me when reviewers don't factor in this process when reviewing ME fragrances. I don't have a ton of them, but I guess I have enough to know that evaluation of a fresh bottle alone is kind of dumb knowing it's going to develop a lot in just a couple of weeks. I mean entire notes will be revealed over time and the potency will often level up as well, so why only talk about it when it's in the worse shape it'll ever be? Ideally, we'll talk about it over time to get an idea of where it'll end up.

I generally do not wait to wear them, but my rotation is such that enough time will pass before I wear it again to appreciate the improvement.

My bottle of Aventus has absolutely 'aged' a little bit since spraying, although that seems apropos for the brand and their reputation. "Fuck it, let's charge $500 usd retail and NOT have it fully ready."

[beachytravels]

I haven't watched the video yet, but I will say, I have been a fragrance lover for several decades and these things never were an issue: maceration, wearing fragrance in certain seasons, polarizing fragrances. Everything used to smell good, all the time and to everyone... 😂

[MidwestBetty]

Excellent video! I see the words maceration and maturation used interchangeably a lot in the fragrance community. This is an interesting topic and you covered so many points within like what the process might look like from inside the perfume house, and the effects of social media.
I have never put away fragrance with the intention of maturation, but can think of several in my collection that have gotten darker, sweeter, or more rich with age. Hypnotic Poison and Addict from Dior, Un Bois Vanille and Ambre Sultan from Serge Lutens are all maturing quite nicely just by me taking my sweet time using them up. 😊

[JetPackDino]

Thank you! Another timely video, at least it is for me. To be very frank, when I first heard someone say "you need to let a perfume macerate before you judge it, " it was about 12 years ago. I was skeptical. I thought it was an excuse, something a perfume seller said to avoid getting a bad review. I have since learned there's more to it than that, but I haven't always been entirely clear what that was.

[mocab]

Whether it’s maturation or maderation vanilla perfumes really get better and richer with age. I don’t think that’s a myth perpetuated by people on social media. I’ve experienced it myself.

[playsintraffic]

Before I heard perfume social media refer to macerate, my example would have been sugar on berries left to macerate

[desireeeeam]

First time I heard “macerate, ” all I could think about was putting sugar on strawberries before making strawberry shortcake in the springtime with my mom lol

[sunnyscents]

Claire!!!! I just recorded a video on my conflicting thoughts on macerating a fragrance! Of course not on an educational level more on my complaints 😂😂😂

[tobiasnagel]

Again a classic Clair video! Well researched and presented! Fantastic and unique (fragrance) content on YT! Thank you

[sharfalor]

I do find the current talk of 'maceration' a bit amusing. I think there's a few things at play when people discuss this:
1. Aging. I have a few that have definitely become deeper and longer lasting after a few weeks. I think this also applies to designer/niche when people buy a new bottle of a fragrance they already have and insist that it must be reformulated and now doesn't smell as strong, totally disregarding they've had their last bottle for a couple of years.
2. It's not a fragrance dna they are familiar with and it may not be to their taste initially but, their nose adjusts to it after a few exposures.
3. They try it at a different time of year than it best suits and it's more weather appropriate the next time they test it.
4. It mostly seems to be women who are in the age bracket of having monthly cycles who don't take into account their olfactory senses can change at different times of their cycle.

[kintyr]

I absolutely loved your video. I knew the terms were incorrect but we know what folks are talking about and the vast majority of us aren’t scientists and perfumery is science or chemistry mixed with art 🧑‍🎨 I appreciate how you presented this as an essay with your question, then your hypothesis and in the end gave evidence and explanation that your hypothesis that the term aging is actually the correct term! 🎉

[martsangalang]

Yup it is done before the final product, like simply letting it settle and mature

[justjulia]

Oh I’ve definitely experienced maturation of a few fragrances; mainly Middle Eastern. Nebras really stands out to me because I remember being super let down when I first got it. Nothing like all the descriptions I’d heard. It had barely any presence. Fast forward about six months and it’s a beast. Many ME fragrances are sent straight from production to consumers, and being they are typically lower priced, many people don’t mind the aging process usually.

Funny enough, Eilish was very similar to Nebras in both scent and need for maturation in my experience. Eilish now performs quite well.

Another one that I adore is Ajmal’s Sacrifice For Her, it too was SO weak at first and now a year later it’s amazing.

On the opposite side, I found Blanche Bete SUPER strong when I first received it, but after many months it’s now mellowed nicely..seems smoother and way less beastly.

Definitely an interesting topic! I’ve experienced it for sure.

[kellypourika]

Hi Claire!!!Excellent video!! So informative and defining!!! You explained everything in detail, so clearly for everyone of us to understand what maceration is! It was like attending a masterclass in perfumery!!!Thank you so much!!!