Scents of Nature: Interview with a researcher of plants for perfumery
The author of this article is a renowned fragrance expert with over a decade of experience in the industry. With a passion for fragrances and a discerning palate, the author has written extensively on the art of perfumery for various publications.
There are people who search for fragrances not in a laboratory, but in forests, on mountain slopes, and in spice markets thousands of kilometers away from a perfume house. We spoke with Dmitry Dyuzhev, an expert on raw materials for perfumery, about how a scent is born long before the bottle.
Dmitry has spent many years studying aromatic plants and working with suppliers of rare raw materials around the world. His story is about fieldwork, terroir, and discoveries that change our perspective on perfumes.
Who searches for natural scents
Behind every bottle is a long chain of people, and the first among them rarely appears in advertising brochures. It is the raw material researcher who decides whether a plant will reach the perfumer's hands.
We started the conversation with who these people are and why their work is so different from the typical image of perfumery. Dmitry describes the profession without unnecessary romance, but with a clear love for the craft.
Dmitry, what exactly does a researcher of aromatic plants do?
I search for and evaluate raw materials from which perfumes are then born. It could be a flower, bark, resin, or root.
My task is to understand whether a plant has perfumery potential and whether a stable material can be obtained from it. Sometimes it takes weeks of fieldwork. Sometimes years of negotiations with farmers.
How did you get into this line of work?
It started with an ordinary interest in botany, back in my student years. Then I realized that the scent of a plant and its perfumery value are completely different things.
You can find a flower with a wonderful aroma, but it won't yield an extract of the required quality. And vice versa: a modest-looking plant sometimes hides a surprisingly complex scent.
So gradually botany turned into a profession, and a hobby into full-fledged expedition work.
Over time, a second skill emerged: talking to people. A farmer will tell you more about a plant than any scientific article, if you trust him.
The perfumery potential of a plant and its aroma in its living form do not always coincide. Some materials reveal themselves only after extraction, and predicting this from the fresh scent is rarely possible.
How the search for new aromatic plants around the world works
The search for raw materials is not much like a walk through a botanical garden. It is logistics, negotiations, and long hours on the road for a single sample.
We asked Dmitry about how the expedition route is born and what happens to the plant from the first smell to the test batch of raw material.
Where does the search for a new plant for perfumery begin?
With conversations. Local residents, herbalists, farmers know the territory in a way no guidebook can tell.
Then comes a field test: you smell fresh cut, bark, resin right on the spot. Laboratory analysis comes later, but the nose usually decides first.
If the material is of interest, a long correspondence with suppliers begins and the first test batches of raw material.
What does a typical expedition for raw materials look like?
Usually it's a route through several regions in a row, with stops at specific suppliers. The schedule is tight: negotiations in the morning, a trip to a plantation or wild thicket in the afternoon, sample analysis in the evening.
Sometimes you go for one plant, but come back with three new contacts and a completely different idea for a future fragrance.
An expedition rarely goes according to the initial plan, and that's normal. It is precisely the deviations from the route that often lead to the most interesting materials.
Real raw materials are rarely found on schedule. Most often the best find happens where no one planned to look.
Rare and endangered types of raw materials and their protection
The more popular natural raw materials become, the more acute the question of their preservation. Some materials nature restores more slowly than the market can select them.
Dmitry told us which ingredients are at risk today and how the industry is trying to preserve rare plants for future seasons.
What materials are under threat today?
The list constantly changes, but most often it is slow-growing wood, some resins, and certain types of orchids. Demand grows faster than the plant can recover.
There are materials under international regulation. There are materials under local quotas of a specific country or region.
The industry is gradually learning to work with both formats of restrictions, although this requires time and patience from all participants in the chain.
Sometimes a quota changes right in the middle of the season, and then the procurement plan has to be revised on the fly.
How does the industry protect such plants?
Through collection quotas, population restoration programs, and a shift to cultivated analogues where possible. Sometimes molecular reconstruction of the scent helps, without pressure on the wild population.
But it is not always possible to completely replace natural material with synthetics. The character of living raw material is too multi-layered, and the laboratory does not always keep up with nature.
Ethical sourcing is much more than protecting a plant. It is also a fair price for farmers who have been caring for a plantation for years for a single harvest per season.
Wild and cultivated raw materials: what is the difference
The debate about wild and cultivated raw materials has been going on in perfumery for years. Each option has its own truth, and an experienced nose hears the difference immediately.
We asked Dmitry to explain why the same plant smells different depending on where it grew.
Is it true that wild raw material smells different from cultivated?
Yes, and the difference is noticeable even to an inexperienced nose. A wild plant grows under stress: on poor soil, with temperature fluctuations, among competitors for light and water.
This stress often makes the scent more complex and unexpected. A plantation, on the other hand, provides predictability: a similar scent profile year after year, which is important for a formula that must be repeated millions of times.
A perfumer needs both options. One provides character, the other provides reliability of supply.
- wild raw materials give a more complex and multi-layered scent character
- cultivated raw materials are more consistent in quality from batch to batch
- plantation is easier to control and plan harvest
- wild plants are harder to predict in terms of harvest volume
- harvesting wild raw materials can deplete natural populations
- cultivated raw materials sometimes sound more flat and homogeneous
Therefore, perfumers often combine both types of raw materials in one formula. Wild provides character, cultivated provides a reliable base.
Terroir in perfumery: how the harvest changes from year to year
The word 'terroir' came into perfumery from the world of wine, and it took root there for a reason. Weather and soil leave a mark on the scent no less noticeable than in a glass.
Dmitry explains why the harvest year sometimes matters as much for a natural ingredient as its name.
Why does the same flower smell different from year to year?
The same principle works as in winemaking. Soil, rainfall, and temperature during flowering change the plant's chemical composition.
A rose from the same plantation in a dry year and a rainy season can be mistaken for two different materials. Perfumers call this terroir and take it seriously.
For expensive natural ingredients, the harvest year often becomes a separate item in the batch passport.
How do different types of raw materials behave in this system?
Plants react differently. Some materials hardly change, others are extremely sensitive to season and place of collection.
Below is a brief guide to the main types of plant raw materials most commonly used in the perfumery industry.
| Raw material type | Examples | Sensitivity to harvest |
|---|---|---|
| Floral | rose, jasmine, tuberose | high: season and weather greatly affect the scent |
| Woody | sandalwood, cedar, agar | low: scent forms over years of tree growth |
| Resins | frankincense, myrrh, styrax | medium: depends on climate during tapping season |
| Citrus peel | bergamot, mandarin, petitgrain | medium: fluctuations from harvest to harvest are noticeable |
| Roots and rhizomes | iris, vetiver, angelica | high: soil and time of digging change the profile |
That is why some perfumes have their own 'harvest year', almost like wine. A batch of raw material becomes part of the history of a specific bottle, and sometimes part of its price.
Favorite finds and discoveries
Over years of fieldwork, any researcher accumulates their own stories. Some of them change one's attitude toward the profession more than any textbook.
Finally, we asked Dmitry to share his most striking find and advice for those who want to understand natural raw materials more deeply.
Was there a find that surprised you the most?
Yes, there was. Once in a mountain village, I was given a dried root to smell, which the locals only used in food.
The scent turned out to be unexpectedly perfumery: warm, slightly smoky, completely different from what I expected from a culinary spice. Isn't that the main joy of such work?
Since then, this root has become one of my favorite examples of how rarely expectation and reality coincide in the field.
What advice do you have for those who want to understand natural raw materials more deeply?
Smell the raw materials, and leave finished perfumes for later. Each material teaches its own lesson if you get to know it directly.
- jasmine absolute teaches you to read the multifaceted nature of floral raw materials
- frankincense resin shows how a natural woody-resinous base sounds
- a fresh cut of sandalwood gives an understanding of what real softness of wood is
And don't be afraid of disappointments. Sometimes the most beautiful plant in the field turns out to be the most capricious material in the laboratory, and that is also part of the discovery.
And it's also important to remember: behind every bottle there is a specific field, a specific season, and specific hands that gathered that harvest.
When you think about that, perfumes cease to be just a bottle on the shelf. They turn into a small map of journeys that will never be repeated exactly.
