Home Cosmetic Science Talk Formulating General Fragrance Alcohol - any insights

  • Fragrance Alcohol - any insights

    Posted by mikethair on April 13, 2019 at 5:23 am
    Not an area that I have a lot of experience, but a Private Label customer is asking me to formulate a perfume.
    What I had in mind is denatured alcohol with iso propyl myristate and dipropylene glycol.
    All I can find locally in Malaysia is something denatured with Brucine Sulfate.
    Globally,  the jury is out on  this ingredient. The scientific literature and international cosmetic ingredient review expert panels conclude that there is not sufficient data  to support the safety of Alcohol Denat.  with  Brucine Sulfate.
    The the ooptionother option is  Alcohol Denat. with DEP. Not exactly the flavour of the month these days.
    Our customer base is largely Millenial Mums who look at ingredient list closely these days.
    Any suggestions?
    Thanks
    CazP replied 5 years, 6 months ago 6 Members · 5 Replies
  • 5 Replies
  • Bill_Toge

    Member
    April 14, 2019 at 11:33 pm
    which country/countries is this product to be sold in? many countries have different legal requirements for denatured alcohol
  • MarkBroussard

    Member
    April 15, 2019 at 12:43 am

    There is a product call “Perfumer’s Alcohol” that is generally used for perfumes … you might want to do a bit of research and see if there is a source in your locale.

  • Gunther

    Member
    April 15, 2019 at 4:03 pm

    First see if the fragrance dissolves fine in alcohol with no solubilizers like IPM or DPG.

    Second see if your fragrance lasts too short a time
    so your formula may benefit from a fixative
    but don’t expect fixatives to do miracles
    at most fixatives may extend fragrance “life” 1.5x. Consider yourself very very lucky with 2x.
    Fixatives just won’t make cheap copycat fragrances last anything like top perfumes with expensive base notes.
    Fixatives deaden fragrances, so you’ll need more overall fragrance levels for the same result.

    Third. Fixative mixtures work better than single ones.
    Read:

    Tenacity and Fixing of Aromatic Chemicals
    By WOLFGANGSTURM and GERD MANSFEIJJ
    Hammann & Reimer GmbH
    (stay away from potentially toxic fixatives like phtalates or coumarin.

    Fourth
    Surf a fragrance specific website like basenotes.com

    Fifth
    Regarding alcohol, please check your local regulations
    but also read
    http://www.dermaviduals.com/english/publications/ingredients/denatured-use-pure-alcohol.html

  • ozgirl

    Member
    April 15, 2019 at 11:45 pm
    In Australia, The Ethanol used for perfumery is PGF4 grade and is denatured with 0.25% Tertiary Butyl Alcohol.
    Hope this helps. :)
  • CazP

    Member
    May 18, 2019 at 3:09 am

    I posted earlier trying to find out the difference between the ethanol in perfumers alcohol and the ethanol in methylated spirits. Given that in Australia  coles home brand  meths is only ethanol 95% and water 5% with no toxic denaturant added. I really want to know the answer to this for use in a room spray and to solubilize EO in a roll on perfumed oil but getting my hand on the perfumers alcohol at this experimental stage is a PITA. 

Log in to reply.

Chemists Corner