Fixation is one of the biggest challenges facing the perfumery industry. It is also one of the most important factors that stand between the success and failure of a perfume composition.
In perfumery, fixation is a process that favors the retention of the fragrance in the user for as long as possible.
Fixatives are the non-volatile substances used to slow down the evaporation rate of the volatile components of a fragrance. They help perfumers refine their blends to the highest level and are indispensable business tools within the perfume industry.
Getting the fixing process right is very important. This is especially so because most perfume shoppers aren’t looking for scents that don’t last long on the body. Personally, I don’t know anyone who wants to spend their hard-earned money on perfumes that are so fleeting, their fragrance disappears within the first hour after application. That will be like throwing money down the drain.
The raw materials used for fixing perfumes can be of a natural or synthetic nature. With or without aroma, with characteristics of identical nature, similar nature or no nature. Ultimately, their purpose is so that they are not volatile enough to help the perfume mix develop and retain its full intensity for long periods.
Most professional perfumers prefer to use synthetic or artificial fixing agents in their blends. These types of fixing methods have more products available that can be used to effectively fix a perfume without significantly altering its original scent before fixatives are added.
If you go the natural route, fixing materials like patchouli, vetiver, labdanum, and others have great fixing power. However, its scent can easily overpower the entire mix or drastically alter it if not handled carefully.
Fortunately, there are a large number of fixatives available that can be used in a blend to extend the evaporation rate of each of the different notes in a perfume. Also, you can use different fixing agents for different parts of your mix. For example, you can choose to only fix the top and middle notes in your composition if the base note already has enough lasting power.
Surprisingly, extreme fixation in a perfume is not a guarantee of good scent retention. In fact, excessive fixation can result in the fixing agents inhibiting each other, thus hindering the diffusion of the fragrance and making the scent of the perfume impossible to smell in the air around its wearer.
Generally, when the composition process of a perfume is well thought out and its mixture balanced, it should not require too much fixation.
