Charles Leigh Bundle

The Fragrance Foundry has partnered with Charles Leigh, an up and coming perfumer who is documenting his journey on social media. We asked Charles to put together a selection of his favourite perfumery raw materials. This set is as a standalone discovery set of 10 raw materials, or together with our Beginner Essentials Perfumery Starter Kit which adds an additional 22 complementary raw materials (so 32 materials total).

Kit contains: Ambrettolide HC 5g, Ambrocenide 1g, Calone 5g, Mandarin Nat Pro 10g, Methyl Pamplemousse 10g, Orris Givco 5g, Paradisamide 10g, Safranal 1% in Ethanol 10g, Triplal 10g, Verdox 10g. If the starter kit add-on is selected, you'll also receive the 22 materials listed in our Beginner Essentials Perfumery Starter Kit.

Below are the Perfumer's notes on each of the materials which were selected for the discovery kit:

Ambrettolide HC is a lovely soft musk with a really clean, skin-like feel. I love it because it smells really expensive and makes blends feel smoother and softer.

Ambrocenide has a really powerful amber-woody smell to it. It’s incredibly strong, but it’s great for giving fragrances more depth and that masculine amber feel. 

Calone has a really lovely deep, watery marine scent. It’s fresh, slightly melon-like, and really useful for building aquatic accords. 

Mandarin Nat Pro is brilliant because it smells much more like the juicy flesh of a mandarin than the peel. It’s softer, brighter, and juicier than a normal mandarin oil, which is what makes it so interesting. 

Methyl Pamplemousse is honestly one of my favourite smelling materials. It has this really fresh grapefruit brightness that smells clean, slightly soapy, and really modern. 

Orris Givco is such an elegant base. It has that soft, powdery orris feel, but is significantly cheaper than real orris butter and much easier to work with. 

Paradisamide is just a really fun material to work with. It’s very tropical - mango, guava, passion fruit - and brilliant for adding a juicy fruity lift to perfumes. It also projects really well. 

Safranal is a really interesting top note material. It has a distinctive metallic saffron feel, it’s really strong, so it’s pre-diluted here to 1%

Triplal smells exactly like freshly cut grass and crushed ivy leaves to me. It’s really useful for creating fresh green openings, although it’s incredibly strong and definitely needs to be used diluted.

Verdox has this really clean, appley freshness with a slight woody edge. I love using it when I want to lift a fragrance slightly and give it that crisp fruity feel without it becoming too sweet.

You can learn more about Charles over at his TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@charles_perfumer

The creator receives a commission for each kit sold.