IFEAT Diploma in Perfumery

...you are awarded with an IFEAT Diploma In Perfumery (Intenational Federation Of Essential Oils and Aroma Trades).
The course is recognised throughout the industry around the world and gives you a complete incite into the various stages of events of fragrance creation. From the request by a customer for eg. a new shampoo they are developing, to the ideas, the creation, to the final selections to the compounding and then to the customer. As ...
...home. Plymouth send you your starter pack which contains 12 modules, various books and a pack of samples of raw materials and finished perfumes for smelling. You are expected to study each module and prepare an essay at the end of each on a specific subject. On completion, you post the work back to Plymouth and it is then marked and sent back to you with details of your next essay. At the end of the modules there is a special study which the student ... more

When man first left the safety of the cover of the rain forests and wandered the great grassy plains of Africa to scavenge and hunt, aroma played a vital part in his survival, in detection of prey, recognition of edible plants and berrys and even in the search of a mate. Mans dependance on the sense of smell has since over the years decreased, no longer smelling food before eating and relying more on its appearance. In spite of the reduced use of our sense of smell, a huge industry has arisen to produce perfumed sprays, creams, soaps, bubble baths, household detergents and much more. Many of these products cover up the scents that our distant ancestors would have found attractive in a prospective mate.

For thousands of years man has used fragrance, distillation pots were found in Egypt dating back to 3500BC and essential oils were burnt in worship of gods. In 1922 when Howard Carter excavated the tombs of Tutankhamun, a small glass of unguent was found, still fragrant after thousand of years. By 50BC gifts of perfume had become highly valued and the bible says that of the three gifts presented to the new born messiah - two of them were fragrant.

Within the last 100yrs we have become obsessed with smelling nice, we use fragrant products everyday and virtually everything around us is fragranced - whether we know it or not. Manufacturers use fragrance to enhance the smell of their products, to make the natural odour appear a little more pleasant or to cover a malodour, even with carpets and fabrics, printer ink, jet fuel, motor oil, glue, plastics - you name it! You might think it bizarre to add a fragrance to motor oil but you should smell some that isn't fragranced - it smells really nasty!

That's a little introduction into an industry that most people don't really think about existing.
The fragrance industry is a huge and exciting industry and one that most people (like me) end up
in completely by accident. Six years ago I applied for a job as a lab assisitant at a perfume company and I was totally amazed when I discovered what went on in there.
Perfumers mixing together complex formulations from a selection of thousands of raw materials, and smelling and comparing them on strips of paper - it was all quite bizarre. I began to take a great interest in the industry and then I discovered that via Plymouth University there was a course on perfumery. It is a correspondance course and is open to students all over the world. The course itself is quite expensive, I'm unsure of the exact amount - it was around £750 when I did it (4 yrs ago) but on completion you are awarded with an IFEAT Diploma In Perfumery (Intenational Federation Of Essential Oils and Aroma Trades).
The course is recognised throughout the industry around the world and gives you a complete incite into the various stages of events of fragrance creation. From the request by a customer for eg. a new shampoo they are developing, to the ideas, the creation, to the final selections to the compounding and then to the customer. As the course is correspondance, all the work done is at home. Plymouth send you your starter pack which contains 12 modules, various books and a pack of samples of raw materials and finished perfumes for smelling. You are expected to study each module and prepare an essay at the end of each on a specific subject. On completion, you post the work back to Plymouth and it is then marked and sent back to you with details of your next essay. At the end of the modules there is a special study which the student has to put together on a perfumery subject of their choice. My special study was based on Aromatherapy and in it I collected large amounts of information in order to prove/disprove the theory. At the time of my study there was not enough information available for me to prove either, but i do believe that since then, further studies have been carried out and it is thought that Aromatherapy actually DOES NOT work!
The course itself took me just under two years to complete and at the end of it I was awarded my Diploma along with Student of the year!

I believe that Plymouth University now also offers a Degree in Perfumery Business which is great in giving you a good few steps up the ladder into the industry. There are several big named Fragrance Houses in the UK - the majority situated in the South of England, although the one I work at is in the North. There are also many houses throughout the world - France, Germany, America, Singapore, Indonesia - basically in this industry, the world really is your oyster.

There are many exciting positions to go for, from the salesman to the marketing department who come up with themes and ideas for new product ranges, to the evaluator who selects the fragrances, to the perfumer who creates them.

I'm now a fragrance evaluator with a highly trained nose and can recognise and describe thousand of different odours. Some of the fragrances contained in products you buy from your local supermarket may well have been selected by me!

So, if you're looking for a new career, want to do something different and what I've written about is of interest to you, then the courses that Plymouth has to offer may be just your thing!

*Update*
Since writing this op, I have now landed myself a nice new job as Fragrance Evaluator for one of the worlds bigger fragrance houses. The company is based in Germany with perfumery and manufacturing based there and they also have perfumers in New York and Paris. I'm at the UK office which is based in a pituresque little village in the Cotswolds!

When I wrote this op I never actually thought I'd have the guts to get out of Manchester and move to another company. I said in the op that in this industry the world is your oyster, I guess I was right. I'm off to Germany in a couple of weeks to checkout Head Office and who knows where I'll end up next! 

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