The Perfume Making Podcast

Done with Hustle? - Building a Stronger Perfume Business That Won’t Burn You Out in 2026

This isn’t the usual New Year’s episode about planning, vision boards, and big 2026 goals. Instead, Karen looks at what happens when you need to do less, and how that can

Layering Like a Pro (or a Rebel): From TikTok Hacks to Indie Perfume

Ever wondered why everyone’s suddenly talking about layering their favourite scents? In this special year-end episode, Karen dives into the layered world of fragrance - e

Don’t Sell Yourself Short! Building a Perfume Business Without the Discount Spiral

It’s easy to think that the best way to stay ahead in business is by watching your competitors and lowering your prices when they do. But as Karen explains in this episod

Making a Mod: Embracing Iteration in Perfume Making and Doing It Right

This week Karen follows on from the conversation she had about learning to evaluate your perfumes. She covers something that is done as a matter of course in the industry

Evaluating Your Fragrances: How to Judge Your Scent Like a Professional

Do you really know if your fragrance works? Or are you just hoping for compliments? In this episode, Karen reveals why friends and family are not likely to be giving you

Why Buying More “Magic” Materials Won’t Make You a Better Perfumer

It’s easy to believe that the secret to creating great fragrances lies in having more materials - more naturals, more synthetics, more obscure aroma chemicals. But as Kar

You’ve Made Soup! - How to Avoid a Muddy Fragrance

“You’ve made soup!” is a phrase French perfume teachers often say to their students. In the world of fragrance, soup refers to a perfume that smells muddy, flat, or undef

Raw Notes - What I Learned from Bruce Springsteen

Karen recently went to the cinema, something she doesn’t do very often. However, on this one-off trip to see the new Bruce Springsteen film, something resonated with her.

The Evolution of Musk - Part 2

Following on from last week's show on the history of Musk, Karen is here to tell you all about the synthetic musks. First developed by accident in the 1930s, synthetic mu

The Evolution of Musk - Part 1

This week, Karen is introducing the first in a two-part series on musk. Musk started life as one of the most prestigious materials in the world of perfumery and was often

Soapy, Sparkling, Strange - A Journey Through Aldehydes

After last week’s episode on Chanel No. 5 and its revolutionary use of aldehydes, Karen is going to delve deeper into this fragrance family and its role in the world of p

Decoding Aldehydes - The Chemistry of Chanel No. 5

Over the years, Karen has received countless questions about one fragrance family in particular: aldehydes. They often leave people puzzled about what they are and how th

Synthetic Scents - The Risks of AI in Perfumery

Last week, in one of Karen’s classes, a student was surprised to learn that some information she had received from ChatGPT was inaccurate. With AI becoming increasingly c

When Chemistry Meets Creativity - A Beginner’s Guide to Synthetic Perfume Materials

Karen often hears from people who work exclusively with natural materials in their fragrances but are beginning to notice the limitations, whether it’s their blends smell

Eau de What? - Demystifying Perfume Concentrations

This week, Karen is tackling a question she's asked all the time, especially by those transitioning from aromatherapy to natural perfumery: “What’s the deal with concentr

The Art of Weaving Time - Crafting Order from Chaos

After a well-deserved break, which was extended by a week, Karen is back. During her time off she took part in ‘Hampshire Open Studios’, a scheme where artists across Ham

Rest - The Most Underrated Note

After 110 episodes, week in, week out, on top of 3 ongoing courses, authoring her latest book, a family trip to France, and a family wedding in Spain, Karen has decided t

The Tincture Trap - Why Tinctures Often Fall Flat

This week Karen is addressing a question she gets asked all the time regarding the use of tinctures in perfumery. The short answer to this question is that tinctures don’

Too Much of a Good Smell - The Myth of Longevity in Perfumery

This week on the show, Karen is finally addressing an issue that has been annoying her for years - the obsession with extreme longevity of a fragrance. There is a theory

The Architecture of Aroma - Structuring Floral Fragrances

Karen has a new live course coming up, on the 7th of July, and in this episode she wants to explore two things that link into that live course - Floral Fragrances and Str