What Is PERFUMES and How Does It Work? In liquid fragrance, the liquid is a mixture of alcohol, water, and molecules that evaporate at room temperature. "An odor is essentially a molecule it's mild sufficient to waft inside the air, even though no longer each molecule this is light enough to waft within the air has a scent -- carbon monoxide, for example," says Avery Gilbert, a sensory psychologist who has consulted for the perfume enterprise.
What creates the perfume is that cells on your nose apprehend the evaporating molecules and send electrical messages into your mind, which creates a perception. To study precisely how we scent, read How scent Works. In case you've read the French terms on your perfume bottle, you may understand that perfumes come in exceptional strengths. The most focused are fragrance oils. They have been pressed out, steamed out or chemically separated out of a plant, flower or fruit [source: Sell]. In fragrance oil, perfume molecules are dissolved in 98 percent alcohol and 2 percent water. Everything else is alcohol-diluted perfume oil. From maximum to ​least focused, perfume is at the least 25 percent fragrance oil; Eau de parfum is 15 to 18 percentage; eau de toilette is 10 percent, and Eaux de cologne and frame spray is lighter