GrassAccord

GrassAccord Sfumino

The layers you cannot smell shape the texture of a fragrance

GrassAccord Sfumino is our perfumer’s technique. Materials used in amounts too small to be smelled on their own are laid in several layers, and together they subtly change the texture of the whole fragrance.

The name Sfumino

A sfumino is a small paper tool used in pencil and charcoal drawing to rub a line and soften its edge. The word comes from the Italian verb sfumare, “to blur”, whose root is fumo, smoke.

Leonardo da Vinci’s sfumato shares the same root. Leonardo asked for painting “without lines or borders, in the manner of smoke”, and in the Mona Lisa he is known to have laid dozens of thin layers, each almost invisible, until the edges disappeared.

GrassAccord Sfumino starts from the same idea. One layer cannot be seen, but when the layers come together, the edges fade and a texture appears.

How it works

  • The materials used at 0.01% or less in a formula are its Sfumino layer.
  • At this level no single material can be smelled on its own. Instead they soften the seams between accords, round off sharp edges and gently change the character of the dry-down.
  • Which materials to layer, in which formula and how much, is decided by the perfumer for each formula, because the same material plays a different part when the formula changes.

Where you will find it in our formulas

Every GrassAccord paid formula PDF has a chapter called “GrassAccord Sfumino Technology”. It gathers only the materials used at 0.01% or less in that formula and explains, for each one, why it is there: which part of the fragrance it changes, and how.

Try it yourself

  1. 1Make the same formula twice: one exactly as written, and one without any of the materials in the Sfumino chapter.
  2. 2Let both mature under the same conditions.
  3. 3Dip a blotter in each and compare them at the start, after thirty minutes and after a few hours.

The difference is small. It is hard to say exactly what has changed, but you will likely find one of them smoother and more connected. That subtlety is what Sfumino does.

Questions

Does 0.01% really make a difference?
On its own, a single material at this level is almost impossible to notice. Sfumino relies on the effect of several such layers together. We recommend checking it for yourself with the comparison above.
Can I leave these materials out?
Yes. The main shape of the fragrance stays the same. But the texture the perfumer intended is the one with every Sfumino layer included. If a material is hard to find, please see the alternatives in the formula PDF.
Why give it a name?
When a formula lists many materials in tiny amounts, you may wonder why they are there. We wanted to make it clear that they are not an accident but deliberate layers.

From the master perfumers’ room to the learner’s desk

Layering tiny amounts of materials to refine the texture of a fragrance has been passed on for decades among experienced perfumers, by word and by hand. It stays in the formula, but why it is there has rarely been explained. It belonged to experience.

GrassAccord gives this method a name, GrassAccord Sfumino, and shows in every formula what was added and why, so that people taking their first steps in perfumery can follow it too. A technique once kept at the fingertips becomes one that can be learned.

GrassAccord does not claim to have invented this principle. But naming it, explaining it simply so that everyone can learn it, and sharing it widely is, as far as we know, a first in the world.

Explore our formulas

GrassAccord Sfumino — the layers you cannot smell | GrassAccord