I'm Michael Storer, a native Californian and independent perfumer with my own small fragrance production firm in Los Angeles. I manufacture and market a line of fragrances of my own creation worldwide. Cottage industry fragrances such as eaux de toilette, eaux de parfum and parfums are referred to as niche fragrances by their aficionados(as), of which there are many thousands globally who communicate with each other to discuss "everything fragrance" via the internet.
Since I have a trained "nose" for hundreds of fragrances and raw ingredients used in perfuming, such as natural oils, absolutes and other products as well as man-made chemicals used in creating artistic fragrances, some of which are novel and/or don't exist in nature, my interest with Wikipedia lies foremost in adding new and/or fleshing out existing entries having to do with perfumery and flavoring arts.
Now, July, 2009, I'm working on adding to a sorely bare-bones entry on the chemical veratraldehyde, also known as methyl vanillin.
This has come about because of my own search on Wikipedia for information about this substance which I like and use from time to time.
I'm personally an avid Wiki user and love its philosophy. It feels wonderful for me to be able to contribute my small part to an elegantly accessible bank of worldwide and free public knowledge. The Library of Alexandria lives again!
Michael
Work in progress: Veratraldehyde
Veratraldehyde is a chemical ingredient which has been in use for many decades (add footnote re historical synthesis) in the fragrance industry, which includes fragrances for industrial use such as odor-masking agents to soaps and detergents to luxury perfumes. It is also used in the flavouring (Brit spelling or no?) industry, normally as an adjunct in achieving verisimilitude to another aroma such as maple. It occurs naturally, for instance in champaca flower extracts (i.e. oils and absolutes), peppermint and raspberries, but is commercially cheaply and easily synthesized (or maybe historical goes here?), thus almost all veratraldehyde used today is man-made.
By perfumer's standards, veratradehyde's odor strength is usually classified as "medium." Its substantivity[1] (longevity of detectability at 10% solution in dipropylene glycol) is cited as being at around 400 hours, which is considered relatively long.[2] Assessment of its odor is suggested to be carried out by smelling a solution (as described above) on a blotter-type perfumer's smelling strip. Its "organoleptics" or aroma profile is variously described by "noses", i.e. experienced perfumers, using the following words:
cherry creamy sweet heliotrope vanilla woody maple moss benzoin resin balsamic
Note that although veratraldehyde is chemically a sibling of vanillin and ethyl vanillin, its aroma is easily distinguished from these other two, being to most noses considerably fruitier, balsamic and cherry-like in quality.
Because of its excellent substantivity or staying-power, veratraldehyde is prized by perfumers as a fixative (ref), an element which helps a perfume linger longer on skin or fabric. This is a property it has in common with its chemical analogs vanillin and ethyl vanillin.
By current convention, veratraldyde's usage level is meant to be kept at or below 10% of a perfume's concentrate oil [3]. Considering its aromatic impact, perfumers generally don't find this allowance artistically restrictive. Such is not always the case with some weaker-smelling components[4]. Such maximum usage levels are decided upon by IFRA[5] or in some cases by various federal or EU[6] laws.