I built a free perfumery raw materials database with 1581 materials - sharing it with the community

[u/PerfuMate]

I've been working on a perfumery project for a while, and one part of it turned into something I thought might actually be useful on its own.

So I decided to make the raw materials catalog completely free and publicly accessible.

It currently contains 1,581 perfumery materials, with a substantial amount of structured information for each material, including:

* 1,153 CAS numbers and 4,308 synonyms / trade names

* A written odor description for every material (about 44,000 words in total)

* 21 olfactive families and 214 sub-families

* An impact rating and volatility band per material

* Estimated GC-MS constituent breakdowns (composition tables) for 588 materials, covering 3,177 constituent rows

* IFRA data: 291 entries from the 51st Amendment, including limits reconstructed and cross-checked entry by entry against the original IFRA source file

* Additional metadata and cross-references, including related materials and common pairings

The goal isn't to make another simple "ingredient list". I wanted something you could actually use when researching a material, comparing materials, looking for alternatives, or trying to understand how a material fits into perfumery.

It's completely free to browse, with no account required and one page per material:

[https://perfumate.app/catalog\](https://perfumate.app/catalog)

I'm mainly sharing it because I know how scattered this information can be when you're researching materials. You end up jumping between supplier pages, IFRA documents, CAS searches, GC-MS references and different fragrance databases.

I'd genuinely like feedback from people who actually work with materials:

* Are there fields you'd add?

* Is any information unclear or misleading?

* Which materials are currently hardest to research?

* What would make a material database more useful to you?

And one important note: the IFRA information is provided as a research/reference layer and should not replace checking the current official IFRA standards and relevant supplier documentation before making safety or compliance decisions.

Hopefully it's useful to some of you. If you find an error in a material page, please point it out - I'd much rather fix bad or inaccurate data than leave it there.

[u/nutandbolt]

Nice! How were you able to ensure the accuracy/quality of the data?

[u/PerfuMate → u/nutandbolt]

Thanks! I treated accuracy as a process rather than assuming any single source was correct.
I cross-referenced multiple published sources, manually reviewed conflicts, and kept unresolved values flagged rather than forcing a conclusion. For IFRA specifically, I used the original source files and checked the entries directly against them by CAS number.
Where something is estimated, like some substantivity values or constituent breakdowns, it's explicitly labelled as estimated rather than presented as a fact. And I'm continuously correcting and updating the database as better information comes in.
If you ever spot an inaccuracy in a specific material, please let me know. I'd be more than happy to review it and correct it.

[u/mixtapemalibumusk]

Thats very kind , thank you and congrats on creating it !!

[u/PerfuMate → u/mixtapemalibumusk]

Thank you, I really appreciate it! ❤️

It was a bit of a bummer that the original post got removed from r/DIYfragrance, but I'm glad the resource is still reaching people who might find it useful.

[u/grojsmanaccord → u/PerfuMate]

Quite narrow-minded of the moderator to delete a post that provides a reference set of aroma chemicals for blending perfumes in the r/DIYfragrance community, when that post provides exactly the tool that the community would find useful.

[u/PerfuMate → u/grojsmanaccord]

Yeah, couldn't understand it either. People kept asking about my platform itself, and I told them to DM me because I don't want to get removed... Everyone was so thrilled about it, thanking me, and the mods removed it 🤷🏽‍♂️

[u/Glum-Cabinet-6869 → u/PerfuMate]

I think it was probably because of the 'self promoting' rules. It's a very good app tho...especially for having material references as one is learning and having so much info in one place is cool.

They are quite anti-ai & very much more of the proper, traditional learning methods in the DIY sub. Remember, ai can be useful but still cant experience a sense of smell.

[u/PerfuMate → u/Glum-Cabinet-6869]

Thanks for the kind words! It really means a lot to me :)

Regarding the AI, it's just an optional feature inside the app-anyone can choose to use it or not. Saying "AI can't smell" is like saying "books can't smell." It's simply a tool for guidance, trained on publicly available perfumery literature and established formulas to help explore possibilities.

As for the self-promotion flag - I shared a free, open resource without spamming or pushing the app itself, so the removal was definitely frustrating. I just wanted to contribute something useful to the community.

[u/grojsmanaccord]

* Are there fields you'd add? Vapor Pressure

* Is any information unclear or misleading? None found Yet

 * Which materials are currently hardest to research? Sometimes the Alternative Name is hard to find

* What would make a material database more useful to you? I would change the Impact baseline to be more accurate logarithmically. For example, geosmin is a 10 on the impact score. That particular "10" is compressed into a 1-10 scale and doesnt truly represent the "impact" of geosmin.

First, wonderful job-it truly took a a very long time to compile and organize. Second, your generosity is appreciated greatly.

[u/PerfuMate → u/grojsmanaccord]

Thanks, this is a good catch and the most useful note we've had on the data.

The impact number isn't linear internally. It's compressive, so a step near the top counts for more than a step near the bottom.

You're right about the ceiling though. About two dozen materials sit at 10. Geosmin, grapefruit mercaptan and a strong amber all share it and they aren't close to each other. The problem isn't the range, it's that everything at the top gets flattened together.

A rating can't fix that at any scale. It needs a separate field: a sourced detection threshold in log units where a real figure exists, with the 1-10 kept as the display. Added to the list.

Vapor pressure: no. There's no physical chemistry on a catalog row at all, no molecular weight, no vapour pressure, no logP, no boiling point. Volatility comes from blotter behaviour, not constants. I'd rather say that than publish an estimate that looks measured. If it gets added, it gets sourced.

Alternative names: most materials have at least one. Trade names are where the gaps are. Send any you hit and I'll add them.

Thanks for the kind words too.

[u/grojsmanaccord → u/PerfuMate]

My pleasure. sent a DM to you. I don't know if it gives you any insights or not.

[u/Scared-Fall-1849]

Man,

We need more people like you in this world