Reading a formula

A working perfume formula is not written the way a recipe is — it’s a list of raw materials each assigned a number of parts, usually out of a total of 1,000, rather than a percentage of the final bottle. This matters because the formula describes the ratio between materials in the concentrate itself, before that concentrate is diluted down to whatever tier — extrait, eau de parfum, and so on — the house intends to bottle it at. The same formula, at the same internal ratios, can be diluted to five different concentration tiers without ever being rewritten.

Older formulas in this house’s ledger are handwritten, some in a shorthand that only makes sense once you know the writer’s personal abbreviations for their most-used materials — a small, deliberate obstacle that has, historically, made a stolen formula page far less useful than it looks.