November blog

This month the perfume team have completed the teaching resource. We will teach this lesson to pupils at our school next term and are preparing to send the resources to nearby schools. We have also done extensive research into olfaction and intend to test our findings by doing surveys using the oils we have extracted. We have learnt how people’s reactions to smells have changed over time and which smells are recognised.

We have extracted more oils and investigated synthetic oils. We have sent samples of theses oils off to Universities for analysis and will compare spectra from both.

Our contact in the paint industry has been most useful, and has provided us with a framework to which we can start to make some commercial type paints. We have started to look at the oils that have to be mixed with the pigments to make oil based paints. Results have been somewhat limited, with the paints produced being rather grainy. Further research into these types of paints is needed. The Azo dye research is complete and a few attempts have been made at making an azo dye. We now know how not to make azo dyes and how not to make oil paints – practise makes perfect.

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