User Guide

How Quoted Aroma Works

Your complete guide to documenting, organizing, and perfecting your fragrance creations. From creating your first recipe to tracking maturation batches and comparing versions.

Getting Started

Create your account and explore the dashboard

1

Create Your Account

Register with your email address and choose a username. Your username will be displayed on any public recipes you share.

2

Access Your Dashboard

After logging in, you'll see your personal dashboard with an overview of your formulas, quick actions, and recent recipes.

3

Create Your First Recipe

Click 'New Formula' to start documenting your first fragrance. Add a name, description, select the concentration type, and begin building your formula.

Pro Tip

Your dashboard shows stats for total formulas, published recipes, and private recipes. Use the quick actions to navigate between creating new formulas, exploring community recipes, and viewing your complete archive.

Recipe Management

Create, organize, and manage your fragrance formulas

Concentration Types

Categorize your recipes as Eau de Parfum (EdP), Eau de Toilette (EdT), Cologne, Parfum, or Other based on their concentration.

Privacy Controls

Keep recipes private in your personal archive or share them publicly with the community. Change visibility anytime.

Tags & Organization

Add custom tags to categorize recipes by season, occasion, scent family, or any system that works for your workflow.

Maturation Period

Set the recommended maturation days for your formula. This helps track aging time when you start maturation batches.

Recipe Settings

Edit recipe settings directly from your dashboard by clicking the edit button on any recipe card. You can update the name, description, category, visibility, maturation days, and tags without navigating to the full recipe page.

Ingredients

Document your formula with precise measurements

Each ingredient in your recipe can be documented with detailed information including measurements, note classification, and personal notes. The ingredient system supports both library ingredients and custom names.

Top Notes

The first impression of your fragrance. These evaporate quickly, typically within 15-30 minutes. Common examples include citrus, light fruits, and fresh herbs.

Heart Notes

The core character of your fragrance. These emerge after top notes fade and last 30 minutes to 2 hours. Includes florals, spices, and green notes.

Base Notes

The foundation of your fragrance. These are the longest lasting (2+ hours) and include woods, musks, ambers, and resins.

Modifiers

Ingredients that enhance or bridge other notes. They adjust the character of the blend without being prominent themselves.

Fixatives

Materials that slow evaporation and extend the longevity of your fragrance. Common fixatives include benzoin, labdanum, and certain musks.

Measurement Units

mlgozdrops%

Choose the unit that matches your measuring tools and workflow.

Drag & Drop

Reorder ingredients by dragging and dropping them into your preferred order. The order is saved automatically and helps you organize ingredients by note type, importance, or addition sequence.

Process Steps

Document your blending procedure

Record each step of your creation process. Include timing, specific instructions, and notes to ensure you can reproduce the same results every time.

Step Title

A clear name for each step, like "Add base notes" or "Initial blending"

Description

Detailed instructions for what to do during this step

Duration

How long this step takes in minutes (optional)

Notes

Additional tips, warnings, or observations for this step

Reordering

Like ingredients, steps can be reordered by dragging and dropping. The step numbers update automatically to reflect the new order.

Version Control

Track changes and maintain recipe history

Quoted Aroma includes a powerful version control system that lets you track changes to your recipes over time. This works similarly to how developers manage code, but designed for perfumers.

Draft Mode

When you edit a recipe, changes are saved to a draft. Drafts are your working copy where you can freely make changes without affecting published versions. The draft is shown with an "Editing Draft" indicator.

Published Versions

When you publish a draft, it becomes an immutable version that cannot be edited. This creates a permanent record of your recipe at that point in time. Published versions are numbered (v1, v2, v3, etc.).

Historical Versions

Use the version history dropdown to view any previous published version. Historical versions are read-only, allowing you to see exactly what your recipe looked like at any point in its development.

Version Actions

Publish Draft

Create a new immutable version from your draft

Discard Draft

Delete unsaved changes and revert to latest published

View History

Browse and view any previous version

Delete Version

Remove old versions (private recipes only)

Important

Published versions of public recipes cannot be deleted to maintain integrity for anyone who may have forked or referenced them. To delete versions, first make the recipe private.

Note Pyramid

Visualize your fragrance structure

The Note Pyramid provides a visual breakdown of your recipe's structure. It shows the distribution of top, heart, and base notes, plus functional ingredients like modifiers and fixatives.

What It Shows

  • Top Notes - percentage and ingredients
  • Heart Notes - percentage and ingredients
  • Base Notes - percentage and ingredients
  • Modifiers - enhancing ingredients
  • Fixatives - longevity boosters

Balance Indicator

The pyramid includes a balance indicator that helps you understand if your formula is well-balanced or weighted toward a particular note family:

Well Balanced- No single note exceeds 60%
Top Heavy- Top notes exceed 60%
Heart Heavy- Heart notes exceed 60%
Base Heavy- Base notes exceed 60%

Tip

Hover over the donut chart segments to see detailed breakdowns including which specific ingredients contribute to each note category.

Maturation Tracking

Monitor the aging process of your creations

Track multiple maturation batches for each recipe version. Monitor progress, add notes during the aging process, and keep a complete history of your batches.

1

Start a Batch

Click 'Start Batch' and enter the expected maturation days. The system calculates the expected completion date automatically.

2

Track Progress

View active batches with days elapsed and days remaining. Batches show if they're overdue based on the expected end date.

3

Add Notes

Document observations during maturation. Add notes about scent development, color changes, or anything noteworthy.

4

Complete or Cancel

Mark batches as complete when ready, or cancel if you decide not to continue. Completed batches move to the history section.

Active

Currently maturing

Complete

Finished aging

Cancelled

Discontinued batches

Batch Numbering

Batches are numbered by version (e.g., "2.3" means version 2, batch 3). This helps you track which formula version each batch uses.

Scent Evolution

Document how your fragrance develops over time

Track how your fragrance evolves from the first spray to the final drydown. Record observations at different stages to understand the full journey of your creation.

Opening

0-15 minutes

First impression when freshly applied

Heart

30 min - 2 hours

Core character emerges

Dry Down

2-6 hours

Base notes become prominent

Final

6+ hours

Lingering skin scent

Additional Tracking

Longevity

How many hours the scent lasts

Sillage

Intimate, Moderate, Strong, or Beast mode

Test Log

Record your testing sessions

Keep a detailed record of every time you test your fragrance. Track different test types, conditions, and results to understand how your creation performs.

Skin Test

Blotter Test

Spray Test

Longevity Test

What to Record

Test date and location
Longevity in hours
Projection strength
Any skin reactions
Weather conditions
General observations

Average Longevity

The test log header shows your average longevity across all tests, giving you a quick reference for how long your fragrance typically lasts.

Cost Calculator

Track ingredient costs and recipe expenses

Calculate the total cost of your recipe based on ingredient prices. The cost calculator shows a breakdown per ingredient and highlights any ingredients missing pricing information.

Total Cost

See the combined cost of all ingredients with pricing data

Per-Ingredient Breakdown

View cost contribution of each ingredient

Missing Pricing

Quickly identify which ingredients need price data

Conversion Warnings

Alerts about unit conversion assumptions

Scaling Calculator

Scale your recipe to any batch size

Need to make a larger or smaller batch? The scaling calculator automatically adjusts all ingredient amounts while maintaining the same proportions.

1

Enter Target Size

Specify how much you want to make (e.g., 100ml, 50g)

2

Choose Rounding

Enable 'Round to practical amounts' for easier measuring

3

Review Scaled Amounts

See the original amount, scale factor, and new amounts for each ingredient

4

Copy to Clipboard

One-click copy of scaled recipe for easy reference in your workspace

Rounding

When rounding is enabled, amounts are adjusted to practical values that are easier to measure. For example, 2.37ml might become 2.5ml.

Version Compare

See differences between recipe versions

Compare any two published versions of your recipe to see exactly what changed. This is invaluable for understanding how your formula evolved and what modifications led to improvements.

What's Compared

Additions (+)

  • New ingredients added
  • New steps added

Removals (-)

  • Ingredients removed
  • Steps removed

Modifications (~)

  • Changed ingredient amounts or units
  • Modified note types
  • Updated step descriptions or durations
  • Recipe metadata changes

Fork & Duplicate

Build on existing recipes

Found a public recipe you want to build upon? You have two options depending on whether you want to maintain attribution.

Fork

Creates a linked copy with attribution to the original recipe and author.

  • Shows in the original's fork count
  • Maintains lineage breadcrumb
  • Credits the original creator

Duplicate

Creates an independent copy with no link to the original.

  • Completely separate recipe
  • No attribution shown
  • Use for personal variations

Lineage Breadcrumb

Forked recipes display a breadcrumb trail showing their lineage. This helps viewers understand the recipe's heritage and allows them to explore the original source.

Community Explore

Discover recipes from fellow perfumers

Browse public recipes shared by the Quoted Aroma community. Find inspiration, learn from other perfumers, and discover new techniques and combinations.

Browse by Category

Filter recipes by concentration type - EdP, EdT, Cologne, Parfum, or other formulations.

Search Recipes

Find specific recipes or ingredients using the search functionality.

View Details

See complete recipes including ingredients, steps, and note distribution.

Fork Favorites

Found something you like? Fork it to create your own version with attribution.

Ready to Start Creating?

Create your first recipe and begin documenting your fragrance journey with all the tools you need.

Questions or feedback? We're always looking to improve.Learn more about Quoted Aroma