Pollux Perfumery creates scents to evoke your favorite characters

We’ve featured plenty of visual (and sometimes edible) art here, but perfumes themed on Blizzard games hadn’t crossed our minds… until we ran into Pollux Perfumery. Dee runs Pollux Perfumery, making scents based on video game characters — including some of our favorites from World of Warcraft. Currently, you can find scents based on Anduin, Wrathion, Sylvanas, and Tyrande. So just how do you go about capturing the essence of a character as a perfume? We had to catch up with Dee to find out.

What Blizzard games do you play, and as what?

I play World of Warcraft, and I’m currently raiding on my Holy Priest, Hatorius. I raid with <Once More With Feeling> over on Emerald Dream. I mostly like to raid and RP in Warcraft, though I have been known to dabble in PvP. I also do a bit of Holy Priest blogging.

How did you get started making perfumes? How long have you been making perfume?

I started back in February. I’ve known about fandom-inspired perfume and other crafts, but I really was intrigued by the idea of making my own! I got my start mostly just because I sat down one day and started looking into how perfume oils are made and was super intrigued! It is a bit of science, and a bit of arts and crafts.

It’s often challenging, especially when I’m trying to locate uncommon oils to use, because everything either has to be a pure natural ingredient that’s skin-safe, or made specifically for perfumery. I started off with mostly fragrance oils that were easy to blend, but in the past months I’ve branched out into other ingredients like absolutes that have to be blended and mixed before they can be used.

What inspired you to make Warcraft-themed perfumes?

I love different themes and trying to evoke feelings and such with my perfumes. When I sat down, my first perfumes were Dragon Age inspired, but I’ve started to expand my shop and have included other things that intrigue me — from vampires and the zodiac to Warcraft. Warcraft is great inspiration because there are a ton of different themes that I can draw on- from my Anduin-inspired perfume being a smell that invokes a church sanctuary, to my Sylvanas perfume that’s inspired by the themes of death and necromancy.

Could you give us a step-by-step on what’s involved in creating one of your perfumes?

My process is very haphazard, I’ll admit. I usually start by sitting at my computer doing something completely unrelated — I could be questing or fussing with garrison missions, and my mind will wander off into “you know what would make a cool perfume?”

I try to write down the idea I’ve had — I usually get ideas for themes and what sort of mood I want the perfume to have. For example, let’s say I’m making a Hunter class themed perfume. I’d go with something earthy, peppery, and smoky — a smoky gunpowder-y smell — mixed with something fresh and woodsy, like oakmoss and spruce. The resulting smell would be woodsy and smoky, perfect for a Hunter.

Next chance I’m able, I go into my kitchen and pull out my boxes of materials. I keep a large stock of base fragrance and essential oils. Sometimes I’ll be out of an oil, or I need one to make the mixture just right — in this case, it’s time to order from my suppliers and wait for the materials to come in. Once I have everything, I usually take a sample vial and mix everything in the tester. I formulate all of my perfumes by parts — so two parts of this, maybe a half a part of that — so I can just say four drops here, one drop here. Once I get the formulation figured out, from there I test it on myself. I have fragrance allergies and sensitive skin, and my tester tends to be about twice as potent as a standard scent. If I can wear it without issue, I can put it in my shop.

From there, I make a 1/4oz concentrate following the formulation I’ve settled on. This gets held as “stock.” When I sell an order, I take a bit of the concentrate and dilute it in fractionated coconut oil, which is colorless and scentless. The dilution is the finished perfume.

How do you decide on the perfect scent for a character? Does much trial and error go into getting it just right?

Sometimes I get lucky and get it right on the first try. Sometimes, the resulting scent is completely off the mark. I had one perfume I tried that was leather, sage, and peppermint… which could have been great! …except that it wound up smelling like hospital disinfectant, haha. It was definitely back to the drawing board on that one. That happens sometimes, and is why I test them all on myself before I release them on my shop. If I wouldn’t wear it, I won’t release it for sale.

What’s the most challenging part about a character-themed perfume?

I think that would be the same as the most challenging thing about perfume oils to start with — you can’t always tell what they’ll smell like on every person. Perfume oils are highly influenced by body chemistry. Where, for example, something might smell very woodsy and dry on me, someone else might get the very sweet notes of that perfume when they smell it.

What are you working on next?

I’m looking at starting a set of class-themed perfumes, like the Hunter perfume I mentioned above! If anyone has any suggestions for perfumes or characters they’d like me to pull inspiration from, I’m all ears!

That’s all for BlizzCrafts today — but check back next week for another selection of cool Blizzard-themed crafts! Have Blizzard arts and crafts of your own you’d like to see on Blizzard Watch? Send them our way! Submissions and suggestions should be sent to liz at blizzardwatch dot com.