LAB NOTES // ENTRY 001
Filed October 12, 2025 / BASED HQ
Typed manually / Reviewed and Notated
WELCOME TO BASED!
We're thrilled to welcome you to our very first blog post of many to come!
I'm Erasmo de la Parra, and like many of you, I once stood on the outside of the perfumery world, finding the entry barrier intimidating.
For years, the path to making beautiful perfume has been guarded by technical language, difficult-to-source materials, and specialized institutions. We know that feeling of being completely overwhelmed.
This is the problem we're here to solve.
We are BASED, a small perfume lab nestled in the sunny centre of Madrid, and we are dedicated to changing the narrative. The art of olfaction belongs to everyone. Our heart belongs to the beginner, the DIY enthusiast, and the independent perfumers building magic from their kitchen and bedroom labs. We can't wait to share our journey and insights with you, starting right here.
Making Scent Accessible
When I first started to explore perfumery over fifteen years ago, I felt completely overwhelmed. My initial thought was: Do I really have to learn advanced chemistry and memorize countless technical material names just to make a beautiful scent? Finding information and, more critically, finding the actual ingredients felt like a nearly impossible quest.
The world of scent often seems guarded, locked behind the fortress walls of prestige labs and global fashion and beauty corporations. For the person working at their kitchen table, armed with a few small bottles and a big idea, the path to a finished fragrance can feel out of reach.
Thankfully, things have changed. In the years since, many wonderful suppliers have paved the way for the niche and artisanal perfume industry. We humbly want to include ourselves in this fantastic lineup, specifically geared toward the beginners and DIY enthusiasts building magic in small studios.
This journey, that sense of being on the outside looking in, is why BASEd exists. We're a small perfume lab nestled in Madrid, but our heart belongs to those independent creators. We believe perfume-making should be creative, intuitive, and, most importantly, fun. Our mission is simple: to open the door and invite everyone in.
Breaking Down the Barrier
The conventional narrative often claims you can only be a perfumer if you’ve studied at one of the huge, established schools, like the prestigious ISIPCA or the Grasse Institute of Perfumery. These institutions certainly have their merit, offering rigorous training. However, entry is often incredibly difficult, typically dictated by immense financial resources, high-level connections, or being part of a family business that can afford to send its children there.
We fundamentally disagree with the idea that mastery is only achievable through this narrow, expensive path.
The art of olfaction has always existed outside of these walls. Our greatest perfumer, Mother Earth, has endowed most human beings with the ability to enjoy scent, and therefore, to master the craft. Olfaction is an incredibly important part of our lives, deeply tied to memory and emotion. This is why opening more doors to this essential craft is so important.
Understanding the Perfume Base
When you start blending, you quickly realize how much time it takes to build a stable structure. You need a perfect candied apple, a fluffy marshmallow accord, or a specific pumpkin spice blend, but creating that perfect scent from scratch is a huge undertaking. This is where the concept of a perfume base becomes your secret weapon.
Think of a base as a fully realized mini-composition or mini perfume. It’s a pre-blended structure, designed by perfumers to capture one specific idea: it's a perfect marshmallow ready to go, or a flawless aquatic note you can drop right into your formula. While an accord might be a small harmony of two or three notes, a base is a more complex blend that behaves like a single, powerful ingredient. It can instantly replace a difficult-to-source natural material or provide a ready-made architectural column for your whole blend.
The Myth of "Cheating"
For years, many perfumers have debated whether using a base is somehow "cheating," as if it detracts from the creative merit of the final perfume. We believe that’s simply not true.
In fact, the industry's own history tells a different story. Bases have always been a part of the craft, whether made in-house or sourced from expert suppliers. They provide essential structure, add consistency, and give depth to a fragrance that would be nearly impossible to achieve otherwise.
As F. V. Wells and M. Billot wrote in Perfumery Technology: Art, Science, Industry, the argument against bases is short-sighted:
“It is almost impossible for a perfumer to create a perfume if he does not use bases. The perfumer who does not wish to use any base virtually restricts his efforts to the production of the cruder types of perfume, ordinary and commonplace blends, without any artistic merit. He becomes merely a plain cook rather than a chef de cuisine.”
Our goal at BASEd is to equip you to be a chef de cuisine, not a plain cook. Bases are a great way to get the creative juices flowing for everyone. Sometimes all it takes is one base and a couple of decorating molecules to create a fantastic perfume. For beginners, bases make the process intuitive: you can start composing immediately. For the seasoned perfumer, they are invaluable for saving time, ensuring consistency, and adding complex structure to a formula.
What's Next for BASEd
We make some bases ourselves in our Madrid lab and source others from outstanding partners and suppliers around the world. Everything is bottled in simple 10ml sizes for now, easy to test, blend, and learn from. As we grow, we’ll slowly expand into new formats and more varied offerings.
Right now, we are in soft launch mode. This means you can browse the lineup of materials and start planning your next great creation while we focus on fully stocking our inventory and finishing the detailed, explanatory texts for each product. The lab doors will be opening for sales soon!
For now, our site is in English. We chose this to stay accessible to an international audience and because the translation tools offered by our provider were, frankly, too expensive at this stage. As we grow, we’ll roll out proper multilingual support. In the meantime, you can use your browser’s built-in translator.
If you ever find yourself visiting Madrid, please reach out. We host regular perfumery workshops in both Spanish and English, offering a great chance to dive hands-on into the world of scent composition. We can’t wait to see what you create.
📓 Notes from the Lab:
You don’t need every material in the world to start. You need curiosity, a few good bases, a couple of single molecules, and a notebook that keeps track of what you’re learning.
See you in the lab.
Erasmo
BASED Studio
