How We Make Cloning Impossible

CLONES and DUPES 

The Uncomfortable Truth

In recent years, the topic of perfume clones has become louder and more polarizing across the fragrance industry. From customers unknowingly purchasing copies, to creators seeing their original work diluted into mass-market duplicates, it’s a growing concern.

And frankly, I agree with the frustration: clones shouldn’t exist.

But here’s the uncomfortable truth, they only exist because these formulas are easy to copy.

If a perfume can be accurately replicated using standard lab tools, it usually means one thing: the formula is simple, or cheap, or both.

Real perfume complexity isn’t just about stacking exotic notes. It’s about formulating in a way that creates depth, evolution, and resistance to deconstruction.

How We Make Cloning Impossible: Ultrasound Technology

One of our proudest innovations is our use of ultrasound-assisted formulation, a rarely used, cutting-edge method that alters how ingredients are blended on a molecular level.

This does three things:

• Richer diffusion: When compounds are more tightly bonded, they release into the air in a more controlled and layered manner, improving the scent experience.
• More stability: Tightly bonded structures can make the formula more stable, potentially extending shelf life and performance.
• Harder to reverse-engineer: Standard GC-MS (Gas Chromatography–Mass Spectrometry) separates and analyzes volatile components. But when compounds are tightly bonded into microstructures or encapsulated forms, GC-MS fail to detect or correctly interpret them.

Even experienced chemists can't decode what they can't detect.

'Alcolaats' Produce Ghost Molecules

'Alcolaats' are part of perfumery’s hidden layer, the artisan side that doesn’t show up on lab equipment, yet defines the soul of a fragrance. For clone makers, they are a nightmare: invisible, variable, emotionally rich, and technically obscure.

So in a way, the more alcolaat a formula uses, the more clone-proof it becomes.

• These are trace molecules that occur only in traditional processes and are:
• Volatile enough to affect smell
• Too minor to appear reliably on lab scans
• Clone-makers skip them, either because they can't detect them, or because they think they're irrelevant. But in perfumery, trace elements add realism and complexity.

Clone makers Don’t Use Traditional Techniques

• Cloning houses work with mass-produced aroma chemicals and rapid turnarounds.
• They don’t have the time, skill, or infrastructure to do low-temperature botanical alcolaat distillation or maceration.

Even if they tried, they'd fail to match without the exact techniques.

GC-MS Is Accurate, But Not Perfect. And We Use That to Our Advantage.

Reverse-engineering relies heavily on Gas Chromatography–Mass Spectrometry (GC-MS), but this tool has known blind spots. We design our formulas to work around those.

Here’s how:

• Isomer Trickery: isomers molecules with the same formula but different structures, that are difficult to differentiate analytically.
  
  
• Non-Volatile Fixatives: These influence how a fragrance evaporates and evolves, but don’t show up in typical lab scans.
  
  
• Alcolaats: A lost art. We incorporate this centuries-old distillation method to build complexity where most perfumers today wouldn’t think to look.
  
  
• Ultra Sound Technology: can generate unique ratios of isomers or unusual trace molecules: like rare sesquiterpenes or lactones, that add depth, mystery, or animalic nuance, Don’t show up clearly on GC-MS, But are crucial to the olfactory character of a natural material. Clone-makers often omit trace elements because they’re minor by percentage, but in naturals, they make or break the illusion.
  
  
• Exclusive Supply Chain: by L’Atelier Français dès Matières

Complexity from Nature

Natural extracts like rose absolute, orris butter, jasmine, and oakmoss contain hundreds of individual molecules. GC-MS can’t break them all down. We layer naturals from different regions, harvests, and distillation methods, adding micro-variability to every formula.

Blending naturals like artists, not technicians. And, not all naturals are synthetically available.

Emotion Defies Replication

Finally, what we’ve done that no clone ever can: we’ve built fragrance through emotion. Our perfumes are inspired by real human expression, including facial micro-expressions used to develop our formulas.

A World Full of Copies

We didn’t create clone proof fragrances by accident. We built them that way, intentionally, scientifically, and artistically.

Perfume is a form of authorship. Our mission is to protect the narrative, the identity, and the craftsmanship behind each bottle.

Additional Technical Insights