From Raw Materials to Finished Cologne: Part 3 - Mix, Mature and Bottle

May 30, 2017

In Part 2 of our three part series on making cologne, we talked about creating the concentrate for our colognes by blending essential oils. In this, the third and final part of this series, we share the process of making and bottling the final cologne.
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The final step in creating a world class cologne is blending the concentrate with organic alcohol. The alcohol helps the volatile organic compounds in the fragrance to evaporate and diffuse in the air, creating the scent.

After some extensive research we decided to work with a fantastic company in the heart of England. They first add in organic alcohol, and then let the cologne macerate, or mature, for 3 weeks. This lets the fragrance develop, meaning that by the time we're ready to bottle, it's stabilised and will smell exactly as we intended when we developed it in Grasse.

The final stage of the production is the bottling. This is done predominantly by hand, with the help of some machinery in the labelling. It's a very manual process because the bottles are all a little different so the labels have to be lined up regularly to make sure they look the best they can. Despite the artisinal attitude, the workshop looks like a science lab. Everyone wears gloves when handling the bottles to make sure they arrive in perfect condition.

The manual nature of the filling process is important to ensure quality and also because the raw material, the concentrate, is so valuable. This means our team have to be extremely careful when filling or they risk wasting drops of the precious aftershave.

After the cologne is filled into the bottles and they’re sealed up, we package and are ready to ship. A new set of colognes, ready to be blended by you.

UNITE from Thomas Clipper is the world's first premium blending cologne for men. Made up of City, Coast and Country, every man can make his own blend, creating a custom fragrance. Two sprays of City with one of Country? One spray of Coast An equal Coast/Country blend? The choice is yours.