Perfume Factory - advice?

[SteveyDee68]

An odd request...

 

The small factory around the corner manufactures perfume. In recent weeks, it has switched production to hand sanitiser (the night air is still as fragrant, though!) It consists of various smaller buildings, some storage tanks, warehouses and a distribution depot, all arranged either side of a step sided gulley holding a stream. It is actually more picturesque than it sounds!

 

Which set me to thinking about a micro layout based around a perfume factory. A Google search brings up limited results but centres around the Dubarry factory in Hove (and mainly about its conversion into flats!)

 

Could anybody suggest what raw materials might go inwards and using which wagons? I am assuming simple vans would take the bottled goods outwards! Don't think I've ever see no anyone model such an industry before!

 

Thanks!

 

Steve S

 

PS - this will not require a Ransomes and Rapier 45 ton crane 

[34theletterbetweenB&D]

The high value materials such as the scent oils from sunny countries where the extraction is performed (that are teeny-weeny in volume) and probably valuable enough to go in the locked compartment of a passenger brake, and THE PACKAGING which is way more bulky, vans if rail transport was used. Rather doubtful that they would require enough alcohol for it to be tankered in, bottles or cans more likely, again in vans.

[SteveyDee68]

Thanks for the info, 34theletterbetweenb&d

 

I have found one reference only on RMWeb related to perfume, and that was really about whale oil/products. Will have to research and find out what kind of amounts might be used of that in perfume making!

 

Happy Easter!

[The Johnster]

Not sure that the quantities of raw material or the finished product would justify much in the way of an industrial railway; a siding long enough to take a van and a loading dock would be about it!  Perfume is a low turnover high value product and there are no large quantities of anything.  It's a fragrant idea though!  How about a rail served small industrial estate (or a corner of a big one), which could even on a micro layout have several sidings serving individual factories and workshops, as well as the exchange siding from the big railway.  This could easily include your perfume factory.  Loco would be owned by the estate managing company.

 

My South Wales 1950s BLT Cwmdimbath has a siding serving a Remploy factory with repairs NHS equipment such as crutches, wheelchairs, and so on, well, really, I'm not sure what it does but it's rail served, and a few other companies have taken advantage of government and Glamorgan County Council grants and moved in on the site, so they are also rail served.  I have no clear idea what they make, as this part of the siding is beyond the scenic break, but vans go in loaded and come back out loaded or empty (who knows, who cares) and the odd sheeted open goes down there as well.  The estate is served by a common heating and high pressure steam system from a boiler house which is either coal or oil fired depending on whether I want to lose a mineral or a tank wagon down there for a few operating days.

 

This sort of development was encouraged in the post war era in the area, and I imagine must have featured in other declining coalfield or manufacturing areas as well.  There was, well, still is, a huge industrial estate at Treforest, south of Pontypridd, which at one time had a power station with cooling towers, served by an estate internal rail system, as did the Tremains estate near Bridgend which started life as a wartime Royal Ordnance Factory.  This had a cooling tower, and to my mind cooling towers are proper heavy industry!

[The Johnster]

4 minutes ago, SteveyDee68 said:

Thanks for the info, 34theletterbetweenb&d

 

I have found one reference only on RMWeb related to perfume, and that was really about whale oil/products. Will have to research and find out what kind of amounts might be used of that in perfume making!

 

Happy Easter!

Whale oil products were mostly used for high grade machine and other specialist oils.  My first ever Triang/Rovex Black Princess train set contained a small square glass bottle of 'Shell Finest Machine Grade Whale Oil, with a pin attached to the top to apply the smallest possible amount of this precious substance with.  Whales' connection with the perfume industry comes from ambergris, a substance found in their stomachs that stinks when it is fresh but 'goes off' to a much more pleasant smell.  It is used as a fixative in perfumes and is sometimes vomited by the whale, to wash up on beaches or be trawled in nets; harvesting it in this way is not illegal as it is a waste product of the whale, which is not harmed.  it's use has declined considerably since the whaling bans, as a chemically produced substitute can be used.  It is available from Japan, and from the Faroe Islands and some Inuit communities which are exempt from the bans and are allowed to kill a quota of whales for subsistence purposes.

 

As the old joke goes, 'Excuse me, is this the Japanese Official Institute of Scientific Cetecean Research'?  'Yes, it is'.  'Fine, can I see the menu, please'?

 

Ambergris is worth it's weight in gold, probably more than, and only exists in very small quantities for commercial use in the perfume industry.  It is only found in Whales, like Moby Dick.

[Andy Hayter]

Depending on the era, if the factory was doing some of the distillation itself, then there might be a need for coal to operate the boilers and stills.  Beyond that, as others have said, it's small volume, high value that would not go by the wagonload.  

[chris-shay]

One of the main products supplied to the perfume industry is fusel oil, which is a by-product from the continuous distillation process of a grain distillery. I would guess that tanker delivery and onsite storage tanks would represent this in this instance but not sure what volumes would be typical?

[jonhall]

I used to have dealings with the R&D on some very well known perfume brands, whilst some sell repeatedly over many years, the demand for others is so limited that they make their money out of a single sub- 5 ton batch, that is never repeated - I guess the fast moving 'fashion' brands wouldn't have been around 30 or more years ago, but volumes would have still been low.

 

Ingredients inward - Alcohol (which is why they can make hand sanitiser), water, and some VERY expensive fragrance oils in relatively small quantities - I imagine 5 or 10 litre drums or jerry cans. I'd think it unlikely that extraction of oils would happen at a UK factory unless the crop that is harvested is also local, because the oils will be degrading from the moment the plants are picked.

 

Empty bottles inward could be a reasonable volume, I don't know about historically, but currently most of the major manufacturers of premium glass packaging (and a surprising amount of plastic) are in Northern Italy. One of the current limitations on making hand sanitiser at the moment is a shortage in supply of suitable packs.

 

I would think outbound product would be such high value/low volume, that theft (shrinkage) would be a problem.

 

Jon

[SteveyDee68]

Have spent some time on the www and found plenty of information about perfume companies (as in their history, their unique branding/scents etc) but hardly any photos of where they are actually made! Perhaps it is because the perceived luxury or value of a fragrance might be damaged when it is revealed it is made in an industrial unit?! Hence the amazing websites for the perfume companies, all with close up photos of parfumeriers (?) mixing oils in test tubes etc, not bottling machines and barrels of chemicals!

 

Amersham Museum has an interesting history about Goya, which were based in the town in an old Brewery, and those are about the only photos I have stumbled across. Most of the processes are small scale and take place inside, so closed vans (as has been said above) would seem to be the order of the day, for goods in or out.

 

Here's the Goya factory photos (if the photos are copyright I shall remove them) as the old Brewery does make an attractive factory building!