Frequently Questions

I will try to explain

the flavors do not have a firm expiration date.

on our certificates of analysis it says

STORE IN A TIGHTLY CLOSED CONTAINER, AWAY FROM HEAT AND DIRECT SUNLIGHT. BEST IF USED BY 9 MONTHS FROM DATE OF PURCHASE. CAN STILL BE USED UP TO 30 MONTHS DEPENDING ON STORAGE.

but the point is that the flavors do not “spoil”, they do not become harmful like spoiled food may become.

they just might change a little.

the fruits will become weaker,

the vanillas will seem to get better (like wine)

each flavor will act differently over time, but they will not go bad.

years ago, we did not put any recommendation on this, but customers from different countries told us that it was

necessary to put something, because their governments would not accept no recommendation.

it seems every country is different.

here is a link to our most recent FAQ on this subject

http://shop.perfumersapprentice.com/flavorsw…/shelf_life.pdf

when we bottle our 4oz and 16oz flavors, we nitrogen flush them, this means that we remove the oxygen from

the bottle and then seal them.

this greatly extends the shelf life, when the flavor is not opened.

but most of our customers open the bottles, and then oxygen gets in, and then the flavors may start to change over time.

so the recommendations about storing in plastic assumes the customer has opened the bottle.

i hope this helps,

Linda

Bill Brewer

The Perfumer’s Apprentice

& The Flavor Apprentice

170 Technology Circle

Scotts Valley, CA 95066

(831) 316-7137

www.perfumersapprentice.com ”

THE FLAVOR APPRENTICE SHELF LIFE FLAVOR INFORMATION Concentrated flavors do not spoil, or go rancid, like fruit juices can., so they do not really have an “expiration date”. But under certain conditions they can change. In other words, you will notice that a “fresh” bottle might seem different from an older bottle. Basically, what my flavor manufacturer tells me is that the flavors have a “best used by” life of at least nine months and often much longer, when they are not continuously opened and are stored in glass. It is not necessary to store them in the refrigerator, but I don’t think that this would hurt them. But sometimes refrigeration can cause recrystallization of flavors that have a lot of the crystals like ethyl maltol in them. Here’s some background. Every concentrated flavor is a mixture of raw materials, and every flavor blend can act differently. For example flavors that have a vanilla characteristic are going to have slightly different storage capabilities than fruit flavors. Here’s the reason. Vanilla and caramel flavors are mostly made of large molecules like vanillin, ethyl vanillin , etc. These molecules are not very volatile, and tend not to escape the bottle when you open it. They will be fairly stable. Fruit flavors, on the other hand, are made of much smaller molecules in general. Whenever you open a bottle, it’s the lightest and smallest molecules that escape and reach your nose quickly. Over time when you open a bottle over and over again more and more proportion of these lighter molecules leave the bottle and eventually the character of the flavor will be changed. This doesn’t mean the flavors spoiled, it’s just different. So this is one piece of advice, if you are going to store a flavor for a long period of time, transfer the flavor to smaller bottles that will you will not have to open over and over again. also, when a flavor is warm, like if it’s a hot day, when you open the bottle even more of the volatile molecules will escape, much more will escape than if the flavor was cool. This is true for all liquids, when liquids are heated the molecules are much more easily converted to their gaseous state. So in general it is a good idea to keep the flavor cool though I don’t think refrigeration is necessary.