Rapid discrimination and counterfeit detection of perfumes by an electronic olfactory system

This work describes a fast, simple and low cost procedure to discriminate counterfeit perfumes by means of a commercial electronic olfactory system (EOS) based on thin film metal oxide semiconductor (MOS). As proof, the authentic Coco Mademoiselle women perfume by Chanel perfumes, two counterfeit and five inspired perfumes were used. Two different methods for the perfume sample preparation, in absence and in presence of ethanol, were compared. The best results were obtained in absence of ethanol. In this case, the fingerprint of the authentic sample obtained with the EOS was very characteristic, showing distinctive sets of radar plots for each perfume sample. To extract the available information from the resistance (R) change of each sensor, the classical feature selection (R/R0) has been employed. The principal component analysis (PCA) placed the samples of the eight perfumes into well-defined groups. The counterfeit and inspired samples were also clearly detected by comparison of their respective fingerprints, with PCA placing these samples into well separated groups. Finally, the results have been contrasted by a triangle test performed by trained panelists familiarized with perfumes.