The extended essay process has started off pretty well in my opinion. Although I am anxious to work on it, I am also excited and ready to research about a topic that fascinates me.

From the start, I knew that I wanted to do my extended essay on chemistry as it is a subject that I am really passionate about. However, I did not have very clear ideas about the specifics and I was nervous. But while learning in class about alcohols, I found a topic that really interests me, which is perfume and decided to apply chemistry to something that around us in our every day lives. As a girl, I am really interested in perfume and I wondered how it was that different perfumes smelt stronger or weaker, lasted for different amounts of time and could have differences in quality. This lead to me thinking about how its components changed the properties of the perfume.

Reading the exemplar, I feel like my topic needs to be more specific and narrowed down. I also need to come up with a way to test different samples. On Wednesday, I quickly met with my supervisor who told me to come up with a method and to talk to him once I conducted more research. It gave me a better idea of what and how to find more information and set up my research. At the moment, I think the best idea is to make perfume with different proportions of the ingredients and either test its volatility or ability to stay on the skin for a long period of time. It would also be interesting to compare it to existing products, especially at different prices to see whether there really is a big difference. However, I need to stay on the topic and make sure the essay is purely chemistry and that I do not get distracted by the many possibilities this essay could be about by focusing on one particular aspect.

I plan on working a couple of hours every week, especially during the break to get more research done and be on track for completing my essay.