Laurent Le Guernec, a perfumer at International Flavors and Fragrances, a large perfume creator, and the recipient of eight awards for perfume design, said the challenge was always to personalize it. When he created Lovely, a scent for the actress Sarah Jessica Parker, the perfume was meant to appeal to the millions of fans who wanted to smell just like her. But what was that scent?

“She was creating something for herself and hoped other people would like it,” he said. “She had a very lavender oil, a musk oil and that was basically it. And she said, ‘Can you do something like that?’ ”

Each year, about a thousand fragrances are created and introduced by perfume companies in a similar way, up from about 90 scents in the 1970s, said Elizabeth Musmanno, president of the Fragrance Foundation, a perfume industry group.

Given that selection — on top of existing perfumes — Ms. Musmanno questioned the need for a bespoke scent in the first place.

“While I think it’s very interesting for certain people to try, it’s also kind of the equivalent of me hiring a great chef and telling him how to cook,” she said. “You need training for years and years to begin to be able to smell the difference in certain fragrances. For a lot of money you could come out with something that isn’t any better than what is on the market today.”

For those who want to try, it begins with a conversation.

Audrey Gruss, a former marketing and advertising executive, is just beginning the process of creating a fragrance. She has a name — Hope Springs Eternal — and a purpose — to bring in donations to the Hope for Depression Research Foundation. She founded the charity eight years ago to find ways to battle depression, which plagued her mother, Hope.

Mrs. Gruss’s sense of smell is already refined. “I have a white flower garden in our summer home,” she said. “I love jasmine, freesia and lily of the valley.”