A technique for producing a scent from a hand-held device involves receiving a scent mixture formula at a hand-held device, converting the scent mixture formula into dispense control signals, and generating a scent mixture in response to the dispense control signals, the scent mixture being generated from different base scents that are individually stored within the hand-held device. In an embodiment, the scent mixture formula includes a scent identifier and a scent quantifier related to each base scent that is used to generate the scent mixture. Mixing multiple base scents to generate scent mixtures greatly expands the range of different scents that can be generated at a hand-held device that stores a limited number of base scents. Further, encoding a scent mixture into a scent mixture formula enables scent mixtures to be easily shared between hand-held devices.