Perfume Project NW

HAPPY VALENTINE’S DAY!

2012-02-14T18:11:00.000-08:00

Best wishes for a happy Valentine’s Day to all who read this. Some of my students got into the spirit of things and brought cookies and candy for everyone. I’m stuffed with enough sweets to last for … well, at least for the rest of today, and I still have one more event to go to where there will almost certainly be more sweet stuff.

I think I’ll have to sniff some galbanum when I get home this evening as an antidote.

[Candy photo adapted from Wikimedia]

TECHNOLOGY MARCHES ON

2012-02-12T10:54:00.000-08:00

I am writing the very first blog post on my new computer! Over the years I’ve gone through a number of changes from a clunky old PC with a DOS operating system, to a NeXt, to a Mac desktop, to a couple of different models of Mac laptop. During this journey I have learned to hate new computers because there’s always a lot of hassle and down time. However, switching from my “old” Mac PowerBook G4 to the new MacBook Pro was, with a couple of exceptions, seamless. I was amazed. All of my documents and graphics files moved right over via an external hard drive and are now living happily on the MacBook. My Safari bookmarks and e-mail address book also moved over seamlessly.

What was disappointing, though, was my experience with Firefox. The new version is cumbersome to use, even more so than the old one. It won’t accept any bookmarks exported from Safari even though it claims it will; there is no “export bookmarks” function on the old Firefox, nor is there an “import bookmarks” function on the new one. With problems like this, you may wonder why I would even bother with Firefox. There is only one reason, but it’s a compelling one. Safari can’t handle uploading of graphics to my website. Firefox can. That’s it. The moral of the story: No single browser can handle everything. The reasons behind this escape me, but I suspect it has to do with geekly rigidity. Safari and Firefox, are you listening?

The second big issue is the dysfunctional MacMail setup procedure (Apple, are you listening?) and the special problems that arise when MacMail encounters the university’s arcane e-mail system. That system is primitive and cumbersome to use, so I have all of my university e-mail forwarded to Mac Mail. Or I would have it forwarded, if only I could figure out how to do it. The MacMail setup program and help menu are no help at all, so on Monday I’ll have to enlist the services of one of the departmental IT specialists to take care of it. Getting my music library into the new I-Tunes is yet another issue that I’ll have to deal with, but I-Tunes is another major rant for another day.

You might be wondering why I needed a new computer at all when my old one still works. At some level, I wonder the same. Unfortunately, computers and software are designed to become obsolete in a few years. I finally got tired of Safari crashing every time it encountered some “new” experience on a website, I got tired of restarting my computer to revive Safari from its ever-increasing number of fainting spells, I got tired of looking at a pink, blotchy screen that looked like it was about to blank out, I got tired of not being able to update utilities or run disk repair because my old operating system was “no longer supported”, and I got tired of not being able to read my students’ papers submitted as docx files. Yes, there’s a Microsoft “patch” conversion program, but it only works about 75% of the time. Typical Microsoft. (Microsoft, I know you won’t hear me, and if you did, you wouldn’t listen). Deliberate incompatibility designed to sell new hardware and software angers me. As far as I can see, the new Word program is the same as the old one, except that the tool bars have been rearranged. All I want to do is type. I don’t want to make graphics in Word. I can make tables and graphs in Excel (which also seems unchanged) and pictures in Photoshop. As long as I can stick them in a document that anyone can open and read, I’m fine.

Lots of memory is good. Fast parallel processing is good. A screen that practically glows and looks almost 3-D is good. A smaller, lighter laptop is good. However, I probably won’t ever use many of the features that go above and beyond the simple things I need to do every day, and it’s depressing to think that this shiny new computer is itself well on the way to becoming obsolete.

I am one of those increasingly rare people who consider technology a means to an end, not an end in itself. I’m not interested in helping “grow” the economy by buying a new computer or phone every 5 years. I just want my computer to enable me to write documents, make graphics, and do my business on the internet. I just want to talk to people on my phone, not use it as a camera or word processor or GPS or TV or video game machine. I don’t want a lot of needy technology devices taking up the time and resources I could spend doing activities I really enjoy, like actually writing my thoughts down, or making perfume.

DAVANA

2012-02-08T17:45:00.000-08:00

My ongoing exploration of Artemisia species would not be complete without including Artemisia pallens, also known as davana. It’s a small shrub that grows all over India, mostly in cultivation. It’s an attractive plant with lacy silver-green leaves and yellow flowers. It is reported to prefer growing near sandalwood trees, although I suspect that it’s planted there for convenience. Davana essential oil is distilled from the leaves, stems and flowers of the plant. It is orange in color, with a strong, woody-aromatic fruity fragrance along with chamomile and sweet hay-like notes. The fruit components remind me of oily dried peaches and apricots. I can only vouch for how it smells on paper and on my own skin, though, because it has the reputation of being a shape-shifter, assuming a different quality on every person who wears it. After today’s experience, I suspect that it may also be different each time the same person wears it. Davana is rumored to be an aphrodisiac. In addition to being used in perfume, it’s also used to flavor some types of pastries and sweets, so it’s not only sniffable, it’s edible.

It seems to me that davana enhances other scents, too. After applying it, I was outside, running in an area where there were a lot of wet, rotting leaves, and the smell of the leaves seemed super-normally strong. When I sniffed the davana on my wrist, it seemed to have picked up some of the leaf smell. On one part of my run, there was an area with a sweet, floral scent that also seemed to be enhanced, and the davana seemed to be echoing that scent, too. This is the time of year when a lot of trees and shrubs are starting to bloom, so I’m not sure what the flowers were. It was also early evening, when a lot of smells are especially strong anyway.

Whatever its other properties, I can certainly testify to the marvelous aroma and relaxing qualities of davana. As soon as I put it on I sank into a feeling of extreme well-being. As I sit here inhaling the fragrance, I wonder why have I not yet used davana in a perfume. One of my all-natural perfumes is most definitely going to be built around davana.

Because I’m curious to learn more about its shape-shifting, scent-enhancing, and scent-mimicking properties, I’d like to offer as many as 10 small (0.5 ml) samples of davana oil to readers who are willing to wear it and report back on their impressions. It will be fun to collect all of the reports in a blog post!

If you’d like to try a sample of davana, please leave a comment here.

[Davana photo from Antica Erborista Romana]

THE INCREDIBLE HULK ORCHID (AND ITS MICRO-MINI COUSIN)

2012-02-05T11:49:00.000-08:00

For several years now I’ve been harboring an orchidaceous monster in the making. It’s a standard cattleya plant called Lc Betty Ford ‘York’, and it’s presently occupying almost the entire large table in my solarium. It started out as a tiny seedling, grew at a reasonable rate in the solarium for a couple of years, and bloomed once, as modestly as a cattleya can bloom. Last year it put on a huge spurt of vegetative growth, but didn’t bloom. It finally became so large and unwieldy that I had to move it out to the greenhouse, where it thrived even more. This winter it decided that it would bloom off of the last 3 growths that it had added, with 3 or 4 flowers per growth - enormous flowers, each as big as my outstretched hand.

The flowers are so large and heavy that the usual bamboo stakes won’t hold them up, so they’re supported by tall objects on the table that serve as crutches. The colors on the flowers are gorgeous, especially with the sun shining on them, or through them, lighting them up like a magenta neon sign. The lip is the deepest, darkest, most velvety purple-maroon imaginable, set off by a network of gold stripes in the throat.

But it’s the fragrance that is the main attraction. As cattleya fragrances usually do, it started off indolic, skanky and a little camphorous, but over the past week has gone through a candied rose phase that reminded me of L’Artisan Timbuktu, only to end up today as what I consider the quintessential “orchid” fragrance. It’s juicy, fruity, floral, musky, spicy, and the most sensuous, sweet, watery fragrance you ever smelled. It fills the entire house in the morning. If I were a pollinator, I’d dive right in, drink it, and wallow in it until I was completely intoxicated.

Hybrid cattleyas seem to have largely escaped the movement to de-scent flowers, so most of the naturally unwieldy, standard-size ones have a beautiful fragrance. The mini-cattleyas, on the other hand, have been bred for windowsill size plants with relatively large flowers, and are mostly not fragrant.

The big surprise in the greenhouse this week was the blooming of Maxillaria minuta, a micro-mini orchid that I grew from infancy. The whole plant is no larger than the lip of one of the cattleya flowers, and the flowers are smaller than a lentil. They’re pretty, though - nicely shaped and dark red with a shiny, wet-looking lip. I haven’t detected any fragrance yet, but am hoping that one will develop over the next few days.

One of the things that I find so fascinating about orchids is their mind-boggling diversity. It couldn’t be much better illustrated than by the giant cattleya and the miniature maxillaria.

A VALENTINE'S TEA PARTY

2012-02-04T08:52:00.000-08:00

For those readers who are local or visiting the Seattle area, Sweet Anthem Handmade Perfumes will be hosting a Valentine’s tea party on February 11, from 12-4 PM. It will feature flowers, perfume, and sweets (chocolate!) by local designers. You can do your Valentine’s shopping for yourself and/or someone else while you enjoy fine teas and gifts with purchase throughout the afternoon.

The event will provide an opportunity to meet four local designers: Nikki Sherritt, candlemaker and perfumer from Gabriel’s Aunt and Rebel & Mercury; Anne Dowell, gardener and truffle maker from Garden Bon Bons; Lydia Love, chocolatier from Chakralate; and Meredith Smith, perfumer from Sweet Anthem Handmade Perfumes.
The shop also offers a number of other perfume lines (including Olympic Orchids) and scented works by local and national independent designers.

Sweet Anthem is located at 6021-B California Ave SW in the heart of West Seattle’s Morgan Junction, across from West Seattle Wine Cellars and Meander’s Kitchen. The photo shows the entrance to the shop during the recent snowstorm.

THE DEVILSCENT PROJECT

2012-02-02T15:59:00.000-08:00

What was originally a small project for a “special client” has grown into a large multi-media project involving many bloggers and perfumers, most notably Tarleisio of The Alembicated Genie, the inspiration behind it all.

I’m excited to get back to work on one perfume that I have had under development for a while (the dark, seductive side of the dark side), and to start on a new one that is its opposite (the bright, terrifying side of the dark side). Animus and anima. Yin and yang. Delusion and revelation. Softness and sharpness. A perfect challenge for a perfumer!

I’m not only looking forward to the challenge of perfume creation but to seeing how other perfumers interpret the briefs that we were given. How much will each of us who blogs reveal during the process? What amazing variety will we come up with?

Stay tuned as the DevilScent project spawns its creations.

By the way, if you search my blog with the right key word, you'll find the original Devil's perfume brief.

TAXING, TIPPING, AND TRANSPARENCY

2012-01-31T10:53:00.000-08:00

This morning I read an article about how most airlines in the US are bitching and moaning about new government regulations that would require them to post the real price of a ticket after taxes and mandatory fees have been added. The airlines’ stated argument for not doing so is that the “higher prices” would deter people from buying tickets. Huh? What higher prices? Do people really not check to see how much the bottom line would be before buying an airline ticket? Whatever the price posted by the airlines, the price that shows up on the customer’s credit card statement is going to be the total amount after the taxes and mandatory fees have been added, and that’s the amount that comes out of their bank account. Do the airlines really have such a low opinion of their customers’ intelligence and math skills that they don't expect them to notice the bottom line? If the airlines truly wanted to make people aware of how much they are paying in taxes, as they profess, then there is no reason why they can’t provide a breakdown of what items go into the total price, including taxes, government fees, and their own extra hidden fees, such as “fuel surcharge”.

Once the airlines are required to show the total cost of a flight, I hope that hotels will not be far behind. I can’t begin to say how annoying it is to look at hotel rates, only to find at checkout that there was a hefty tax added to each day’s stay, making the total far more than was budgeted. Even though I know about this practice, it still irks me to see the hidden taxes reflected on the final statement. I long ago learned to inquire how much tax would be before booking a hotel room, but I suspect I’m in the minority given the surprised reluctance of most hotel desk employees to talk about it. I understand that some hotels also have extra hidden “resort fees” on top of the taxes. I just haven’t stayed at those places, since I don’t go to Las Vegas, Disney World or such popular vacation spots.

Finally, there’s the food service business. In the US, the prices posted on the menu do not include tax (about 10%), nor do they include the expected tip for the wait staff (anywhere from 10-20% of the total, for an average of about 15%). The practice of tipping is so ingrained in US culture and so taken for granted that very little has been written about it. A Google search turned up only a handful of minimal posts like this one. Once tax and tip have been added to the total, the customer pays an average of about 25% more than the posted menu price. Failure to include tax and service in the price of food makes the base price of a meal appear much lower than it actually is, even though everyone at some intuitive level knows that tax will appear in the bottom line and that they are expected to leave a significant tip. Apparently false perception through a first impression is everything.

Not paying wait staff a living wage is a longstanding practice in the US restaurant business, effectively transferring the responsibility for paying the bulk of staff salaries directly to the customer, thereby allowing management to avoid paying social security and health insurance for their employees. If wait staff, the majority of whom are women, were respected enough to be paid a living wage with benefits, and if wages and tax were included in the price of food, the prices shown on every menu in the US would probably rise by 25-30%, but customers would walk out of the restaurant minus exactly the same amount of cash (on average) as if it had been done piecemeal. The advantage of engaging in denial of the bottom line escapes me.

[All photos adapted from Wikimedia]

SCENTLESS FLOWERS

2012-01-30T09:48:00.000-08:00

Every so often there’s a discussion on a perfume forum or garden forum about whether or not certain flowers have a fragrance. The question is often asked about orchids, since most of the orchids sold in supermarkets are Phalaenopsis hybrids that have been bred for fast growth, large flower size, symmetrical shape, and bright color. The breeders of these orchid equivalents of the white leghorn chicken (a flightless living factory for breast meat and eggs) seem to forget that one of the reasons people love flowers is because of their fragrance. As I point out here from time to time, many orchids do, in fact, have strong fragrances to attract pollinators, just as jungle fowl, the ancestors of domestic chickens, can actually fly to get around and escape predators.

A while back, I read a discussion about whether daffodils, narcissus or marigolds have a fragrance. In fact, each type of flowers has a very characteristic fragrance, often quite strong, and absolutes are extracted from all of them for use in perfumery. However, if you go in a florist shop, the chances of finding a fragrant flower are practically zero.

As Valentine’s Day rolls around, I have visions of hordes of women (and some men) being given bouquets of flowers, automatically sniffing them, and consciously or subconsciously being disappointed to find that they have no odor except, perhaps, a faint residue of fertilizer of pesticide that was applied in the faraway country where they were grown, or a stale refrigerator smell.

Prime offenders are roses, daffodils, narcissus, cyclamens, and now lilies, which were one of the last scented hold-outs. It used to be a treat to smell the lilies in supermarket floral displays, but I've noticed that more and more have been de-scented, and even deprived of their pollen. It seems the commercial flower growers' mottos are "flowers should be seen and not smelled”, and “Flowers should not appear to engage in any activities related to sexual reproduction.”

So if you want to give your sweetie fragrant flowers for Valentine’s day, what are your options? Frankly, I don’t know. Maybe a farmer’s market that sells home-grown flowers, or a nursery that sells blooming plants that actually do have a fragrance. Gardenia and jasmine come to mind, as do winter daphne and other winter-blooming shrubs. Even hardy cyclamens have a fragrance. If you are lucky enough to have an orchid nursery nearby, a winter-blooming cattleya with its exotic fragrance would blow anyone away. Think beyond the dozen tired, plastic-looking red roses on artificial life support in the refrigerator case. How could you go wrong with a fragrant living plant and a box of good chocolates or a bottle of good perfume? Come to think of it, a deluxe sample set of perfumes from Olympic Orchids might make an interesting and unusual Valentine’s gift, too!

PEACH ARTEMISIA

2012-01-28T18:39:00.000-08:00

After ranting in my last post, here’s my rave of the week. A while back I wrote about several different species of Artemisia, a genus that I’ve been exploring recently as a source of essential oils for natural perfumes. I just got a new one to add to the list, Artemisia ludoviciana, also known as peach Artemisia, silver wormwood, owyhee, prairie sage, or white sagebrush, and I’m loving it. It’s native to the western US, growing in all the usual places where sagebrush grows. The USDA map shows it growing throughout most of the USA and Canada. As its name implies, the leaves are sliver-white, on a small to medium sized perennial shrub.

My first impression of the essential oil, sniffing it from the bottle, is that it’s bitter, herbal, camphorous, and medicinal, with foody-chamomile like nuances, the overall character being almost industrial-smelling. On paper, it maintains this medicinal-industrial character for a few hours, but once the most bitter and camphorous of the green notes burn off, there’s a distinct, oily-fruity canned peach scent along with the woody notes. By the next day, the peach note is all that remains - a sweet, light impression of fresh peaches along with a sprinkling of sage.

Applied to my skin, the progression is the same, just faster. The oily peach note appears within a half hour, producing a lovely camphorous-herbal woody, sweet-fruity scent. I can see using this oil in all-natural compositions where I’m looking for a true-to-life fruit note in the heart. The oil will also provide strong aromatic, herbal notes in the top. I’m looking forward to some experiments using Artemisia ludoviciana in a perfume.

[Peach Artemisia photo from Wikimedia]

MORE GROWING PAINS AND RANT AGAINST BUREAUCRACY

2012-01-27T21:43:00.000-08:00

If someone had told me a couple of years ago that I would be buying perfume raw materials by the pound or the kilogram, I would have laughed in their face and told them they were crazy. However, as my business develops, I find myself doing that more and more. Each time I have to replace a material, I order it in a larger quantity. I now have a storage area for those big aluminum bottles that look like thermoses, and I have to say that it’s a wonderful convenience to be able to go there and refill my little 2-ounce working bottle whenever it runs out instead of having to order more.

The whole issue of making perfume in larger quantities hit home this past weekend, when I placed orders for larger “lab” glassware than I’ve been using. Many of my perfumes need some quiet time to blend after mixing, so I need to keep two batches going - a mature one to dilute from, and a young one aging.

I haven’t posted anything on this blog for a while partly because of time spent reorganizing my storage and work areas, partly because of catching up at my “day job” after a week off due to snow, and partly because of time spent preparing and filing my state business tax forms.

I hate all types of bureaucratic activities with a passion. The aggravation caused by the tax forms, which admittedly would have been easier to deal with had I kept organized records rather than having to search through all of my real and virtual files for information, was compounded by online forms that I had to fill out for the university, one of which I submit every year. However, every year the format changes even though the responses don’t, so I can’t use the old material. Wasted time. The other form was a one-time thing, which I spent a great deal of time filling out, only to have it rejected due to a bug in the system, deleting all of my work. More wasted time. I sincerely hope that one day communicating through online forms will be as easy as simply talking in person, talking on the phone, responding to an e-mail message, or even mailing a handwritten memo. Until then, I will continue to go berserk every time I encounter a user-hostile form online.

It’s sad to think how much of our lives are wasted on bureaucratic trivia. It only seems to have gotten worse now that every organization has a plethora of online forms to fill out. It’s easy to make people fill out a form that no one has to deal with in person. For all I know, no human ever sees any of the mandatory forms and reports that I submit to websites. It’s even more likely that no human ever sees any complaints about forms that are submitted - on another form, of course.

[Filling out tax forms by hand in 1920 photo from Wikimedia]

RANDOM REVIEWS: THREE FROM SOIVOHLE

2012-01-21T11:13:00.000-08:00

A while back, the now-defunct online retailer Rei Rien sent me several Soivohle samples along with some other things I ordered. Since most of these aren’t listed on my usual review posting venue, here are three of them.

Soivohle Solstice
To begin with, this all-natural perfume smells floral, but in a good sort of way. As it dries down, it turns into a mildly spicy and heavily resinous scent with frankincense, myrrh, and a good bit of vanilla, as well as a hint of smoky and leathery notes. It’s fairly linear, and has good longevity, especially for an all-natural scent, at least 5-6 hours. It just proves that if you use enough base notes, all-natural perfumes don’t disappear as soon as you put them on. This excellent perfume was discontinued for a while, but was re-released for the winter 2011 solstice in both the original version and a mixed media version that appears to be a trial run to see if the mixed media one will be well-received. Good call, Liz Zorn!

Soivohle Daybreak Violin
This is a light, green fragrance with an extremely odd note that sticks in my throat. I could swear it’s overdosed with isoamyl salicylate, which I’ve nicknamed the “dementor aroma chemical” since it feels like it’s sucking my breath away if sniffed in more than minute amounts. A dementor clothed in green violet leaves is not a pretty image or smell, so I’ll pass on this one. For me it was a scrubber up front, so I don’t know what it might have evolved into if I’d given it the chance. I think there are a lot of people who are anosimc to the dementor note or perceive it very differently than I do, so take this as being a peculiarity of my nose.

Soivohle Green Oakmoss
This is a lovely, citrusy, aromatic, spicy scent, somewhat chypre-like. To begin with I mostly smell mixed citrus and cloves, along with some green notes and maybe a little vetiver. There are some faint floral notes that I don’t really find identifiable as anything specific, and a note that reminds me of rosewood. I don’t smell much in the way of tuberose. It’s soft, it’s green, it’s earthy and plant-y, and it’s good for a couple of hours of sillage and a couple more on skin. Overall, I like this a lot.

[Solstice photo adapted from Wikimedia]

SNOW WEEK AND THE SMELL OF COLD

2012-01-20T14:01:00.000-08:00

I’ve skipped posting much for a few days because, frankly, I’ve been spending a lot of time marveling at all the snow we’ve been having. I confess, I love snow with a passion. There’s something miraculous and hypnotic about watching the white flakes fall out of the sky and transform the ordinary world into a magical kingdom in which everything is strange and new. I love to go out and walk in the snow. There’s something profoundly sensual about being showered with fluffy white stuff, like a constant stream of confetti. I don’t even mind that it’s cold. In fact, it doesn’t feel as cold when it’s below freezing and snowing as it does when it’s above freezing and raining that cold Seattle drizzle.

A snow day turned into a snow week, or rather, an ice-snow-ice-snow-ice-snow week. I’ve lost track of what day the first snow occurred, but it was a considerable amount that started out with a thick covering of about 4 inches, followed by a little freezing misty rain that melted a bit of it. Then we got another couple of inches of snow, followed by a massive ice storm - freezing rain that encased everything in a hard, heavy, transparent cocoon of ice. Then the snow started up again and fell heavily for over 12 hours, on top of all the other snow and ice, a major dump that resulted in deeper snow than I’ve ever seen here. This morning it’s finally starting to melt. It’s amazing to see the bamboo, that had been weighted flat to the ground, pop upright as the ice drops off.

With temperatures below freezing for a week, it made me think about what “cold” smells like. To me, cold air has a kind of watery-mineral scent that’s both wet and dry at the same time. There are other scents associated with cold weather, like wood smoke and (choke!!) car exhaust, which seems augmented many times over in cold weather, but those are not the smell of “cold” per se.

I think there are scents that people have traditionally been trained to perceive as symbols of “cold”, especially mint, and other things that stimulate trigeminal receptors that can signal “cold”, especially the contrast effect of drinking cool water after eating mint. To me mint doesn’t smell at all like cold air, so I was surprised to read a perfume review a while back complaining that a “cold air”-themed perfume didn’t smell cold because it didn’t contain mint. I associate mint with hot mint tea, chocolate-covered peppermint patties, or working in the garden in summer controlling runaway mint, so to me it’s more of a “warm”-themed scent than a cold one, trigeminal stimulation notwithstanding.

How do you perceive the scent of cold air or snow?

KYPHI DRAWING WINNER

2012-01-17T22:00:00.000-08:00

The winner of the drawing for a 5 ml travel spray bottle of Kyphi is: YUN

Please contact me with your full name and mailing address by sending a message to the e-mail listed in on the left side of my profile window.

SNOW DAY!

2012-01-15T10:40:00.000-08:00

This morning I woke up to see everything covered with a thick blanket of snow, and more falling. It’s rare that we get this much snow, so when we do, it’s a real event. The snow is wet, so it sticks to everything. The bamboo is weighted down to the ground, and the trunks of the trees outside my window are covered with snow on the north side, where the wind was coming from. It’s beautiful, the classic winter picture. It’s amazing how snow transforms everything ordinary into something magical.

The down side is that our power has flickered off several times this morning, and so has my internet connection, so I’m going to do a quick post now in case these things go down for an extended period of time. One rule of nature seems to be that preparing for the worst ensures that it won’t happen.

Now I’m going for a walk in the snow, but before I do, this is a reminder that there’s a perfume drawing in the post just before this one, so scroll down and enter to win a 5 ml spray bottle of Kyphi.

[The photos were taken last time we had a big snowstorm, a couple of years ago. The blooming bougainvillea is inside!]

MAKING NATURAL PERFUMES AFFORDABLE

2012-01-14T11:50:00.000-08:00

When I was at the Sweet Anthem shop in West Seattle the other day, I got to sample several all-natural perfumes that I’ve been hesitant to try because of the extremely high cost. With samples running $24/ml, that’s way out of my price range unless it’s a rare and wonderful vintage perfume that I’m dying to sniff once in my lifetime, before it goes away forever. All three perfumes I tried were nice, but not something I’d love enough to buy. The one that has garnered the most rave reviews and been nominated for a FiFi award was my least favorite of the lot. It just goes to show that not everyone’s tastes are the same, and price is not always relevant to perfume love. It also brought to the forefront of my mind the question of why so many all-natural perfumes are so outrageously expensive.

There are a number of natural perfumers whose creations I haven’t tried simply because of cost. I can’t justify it. For the price of a 2 ml bottle of perfume I could buy 2 ml of natural oud oil, 7 ml of osmanthus or pink lotus absolute, 50 g of ambroxan, 60 ml of frankincense oil, 90 ml of Haitian vetiver, a pound of top-quality Madagascar vanilla beans, or 2 pounds of Atlas cedar oil. Of course, most people wouldn’t want to buy any of those things, so they might as well go for the perfume, but in my case it’s a real consideration.

Unless you’re using real oud, aged Mysore sandalwood, certain flower absolutes, real animal-derived materials or other such exotic things, natural materials aren’t much more expensive than good quality aroma chemicals, some of which are actually quite pricey. In any case, the very expensive materials get mixed with less expensive ones, and then the concentrate gets diluted with alcohol or oil. Natural materials can be a pain to work with, but once you figure out how to deal with dissolving, filtering, and such, it becomes fairly routine. The mechanics of bottling, labeling, packaging, and marketing are the same regardless of what’s in the bottle. Many of the natural materials that smell best and contribute most to a perfume are not terribly expensive in the overall scheme of things. To me, the smell of the final product is what’s important, not the rarity or cost of the materials that go into the mix.

The high prices of so many all-natural perfumes have made me realize that it might be a good idea to create a line of high quality all-natural perfumes that ordinary people like myself can afford, or at least afford to sample. My Kyphi fragrance is all-natural, and although it does contain some expensive materials like French beeswax absolute and saffron absolute, they’re only a small proportion of the whole, so I can sell it for the same price as the mixed media perfumes. Some of my mixed media perfumes, like Salamanca, actually contain a much higher proportion of expensive materials, even though they’re not 100% natural, so “all-natural” is not synonymous with “all costly materials”.

I’ve written fairly detailed briefs to myself for six all-natural fragrances, which, along with Kyphi will make seven. Some of them are spin-offs of my mixed media fragrances for people who want all-natural formulas. They’re all designed to have decent sillage and good longevity, properties that are not at all difficult to achieve using 100% naturals. The first one is undergoing its rest period as I write this. I tried it on the back of my hand last night before I went to bed, and today at noon can still smell the base of balsams and labdanum absolute.

What do you think about all-natural fragrances? Leave a comment and be entered in a random drawing to win a Kyphi 5-ml travel spray. The winner will be selected on Tuesday, January 17.

SWEET ANTHEM PERFUME IN WEST SEATTLE

2012-01-11T21:51:00.000-08:00

Last weekend I visited Meredith Smith in the lovely little perfume shop that she opened last October in West Seattle. Meredith is a perfumer who has been selling her own line, Sweet Anthem, on her website since 2006. Her new brick-and-mortar shop features her own complete line of perfume oils, EdPs, and solid perfumes. She currently carries other Pacific Northwest perfume lines as well, including Arcana (Portland, OR), Wiggle (Olympia, WA), Slumberhouse (Portland, OR), Rebel & Mercury (Seattle, WA), and Lulu Beauty (Seattle, WA). Within the next few weeks she will be adding selected perfumes from Ayala Moriel (Vancouver, BC) and some of my own Olympic Orchids perfumes.

Finding the shop is fairly straightforward, since it’s about 10 blocks south of the main business center of West Seattle, with plenty of street parking if you travel by car. The shop isn’t immediately obvious since the main, large lettering on the sign says “Vegan - Unique - Local”, with the name “Sweet Anthem” in small print at the top, but it is distinctive once you get used to the concept of the shop half-concealing its name.

Inside, the shop is simply and tastefully decorated and arranged, with everything displayed in an orderly and accessible way. It has a bright, comfortable feeling that’s enhanced by Meredith’s helpful manner and friendly smile. If you’re in the Seattle area, it’s a perfect place to spend some time sniffing.

With two perfume shops on California Avenue (the other one is Knows Perfume), West Seattle seems to be becoming the perfume center of the region. I’m not sure why, except that a lot of artsy people live there, so maybe that’s where the highest concentration of perfumistas is found. In any case, it’s a very good development. I'm looking forward to exploring some of the fragrances offered in Meredith's shop, including her own line.

RAVE: SUN BREAKS

2012-01-09T09:07:00.000-08:00

One of the things I love about the Pacific Northwest is the sun breaks. Yes, it rains a lot. It gets dark at 4 PM this time of year. We get showers of tiny hail more often than seems normal. But every so often the clouds part and the sun comes out, shining in its full glory for a few seconds, minutes, or hours. The sun break phenomenon I’ve come to love most is the just-at-sunset sunbreak. For some reason, even if it’s been raining all day, more often than not there’s a short time right before sunset when the sky clears in the west and the sun peeks through in a yellow blaze of light.

A few days ago I was sitting at my table typing on my laptop when I looked out the window and saw that the whole sky had turned a deep purple with a thin, brilliant gold edge down in the southwest where the sun was setting. I rushed outside and saw the sun’s rays hitting the bare tree branches off to the northeast, making them glow with a copper color against the dark sky. The neighbors still had their Christmas lights up, and the twinkling lights juxtaposed with the glowing trees made for a strange image. When I rush outside to see beautiful natural phenomena I hardly ever remember to bring my camera, but this time I did, and I got pictures of the trees and the sunset sun break.

Sun Break would probably be a good name and concept for a perfume, even though I have way too many on the drawing board. What would you expect a perfume called Sun Break to smell like?

MIDWINTER ORCHIDS: TWO FRAGRANT MINI DENDROBIUMS

2012-01-06T20:57:00.000-08:00

A good many dendrobiums are winter bloomers, keeping the greenhouse interesting through the months when it’s dark, cold, and rainy outside, and dark, cool and dry in my indoor dendrobium area. Most dendrobiums don’t have the “wow” factor that a big, bright-colored cattleya does, but they’re loveable just the same, and some of them bloom a lot more frequently. Dendrobium hercoglossum is covered with flowers, and has been blooming virtually non-stop for over a year.

A couple of days ago I found that my little Dendrobium tetragonum was blooming again. I say ‘again” because it seems like it just bloomed. It’s an Australian species, so its ancestors were probably subjected to drought and other natural forms of abuse, making it tough and perfectly suited to growing under my conditions. The plant itself is only about 4 inches tall. Instead of its canes being round like those of most other dendrobiums, they are square, hence the name. The flowers are large for the size of the plant, spidery in shape, and cream colored with rust brown borders. They put out a strong gourmand fragrance during the day, mostly vanilla with caramel and butterscotch, along with some sweet woody notes and just the slightest hint of mint. I don’t know what pollinates this species in nature, but it has good taste.

The other mini-orchid that’s blooming right now is Dendrobium kingianum. What a surprise to walk into the greenhouse the other day and see a community pot of about a dozen baby dendrobiums, the offspring of two of my adult plants, blooming away. There’s nothing more satisfying than to see my orchids’ kids grow up and bloom, especially when the flowers are as nice as these are. The flowers are all some shade of pink with delicate magenta markings on the lips. Dendrobium kingianum is not my favorite orchid fragrance, but it’s one of the most powerful. A single blooming plant can scent the whole house during the day. To me it smells like sweet clover amped up several orders of magnitude, with some cloying honey and pollen notes added. I wouldn’t want to wear it as a perfume, but it’s certainly a sillage monster.

RANDOM REVIEWS: ORANGE BLOSSOMS, LAVENDER, AND GREEN THINGS

2012-01-04T14:10:00.000-08:00

As part of my ongoing self-education, every day I try to sample at least one perfume made by someone else. My regular venue for posting reviews is Fragrantica, but I use this blog to occasionally post reviews of fragrances that aren’t listed there. This strategy has resulted in several series of reviews, and more coming up, but sometimes there’s the odd one out. Here are three in that category. All of them appear to be in production, but the only one generally available from US retailers seems to be Molinard M. The others can be obtained as samples or decants from TPC, and probably other similar sources.

Nelly Rodi No. 9 Fleur d’Oranger
On first sniff, this EdP smells exactly like its name, straight orange blossoms. However, after the initial sweet, floral blast, a sharp note develops, possibly some citrus peel oil and/or petitgrain. It’s supposed to contain cardamom, but I really don’t smell it. For the first half hour the sillage produces the illusion of perfect, fresh orange blossoms with hints of the orange tree’s leaves mixed in. Then as it dries down, what I smell is mostly aurantiol mixed with some vanilla. It’s a nice, warm scent once it reaches this point. Overall, this is a pleasant fragrance with strong sillage initially, but lasting only 4-5 hours. The first 30 minutes are among the best renditions of orange blossoms that I’ve smelled. If you love orange flowers and don’t want a perfume that lasts all day, this would be worth a try.

Molinard M de Molinard
Starts out a little soapy and floral, a little green, with a top note of bitter galbanum. M is a sharp, old-fashioned chypre-type perfume, not at all sweet. In the main phase, it’s mostly floral and green, not really my style, but certainly wearable. It has lots of sillage, and lasts for 6-8 hours, gradually trailing off into a weak woody-musky base that retains traces of the green flowers. Nice if you like that sort of thing.

Serge Lutens Encens et Lavande
This starts out as a strong, but realistic lavender scent embellished with some other culinary herbs and spices, sage being one of the prominent ones. Smelling it makes me think of chopping sage and rosemary, preparing a Thanksgiving dinner. I sometimes add lavender to spice up my cooking, so all of these notes remind me of being in the kitchen. However, just when I think it’s going to be nothing but an herb-flavored meal, the incense starts kicking in. A stark, beautiful incense that combines perfectly with the lavender. All too soon the incense vanishes, and the lavender remains, becoming progressively sweeter until it almost seems candied. I’m normally not a fan of lavender in perfume, but here it’s gorgeous, done just right. I like the way it develops, moving into incense, and back to a different take on lavender. Encens et Lavande is my fgavorite of the three, and the only one that I would consider owning in a quantity larger than a sample.

[orange flower photo from Wikimedia]

THE NEED FOR LUXURY

2012-01-03T08:42:00.000-08:00

As so often happens, a comment by Gail set me to thinking about the nature of luxury, and whether it is a basic human need. I suppose it all depends on how you define “luxury”, but it seems to me that humans do instinctively need luxury in some form in order to lead a physically and mentally healthy life.

If luxury is defined as something inessential but enjoyable, then almost anything in our contemporary environment could be considered a luxury. We could certainly survive without our electronic gadgets, although I sometimes question the extent to which they are enjoyable enough to be called “luxuries”. We could survive without 95% of our clothing, increasing to 100% in summer or a tropical environment. We could survive without hot showers, shampoo, or even running water. Plenty of people do. We could survive without music, literature, philosophy, beautiful design, and perfume, although this would reduce us to the most abject level of Puritanism. Most of the things that fill our lives would be considered luxuries in some context.

In the animal kingdom, you see many examples of what could be considered desire for luxury. Birds build “luxurious” nests to make their lives more comfortable, lining them with soft materials and sometimes decorating them with shiny things. Dogs roll in materials with scents that they find pleasant. Chimps like to get a nice, relaxing grooming treatment from one of their buddies.

I can imagine that humans have been finding ways to devise luxuries for as long as the species has existed, making unnecessary but pleasant vocalizations and beating out pleasant rhythms on found objects, getting a de-lousing or massage from a friend, rubbing themselves with aromatic leaves, and choosing the firewood that smells best when burned. Come to think of it, fire is itself a luxury. We don’t have to be warm, clean, and well-fed to survive, but it makes us a lot healthier in every respect and helps ensure the survival of the species. Evolution has built into our natures a need for comfort and pleasure. Why fight it?

Of course, once the basic luxuries are in place and we no longer have to worry about where our next meal is coming from or whether we’re going to freeze in the winter, the search for luxury still goes on, eventually culminating in an economy where “luxury” is decoupled from comfort or pleasure and associated with high cost or exclusivity. I think it’s worthwhile to step back sometimes and think about what truly gives us pleasure and what simply causes our hunter-gatherer brains to experience a dopamine rush when the pursued object (or a facsimile of it) is obtained or displayed, even if it’s useless to us or requires more outlay of resources and/or maintenance than it gives back in pleasure.

The start of a new year is a good time to think about where to draw the line between real luxuries (maybe some good perfume!) and artificially created desires for “luxury” items (a ride in this ridiculous looking vehicle?).

["luxury" item photos from retailers' advertisements; idealized "caveman" drawing by Margaret McIntyre, around 1920]

FUDGE DEMYSTIFIED

2012-01-02T09:05:00.000-08:00

As promised, here’s my amaretto walnut fudge recipe, which can be adapted as an anything-fudge recipe. I always thought making fudge was profoundly mysterious and terribly time-consuming, but was recently disabused of this notion when I decided to make it myself. My husband loves the amaretto fudge made by a company at the Seattle Center called “Seattle Fudge”, and recently decided that he wanted to have some sent by mail order to certain of his relatives. Well, to make a long story short, he checked out prices and found that it would be ridiculously expensive not just to have it shipped, but to buy the fudge itself in the necessary quantities. Of course with this challenge, I had to try making fudge. Of course, I had to consult multiple recipes and make my own version, full of nuts, which he doesn’t like in his fudge. But if it’s going to be given away, who cares? At least the nuts provide some real nutrition along with the massive amounts of sugar.

Now, to make the short story even shorter, here’s my recipe for amaretto-walnut fudge along with commentary.

Materials:
2.75 cups of regular old white sugar
1 cup regular old half and half (the high-fat real milk stuff that’s used in coffee)
4 ounces unsweetened chocolate (4 squares of the standard US package of “baking chocolate")
3 tablespoons butter (please use real butter, not the artificial stuff!)
1 tablespoon corn syrup (yep, the evil high-fructose corn syrup, in the US sold as “Karo”. For you chemists out there, the purpose of the HFCS is to prevent too much crystallization of the sugar)
0.25 cup amaretto (or a tablespoon or so of almond extract, which is what I suspect Seattle Fudge uses, judging by taste comparison)
1 tbsp vanilla or almond extract, extra amaretto, (and/or a splash of rum, or any other flavoring of your choice)
As many nuts or other inclusions as you want (or none, if that’s your choice). I use an almost equal ratio of nuts to fudge, but that is extreme.

An ordinary saucepan and stirring spoon
A wide, flat dish or pan greased with butter

Methods:
Mix the sugar, chocolate, half and half, 1.5 tablespoons butter, amaretto, and corn syrup together in the saucepan and heat on medium heat. Stir the mixture occasionally. When the chocolate melts, it will look like it’s not mixing with the other stuff, but that’s OK. It will merge into the whole by the end of the process.

When the mixture starts to boil, let it boil on medium heat for about 3 minutes or until it threatens to spill over the sides of the pan, whichever comes first. Immediately reduce the heat to low and let the mixture quietly bubble away. [NB: I have a gas stove, so have good control over the heat. If you have an electric stove, you may have problems reducing the heat quickly enough at this stage.]

Now comes the part that requires some patience, but not work. You just have to let the mixture cook until it thickens. Really, it’s that simple. Recipes will all tell you that you need a “candy thermometer”, whatever that is. You don’t. They will tell you that you need to stir a lot. You don’t. They will tell you that you need to be hyper-vigilant about when the mix reaches an exact, critical, stage in order for the fudge to turn out right. You don’t. There’s a nice wide time window for those of us who go off and read, write, or filter perfume while we cook. Just find something else to do and check in every so often to see how the cooking process is going. Stir a little to reassure yourself that nothing is sticking or burning. When the mixture looks like it’s getting thicker, part of the checking should involve dropping a small drop of the mixture into a cup of cold water. If it spreads out and disintegrates, it’s not ready. If it stays together in a nice round ball, it is ready.

Once the mixture is thick enough, remove it from the heat, add the extra 1.5 tablespoons butter, stir it up, and let it sit until it starts forming a skin on top. At this point, most recipes will tell you that you have to beat and beat it. You don’t. Just stir it from time to time until it starts to have a matte look instead of shiny. You probably don’t even need to stir it, but stirring is a way of checking on its status.

This is the stage at which you add the vanilla, extra alcoholic (or other) flavorings, nuts or other inclusions, mix it up, pour or pack it into the greased dish, and smooth it out. Voila. You have fudge. It’s best to let it sit for a few hours before cutting it into squares. There’s no issue of delayed gratification since you can scrape out what’s left in the saucepan and eat it.

This recipe makes a lot of fudge, especially if you bulk it up with nuts, so be prepared to store it for a few weeks worth of snacks, or give some away.

NEW BEGINNINGS

2012-01-01T16:44:00.000-08:00

Now that the fireworks have been shot off, the champagne drunk, the garbage thrown out, and the old year has slid off into the archives, it’s time to look forward to the new one - and what a lot there is to look forward to! Everyone is probably busy with their own plans for the new year, so I’m going to keep this post short and to the point.

As the days get longer, here’s wishing everyone a bright, happy, and prosperous year.

CIRCLES AND CYCLES: HAPPY NEW YEAR!

2011-12-30T22:59:00.000-08:00

I’ve lived in a lot of exotic places, and one of them was Texas. Part of Texas culture is Willie Nelson, and one of the songs I remember hearing when I lived in Texas was an oldie of his from 1974, “Phases and stages, circles and cycles, scenes that we’ve all seen before…”. For some reason this song that I hadn’t thought of in years popped into my head when I was thinking about New Years. Last year I did a New Years post on this blog, and this year I’ve come full circle and am doing another one. Déjà vu.

This past year has been good. I’m still gainfully employed, my orchids are growing well, and the perfume business is starting to take off. 2011 was mostly spent mixing perfumes that have already been released for a while, packaging them, and sending them all over the world. I’ve made huge improvements in the production and packaging process, and am now set to produce in much greater volume than I could this time last year. In the meantime, development of new perfumes has slowed down a lot. Phases and stages.

I have two new perfumes ready for release next year. The first is the rose chypre, which after much thought I’ve decided to name Ballets Rouges. Many thanks to Queen Cupcake and Gail, whose suggestions were hybridized to come up with the final name. You both win a prize! The second is Salamanca, a leather and dry grass fragrance. However, Salamanca cannot officially be released until I’ve secured a reliable bulk supplier for a couple of the hard-to-find natural materials I used in it. I originally got them from a vendor who has gone out of business and am currently searching for another vendor. I’m optimistic that I’ll find a source and that it will be a go in early 2012. Salamanca is one of my favorites, and I’d like to share it with others. [Celina, whatever happens, there’s a bottle on hold for you!]

My perfume plans for 2012 are to get back to formulating, focusing on an affordable but polished all-natural line and an upscale series showcasing some of the wonderful natural materials that I have obtained in relatively small quantities over the past year. These will probably be limited editions, and a little more expensive than my standard line, but still affordable. I’ll also work on a couple more orchid fragrances and scents of place. I would like to upgrade my website to a custom format instead of the ready-made template that I’m currently using, but realistically, this may take a while and require some help.

On the personal level, I don’t make New Year’s resolutions because I know I’ll just break them. However, I do make plans. I was inspired by Ines to try to downsize my huge collection of clothes, shoes, and costumes, or at least store the costumes in the communal stash for my theatre group, which is fortunately located at a site other than my house. I’ve already taken the fog machine there, and the clothing and props will follow, freeing up some space for storage of perfume materials.

I’m going to try to start running regularly again, since it’s one of the things that helps keep me sane, along with music and perfume. I’m going to write some new plays. I’m going to try to post on this blog nearly every day even if you, dear readers, get fed up with my ramblings.

I’m going to try to keep juggling, as I have been all along, living at least five lives in parallel, each with its own set of demands. I can’t give up a single one of them.

As I write this, I’m wearing 10 different Arabic perfumes simultaneously to celebrate the new year a day early (I’ve found one of the newly-arrived lot that I really, really like), and have successfully made my second ever batch of amaretto-walnut fudge, consuming several small cocktails made of 2/3 Sailor Jerry’s rum and 1/3 Amaretto in the process. I don’t think it’s an official drink, but it tastes good. It needs a name - any suggestions? People in my neighborhood are already setting off fireworks for New Years, so I guess it’s time to wish you a Happy New Year, and happy perfume sniffing to all in 2012!

THE ROAD TO NO NONSENSE PERFUMES PART 1

2011-12-29T13:27:00.000-08:00

Sometimes a post on another blog really gets me going. This morning it was Marla’s satire on Mirabella the Cat and the accompanying discussion of what induces one to actually buy a bottle of perfume. I started responding to it in the comments section and halfway through realized that I had practically written a whole blog post.

I was particularly sensitized to the issue of nonsensical hype because I recently sampled Creed Love in White, which epitomizes ridiculous advertising. In fact, it can practically hold its own with Mirabella the Cat and her special demographic. First, the facts about the fragrance (Creed, not Mirabella): Love in White starts out as jasmine surrounded by aquatic and “manly”-spicy notes. As it evolves, the jasmine shares the stage with generic florals and harsh, synthetic woody notes, giving the whole composition the aura of a functional scent for a shampoo amped up to 80s proportions, with tremendous sillage and skin-bonding tenacity.

Now for the hype: Apparently a number of celebrities wear Love in White. Who cares which celebrity wears a perfume? Their taste is not mine. Why is it that all of the perfumes reported to be favorites of celebrities (or at least owned by celebrities) are overpoweringly filled with floral notes, especially jasmine? Are they meant to be used as repellants to keep the paparazzi at a distance? I suppose the target demographic is celebrity wannabes, who are probably as numerous at department store perfume counters as cats are in the alleys of Naso Asqueroso, Baja California, where, according to the buzz, Mirabella spends her winter vacations.

Celebrities aside, the promotion of Love in White is further degraded by all the circulating hype about Oliver Creed traveling the world for 5 years in his yacht searching for the stuff that went into this fragrance. In all fairness, this overblown version of the story seems to be an urban legend fabricated by the retailers who sell Creed, since the Creed website itself simply mentions a love of sailing and materials from five continents. Good for Mr Creed that he can afford a yacht and have the leisure time to travel on it, but I don’t understand why department stores and other perfume outlets think they can sell the product by making it sound as if he got off his yacht in thousands of exotic locales, saw exotic plants growing in the jungle or on the beach, extended his magical hand and said “Let there be essential oil, tincture, or absolute” and there was essential oil, tincture, or absolute. I would be willing to bet that an employee of the Creed company ordered all of the materials used in Love in White from a wholesaler or bulk producer the same way I order my materials. I also use materials from 5 continents, as does just about any other perfumer who uses naturals. There’s nothing special about it. The difference is that Creed can order in mass quantities, so the same materials end up being much cheaper for him than they are for me or any other indie perfumer. Personally, I don’t want to subsidize the purchase and operation of other people’s yachts through my perfume purchases.

I guess the point is that what a perfumer or their advertising staff says can be completely ridiculous to begin with, or it can start out just mildly off-putting and become distorted by the retailers and the media as it is repeated over and over again, eventually becoming thoroughly ridiculous.

Wow! I really went off on a tangent about Creed and their retailers, and didn’t get to the main point about my evolving quest to make and market top quality no-nonsense perfumes at no-nonsense prices. That will be Part 2 of what is quickly becoming a series. Stay tuned.

THE MAKING OF SIAM PROUN

2011-12-28T17:30:00.000-08:00

I sometimes write about the process of making specific perfumes, but there are a good many in my current production that I have only mentioned in passing. When I learned yesterday that Siam Proun was given one of Cafleurebon’s “Best of 2011” awards, I realized that it was time to write about it.

When I was a young teenager my family lived in Provence, in a lovely Mediterranean-style villa with a terraced garden around it. The property went by the name “Siam Proun”, which in Provencal means “we are sufficient”. I’m not sure where the name came from, but it has stuck with me. Living in the south of France was one of my mother’s long-held dreams, and Siam Proun represented the realization of it. That period was probably one of the happiest times of her life.

I’ll never forget the journey south from Switzerland, where the whole family had been living, from the bleak cold of November on Lac Leman to the relative warmth and lushness of the Mediterranean. We all felt like we had arrived in heaven. I remember breathing the warm, friendly air filled with the scent of rosemary, thyme, lavender, heather, and other greenery. The garden was pretty much filled with these herbs, as well as an umbrella pine and a couple of small citrus trees, probably lemon. Next door was a small orchard of fig trees whose trunks were always covered by a hoard of hungry escargots.

This past year when my mother was very ill I wanted to do something special for her, so I made a perfume just for her, and called it Siam Proun. I used a thick, woody, oriental-type amber base to provide warmth and topped it off with the scents of Provence - orange blossoms, heather, lavender, rosemary, thyme, and a touch of some other things like rose and yuzu, just to round it out. It turns out that this particular formula is one that needs to age for a while before everything is blended properly, and I didn’t realize how good it was until I smelled it much later, after it had been sitting for a while. In particular, the lavender combines with the patchouli in the base to produce a bright, sharp note that Michelyn on Cafleurebon described as “luminous”. I’ll go with that term.

I think Siam Proun has probably turned out to be an oriental for people who generally prefer green perfumes, and maybe a green perfume for those who usually prefer orientals. Tarleisio wrote a beautiful review of it on her blog before it was even officially released. I can easily see how Siam Proun could evoke “the path to Mount Meru where the world began, a frieze of beautiful temple dancers, dancing for the glory of Vishnu just above the milky ocean”. For me, so many years ago, a villa in the Alpes-Maritimes was the center of the universe, a magical, mythical mountain covered with cork oaks, flowers, and herbs just above the sparkling indigo blue and turquoise sea, a place that can only be revisited in dreams or perfume-induced fantasies. I like to think that my mother was able to revisit Siam Proun, Mount Meru, and everywhere else that her dreams took her in the last months of her life, and that the perfume helped facilitate these visits.

Finally, I’d like to thank Michelyn and Cafleurebon for honoring Siam Proun with their recognition. I can't think of a better way to end 2011.

OTHER PEOPLE’S COOKING

2011-12-27T14:00:00.000-08:00

I’m a good cook. I have no false modesty, so I admit it. I can eat a dish at a restaurant, analyze it, and re-create it at home. I love to throw dinner parties and pull out all the stops on the food and wine. I’m not so thrilled by the day-to-day feeding routine, and always welcome a chance to eat someone else’s cooking whether it’s at a fancy restaurant, a taco truck, or at the home of friends or relatives. For me, there’s a strange psychological effect at work that makes other people’s cooking always taste delicious even if I know on an intellectual level that I could have done it better myself.

Perfume is the same way. I seldom wear my own perfumes, probably because of the truth of the adage, “familiarity breeds contempt”. After pipetting dozens of sample vials of a fragrance I get tired of smelling it. I know exactly what’s in it and the exact concentration of each ingredient, I worry about whether I need to reorder materials, and whether one or more of those components is going to suddenly become unavailable. There’s no mystery or mystique to the fragrance, no room for fantasy. That only happens while I’m formulating a new perfume or the rare times when I catch a whiff of one of my own perfumes that has inadvertently caught a ride on my clothes and for a second I don’t recognize it as mine.

Given that I get so much pleasure from smelling other people’s perfumes, I was inspired by Diana’s (Feminine Things) recent series on perfumes that inspired lasting love versus those that were brief flings. It made me think about which perfumes I seek out for more than a one-test stand. There aren’t many of them, given my promiscuous sniffing behavior, but there are a few that have made it to decant or small bottle status. This is not a “best of” list, even though it’s that time of year, but simply some perfumes that perform specific functions extremely well. Here are the first five that seem to have inspired a lasting relationship, part one of a two-part series.

Madini Ambre. This perfume oil is my ultimate go-to comfort scent, the one I wear when I want to feel lulled to sleep, or when I just want to kick back and relax. It’s not a conventional amber scent. It’s profoundly woody, like being rocked in an aromatic hardwood cradle with a little honeyed labdanum dabbed on it. It’s unique. I’ve used it for years and still love it. It’s the only perfume for which I have a backup bottle.

Montale White Aoud. This is a relatively new love. I became infatuated with it when I wore it last summer on a trip to northern BC in Canada, and have come to love it. Ever since the road trip with White Aoud, I’ve worn it from time to time when I want a special perfume treat. If Madini Ambre is comfy pajamas, Montale White Aoud is a sequined evening dress. It contains all of the traditional Arabian perfume components, wood, oud, roses and saffron. There’s a lot of vanilla to warm it up, and some spices to spice it up. The rose note is one of the very best that I’ve smelled anywhere. This combination is as near to perfect as it gets, assertive but at the same time comfortable and soft. It’s my special-occasion go-to perfume.

Keiko Mecheri Cuir Cordoba. For the past couple of years this been one of my workhorse perfumes, one that I can reach for in the morning without thinking when I have to go out in public for the day. It’s beautiful but not aggressively so. It starts out with violet, leather, and incense, and dries down to a smooth, subtly sexy combo of violet, leather and sandalwood that lasts and lasts. Applied with restraint, it stays close enough so that I can enjoy it myself without imposing it on others.

Sonoma Scent Studio Ambre Noir. This is another new love, a meditative, intellectual, spiritual perfume that is like standing in a dense forest of huge evergreen trees. It starts out with a full blast of labdanum, sandalwood, fir sap, cedar wood, and a little incense. As it dries down, I can smell oud and vetiver, as well as more cedar, and the labdanum resin that is always there. It’s as if Laurie Erickson had captured the bare-bones spirit of an Arabian perfume, removed all the lavish decorations, and distilled it down to its dry, ethereal, woody soul. I wear this when I’m alone, in a contemplative mood.

The Different Company Sel de Vetiver. This is another workhorse perfume that I wear especially when I’m working in the theatre, if I feel like wearing any perfume at all. A great many of my acting colleagues claim to be “allergic” to perfume (although others slather themselves with essential oils or continually spray themselves with strong scents), so out of consideration for the perfume-haters I try to go easy on the fragrance. Sel de Vetiver starts out like grapefruit with salt sprinkled on top of it but soon turns into a veil of gray, bitter vetiver accented by a hint of dry, peppery spice and something floral, focused mainly on iris. Once the bitterness goes away, it’s a gorgeous, perfect combination of subtle notes that provide a good bit of sillage but would be hard to localize or find offensive. A beautiful workhorse indeed.

[Montale, Keiko Mecheri, Sonoma Scent Studio and TDC photos from commercial websites]

CHRISTMAS ORCHIDS

2011-12-25T11:12:00.000-08:00

It’s just a coincidence, but imagine waking up on Christmas morning to find that three of your biggest orchids have burst into bloom overnight, and one of your smallest. Well, that’s what happened in my greenhouse. The red cattleya of perfume fame has been pumping its buds full of juice, dripping sugar, and gearing up to go for a couple of weeks now. Today three of its eight buds are suddenly open, and the others will be open by the end of the day. Last year it had seven flowers, this year it has eight. The plant and flower stalk are almost three feet (1 m) tall.

The other big cattleya that opened its buds last night is Cattleya labiata, a species that I raised from a tiny seedling. This is its first bloom, with just three flowers, but they’re full-sized with lavender petals and a frilly, striped, “landing-strip” lip. I included my hand on the flower stalk to give an idea of the size of these standard cattleya flowers. Neither of the cattleyas has started to produce fragrance yet, but I’m looking forward to enjoying the real red cattleya again and finding out what labiata smells like.

Chysis bractescens opened its buds, too, revealing its fleshy, creamy white flowers with a yellow lip. These flowers are already starting to produce their gourmand bourbon vanilla- with narcissus scent.

The fourth orchid that opened its buds overnight is Sophronitis cernua, a miniature mounted plant that I am displaying in the house hanging on the pot of the Cattleya labiata. It has two clusters of three flowers each, the brilliant red-orange flowers contrasting perfectly with the green leaves. Unfortunately, these flowers have no fragrance.

The solstice is a prime time for some orchids to bloom. Phalaenopsis are mostly winter bloomers. Right now one of my favorite hybrid phals is in bloom, Brother Yew x Carmela’s Spots. I generally don’t like hybrid phals, but this one is a cream color with so many tiny maroon stipples all over that it looks solid maroon color from a distance. Its lip is a deep maroon. The reason why it’s my favorite hybrid is because it’s strongly fragrant, with a rich, citrusy, floral-perfumey scent that it dispenses in large quantities during the day.

Also blooming are Phalaenopsis amabilis,with solid white flowers, Phragmipedium bessae, another orchid with brilliant orange-red flowers, Dendrobium laevifolium, a mini with red-purple flowers, and Dendrobium hercoglossum, a midsize plant with a multitude of lavender-pink flowers. This last one doesn’t really count, since it blooms all the time, but the number of flowers does peak around the solstice.

All in all, it’s a good day for orchids.

ARABIAN PERFUMES: MAJID MUZAFFAR ITERJI PART 1

2011-12-24T10:09:00.000-08:00

To continue my exploration of Arabian perfumes, here are five from Majid Muzaffar Iterji. From the information on their website, this company appears to be a well-established Saudi Arabian perfume manufacturer. They specialize in traditional, mid-level perfumes that, in my experience, are quite variable in quality. Some of their offerings can be purchased fairly reasonably online in the US from Amber and Musk.

I think I’ve mentioned this before, but I find it interesting that most of the online vendors of Arabian perfumes downplay or completely omit the names of the manufacturers. I find this practice extremely annoying, especially since many of the common, traditional names for perfumes are used over and over again by just about every perfume manufacturer.

Majid Muzaffar Iterji Oud Mubakhar Malaki (spray)
An oud fragrance pure and simple, this alcohol-based perfume is woody, resinous, aromatic, very natural smelling. I love oud, and that’s what this is, even though it’s probably just a good synthetic reconstruction. It’s simple enough to really let the single note shine, the only embellishment being a tiny bit of spice, probably cinnamon. The fact that this is an alcohol spray rather than an oil cuts down on the intensity, making for a nice light woody sillage that lasts for about 6-8 hours.

Majid Muzaffar Iterj Ehtefal
This alcohol-based perfume starts out with strong citrus and a touch of aldehydes, as well as some sharp white flowers. It seems like more of a European designer-type perfume than an Arabian one, but it’s stronger and a little more pleasant and natural-smelling than many of its Western counterparts. I’m not a big fan of citrus-florals, but this one is enjoyable to wear. As it dries down it becomes warmer and smoother, remaining floral, but in a way that manages to appeal to me. The sample I got was generous, so I’ll probably use this in my rotation when (or if) I want a fresh, citrusy floral.

Majid Muzaffar Iterji Ward Al Manara
As would be expected from the name, this perfume oil is an extremely strong rose, with powerful citronella notes and a strange woody undertone that I find detracts from the rose. To me it smells extremely synthetic. It stays completely linear for the entire time it’s present, which is only about 3-4 hours, starting out too strong even when carefully dabbed, but fading quickly. This perfume oil was a big disappointment.

Majid Muzaffar Iterji Al Berwaz
This perfume oil is strong and predominantly woody, with oud, cedar, and other similar notes, mostly the “other” notes. In the opening there are undertones of lavender, rose, and fruit. I would characterize this as smelling more masculine than feminine, probably because it’s sharp and not at all sweet despite the fruit and floral notes. The scent is linear, lasting 6-8 hours. I like it, but it would not be one of my top choices from this perfumer.

Majid Muzaffar Iterji Mukhallat Al Manara
This perfume oil contains the typical mix of citrusy rose, saffron and oud. It’s sweet, it’s strong, it’s good, it’s long-lasting, it’s linear, and it’s very traditional smelling. This is an excellent scent that is among my favorites from this perfumer.

WEEKLY RAVE: PERFUME-LOVING (?) CAT

2011-12-23T11:11:00.000-08:00

We are lucky enough to have a cat that consents to grace our household with his presence and let us be his servants. He’s of unknown age, but at least 14 years old, having come to us of his own accord as an adult. He’s of unknown breed, although the closest guess would be a long-haired Russian blue. In the winter his coat is so long and thick that it hangs down almost to his feet and includes a lion-like mane around his neck. In summer, he loses most of it and becomes a sleek short-hair. At all times his hair is so thick and downy at the base that his skin cannot be seen and he’s completely protected from rain, which slides right off the top layer of his fur. Watching this cat’s coat adapt to the seasons is fascinating as is watching him climb trees, gallop through the tall weeds and grass, and hunt, catch, and eat small animals. He’s an indoor-outdoor cat, completely independent through use of his cat door, and perfectly able to take care of himself if we go away for a week or so.

Indoors, he’s unusually well-behaved, never scratching anything, never jumping on the kitchen counters, or doing any of the other unpleasant things cats often do. He walks carefully among plants and perfume bottles, and has never damaged either. Mostly he politely ignores perfume smells, but did become intensely excited the first time I opened a bottle of synthetic civet, running around the house at breakneck speed as if he were searching for the animal producing the smell. He reacted this way to civet a few times, but seems to have gradually gotten used to it, especially since over the years my perfume-making area has taken on a characteristic base scent of its own that includes a civet note. I think it’s due to small amounts of scent being absorbed by the plastic drawer storage units that I use for raw materials.

If I’m working on perfume, the cat will often come to the door and meow at me. I’m not sure if he likes or dislikes the scents I’m setting free to float around in the air, or if he just thinks I’m invading “his” space, since he sometimes likes to hang out in that room. I think he’s gotten used to smelling something different every day and, if it gets to be too much for him, he can go outside and sniff the fresh air and the multitude of cat-friendly scents that an acre of mostly forested land offers his little gray nose.

His only vices, if you can call them vices, are getting on the keyboard whenever anyone is playing and attempting to play along. Once he’s been shooed off the keys, he’ll sit on the back part of the keyboard and enjoy the music. He also likes to get on our laptop keyboards if we’re typing, and he’s been known to add to documents and even send e-mails to people. This post was inspired by the photo at the top, in which I found him sleeping on my laptop keyboard (granted, it was probably a warm place), reaching his paw out for the mouse.

Do you have pets? What do they think of your perfumes?

WINTER SOLSTICE 2011

2011-12-22T10:40:00.000-08:00

When you live as far north as I do, the winter solstice becomes an important event. When I got up today, it was still nearly dark, with just a faint pink glow in the sky. There was frost on the ground. It definitely looked like the dead of winter. As I write this, it’s after 10 AM and the sun is still near the horizon, shining almost horizontally through the line of cypress trees at the back of the yard. The sky is bright blue, and I can see the snow-covered Olympics from my window as I write. There will be a few hours of sunshine, then darkness again starting around 4PM.

The orchids in my greenhouse are mostly in lockdown mode, hunkered down trying to get through December with minimal light and warmth. What never ceases to amaze me, though, is that a couple of weeks after the days start to lengthen, the orchids always go into a frenzy of new growth. I’m looking forward to seeing that!

Some orchids choose the winter solstice as a blooming time. I have blooming laelias, dendrobiums, phragmipediums, and phalaenopsis in the house right now, none with a particularly noteworthy fragrance, or rather, none that I haven’t already written about. The big, highly fragrant, winter-blooming cattleyas are in full bud right now, ready to pop open around Christmas day.

When I walk outside, the cyclamens are blooming away, even under their coating of frost. I love cyclamens! They’re my favorite solstice plant. The arbutus bushes, also known as “strawberry trees” are blooming with their little sprays of white, bell-shaped flowers, and the hazelnut trees are covered with catkins. In the Pacific Northwest, the lines between fall, winter, and spring are a little blurred, so that some trees are blooming before others have completely lost their leaves. The biggest cue we have about the changing of the seasons is day length.

This morning I was working on a new batch of Gujarat, which is one of my best-sellers, and my hands still smell like Vanuatu sandalwood. Sandalwood is an excellent scent for the solstice, thick and woody, rich, and slightly sweet, perfect in the cold air outside, and just the thing to enhance the warm, cozy atmosphere of being inside.

My favorite things about the solstice are the feeling of coziness and hibernation during the dark hours, the down time from work and the opportunity to get together with friends and family, and the feeling that the worst days of winter will soon be over and the natural world will come alive again. The symbolism of death and rebirth. Best wishes to all who read this for whatever solstice-related holidays you may celebrate.

[Bridge with sun photo from Wikimedia]

MORE ON ARTEMISIA: ABSINTHE AND ARMOISE

2011-12-20T11:25:00.000-08:00

In my quest to explore Artemisia species, I ordered some Artemisia absinthium oil. The vendor also had Cymbopogon validus, also known as African bluegrass, so I’m testing the two of them in parallel. I’ll be writing about the African bluegrass in another post on Cymbopogon species used in perfumery and cooking. However, I also realized that I have essential oil of yet another Artemisia species, Artemisia vulgaris, also known as armoise, wormwood, or mugwort, so will compare it with the newly-acquired absinthe.

Armoise has a dry, slightly bitter, slightly sweet scent that reminds me of sage, tarragon, and aromatic greenness. I used it in Kingston Ferry to help produce the salty, leathery-leaved, herbal green scent of the gardens and beach areas near the ferry dock. It would be a wonderful addition to any perfume that has a strong herbal note.

Absinthe essential oil is stronger and more bitter than armoise, dry, woody, and sharp, but with the same tinge of saltiness. It even has a hint of oiliness in the beginning before the bitter, woody character fully develops. It has nothing to do with the typical anise and fennel flavoring used in the drink absinthe, but does presumably contribute a bitter character similar to that found along with other flavorings in vermouth. In perfumery, I can see it contributing to deciduous wood accords like oak.

The common naming of Artemisia species is confusing, to say the least. Several of them are called “wormwood”, several are called “mugwort”, and the flavor that’s typically associated with absinthe is not Artemisia at all. I would never buy an essential oil called “wormwood”, “mugwort”, “absinthe”, or “Artemesia” without knowing the species.

[Artemesia plant photos from Wikimedia]

PROFILE ON CAFLEUREBON: CHECK IT OUT!

2011-12-19T10:47:00.000-08:00

I am excited and grateful to Michelin Camen of Cafleurebon for featuring my profile as part of her "Profiles in American Perfumery" series. If you're curious about some of my very early background, there are tidbits of it in the article. Maybe best of all, it includes a drawing for a full bottle of the Olympic Orchids perfume of your choice.

Thank you Michelyn and Cafleurebon!

ON LEARNING PERFUMERY

2011-12-18T10:13:00.000-08:00

A while back a perfume-maker colleague asked me the following question: “What is your opinion on studying perfume making? Do you think that enrolling in a perfumers’ course or school has an advantage over self study?” When I was writing a biographical sketch (as a perfumer) on Friday, I was once again reminded of this issue, so I thought it might be interesting to revisit it.

In a nutshell, my answer is that I think the type of training one chooses depends on his or her goals and intended approach to perfumery. For someone who wants to work in the mainstream, corporate, commercial fragrance industry, formal training is probably necessary, not just as a tangible qualification, but also for quickly acquiring the specific set of knowledge and skills related to conventional fragrance formulation for various purposes, including large-scale production of functional scents for non-perfume products.

For someone like myself, who works far outside the conventional corporate box and is mostly interested in what could be characterized as “art perfumery”, I think self-instruction is certainly a viable way to go, although my advice now, knowing what I do, would be, "Don't try this at home". There’s a huge amount of basic information available on the internet, in books, and through networking groups like the Yahoo perfumemaking group. In the same way that one can learn music “by ear” through listening, watching videos, and reading about music theory, one can learn perfumery “by nose” through sampling individual materials and existing perfumes and reading about perfume-making theory. When it comes to hands-on work, the advantage of self-teaching is that there’s no predetermined structure constraining one’s personal vision and scope for experimentation. As in any other art, one needs to learn some basic theory and “rules” in order to bend or break them intelligently, but perfumery is so subjective that the “rules” are not as rigid as in music, for example.

I think it might be fun to take a formal in-person course, but I’m afraid that at this stage of the game I might not be a very compliant student, having little or no patience for elementary exercises for their own sake, especially if I’m paying for them. I’ve looked at ads for a lot of online “courses”, but concluded that some of them seem excessively dogmatic in implementing a specific “method”, or their main goal is to sell “starter kits”, and/or they didn’t seem to offer anything I couldn’t get (or haven't already gotten) on my own.

In any case, one of the most important parts of the learning process in perfumery is becoming intimately familiar with all of the materials with which we work. That takes a lot of time and money and patience - there’s no way around it. The advantage of formal training is that one has a plan laid out for doing this. The advantage of being self-taught is that the process of learning the tools of the trade happens in an evolutionary way that’s optimal for the individual rather than in a quick, lock-step sequence.

For me, the evolution started with years of exposure to, and experimentation with, natural materials, simply because they were readily available. If I have a special fondness for natural materials, it’s probably because that’s what I have the most experience with, but as I’ve learned about man-made aroma materials I’ve developed a deep appreciation for them, too.

The more I smell and work with any material, the more it becomes like a living creature with its own personality. If I had to pick a material that I love to smell straight up, it would be a 20+-year old frankincense that’s one of my original essential oils. It’s so incredibly beautiful that I don’t want to use it, so I’m hoarding it just to smell from time to time when I want inspiration.

I decided to work with man-made materials as soon as I started seriously trying to create perfumes. Naturals are wonderful to work with, but there are things that they just can’t do. To create the scents that I have in my mind, I usually need something to supplement the natural materials. Adding synthetics opens up a huge range of additional possibilities, sort of like going from unamplified acoustic guitar and voice to the possibility of a full band or orchestra complete with electronic sounds. I have to say that there was quite a steep learning curve in figuring out how to use synthetics, and I’m nowhere near through learning yet. I love all of my materials, both natural and synthetic, because each has a purpose even if I haven’t discovered it yet, so I spend time tinkering with my "organ" full of materials whenever I can. I suspect that another advantage of self-teaching is that it never stops.

[The photo at the top shows part of my work area. Other parts of the room contain a sink, glassware storage, and a shelf with analytical balance and racks to hold vials for pipetting samples. Storage areas are located elsewhere.]

WEEKLY RAVE: LITTLE PERFUMED THINGS

2011-12-17T09:13:00.000-08:00

During my recent cleaning frenzy I went through the basket where I keep all of the mini soaps, shower gels, shampoos, conditioners, and lotions that I’ve compulsively brought back from hotel bathrooms whenever and wherever I’ve traveled over the years. My original intent was to have a selection of products for house guests to use, but the guests have used very few of them or brought their own, so that I was left with a basket in which some of the bottle contents had dried up or otherwise spoiled. The thought was good, but the inventory has to turn over regularly to keep it usable.

I threw away the bad items, and decided to use up the good ones. I started with a complete set of shampoo, conditioner, and body lotion that I got on a business trip when I was put up at a fancy hotel on the East Coast. They’re all Bulgari Eau Parfumée au Thé Blanc, and I’m loving them. The hair products mostly smell like ambroxan, and scent the whole bathroom with it as it diffuses in the shower steam. The little hint of scent that stays on my hair after rinsing is mostly ambroxan and musk.

Of course a mini-bottle is only good for one or two hair washings, so they’re long gone. However, the tiny bottle of lotion just keeps dispensing its contents like a bottomless well. Its scent is more complex than that in the shampoo and conditioner, with some herbal and floral notes as well as the ambroxan, and lots of musk. It’s overwhelmingly strong, so I use just a tiny drop mixed with another lotion that’s mildly scented with natural oils. The result is still strong enough to make my hands radiate a definite ambroxan-musk scent all day and perfume my sleeves. That mini-bottle is probably going to last for two months or more! If I used it in the intended amounts, I can only imagine that it would quickly fumigate a room, and I have visions of groups of stodgy, serious-faced business travelers sitting around in a conference room, all stinking to high heaven of ambroxan and musk from their morning shower.

I don’t think I’d ever wear the perfume, but I’m certainly enjoying a lotion that I’d never have tried unless I’d brought it home with me as a souvenir of a long-ago trip. I love little sample bottles of everything!

THE GIFT OF PERFUME: YEA OR NAY?

2011-12-15T11:44:00.000-08:00

This week on the forums there have been numerous questions asked along the lines of “Which perfume should I buy for my niece/ mother/ grandmother/ husband/ co-worker/ teenage son/ neighbor/ child’s teacher…etc?” Personally, I don’t think the question is “which perfume to buy”, it’s whether or not to buy perfume for someone else in the first place.

Maybe I’m way off base, to say nothing of not doing myself any favors as a perfumer by writing this, but I don’t think perfume is a good default gift. It seems more like the proverbial fruitcake that no one wants, but that nevertheless keeps getting given and given, and finally re-gifted this time of year. I actually like to eat fruitcake, so wouldn’t mind if somebody gave me one. If there’s a fruitcake circulating the neighborhood like the notorious garbage barge that circumnavigated the globe trying to find a country to take its load, I’m the ideal dumping ground. The more nuts and candied fruits and rum, the better. But perfume? I’ve had some bad experiences with blind perfume gifts. Would you really want to receive a 200 ml bottle of Red Door? A big gift set of some cheap box store synthetic lavender fragrance? I’m sure you can name your own unwanted perfume gifts.

Perfume preference is a highly personal matter, as is the preference for whether to wear perfume at all. In the US, an astoundingly large number of people are perfume-phobic, professing to be “allergic” to perfume. They won’t go near it unless it’s in a utilitarian disguise like laundry detergent, air freshener, cleaning products, or shampoo. Why would you give them a bottle of perfume?

For those of us who would fall in the perfumista category, we have our own ideas about what we would like to receive as a gift, and unless the person giving the gift knows that we would like full bottles of Sonoma Scent Studio Incense Pure, Montale Taj and White Aoud, Neil Morris Gandhara, or Swiss Arabian Kashkha, they’re probably going to give us something we don’t like or already have.

It seems like it would at least be worthwhile to find out if the recipient of perfume likes and wears it, and if so, what some of the items on their wish list are. Otherwise, you might as well give them a fruitcake.

What do you think about perfume as a gift? If you’re reading this, you probably love perfume, so the question is whether you’d appreciate a perfume gift from someone who knew nothing of your collection and tastes. Another related question would be, what are the best and worst blindly chosen perfume gifts you’ve ever received?

[Gift wrapping and Fruitcake photos adapted from Wikimedia; Perfume gifts painting detail by Pieter Brueghel the Elder, 1564]

RANDOM PERFUME REVIEW: RICH HIPPIE GROOVY

2011-12-14T12:38:00.000-08:00

Some time ago I got a bunch of what I thought were perfume oil samples when TPC had them on sale for 75% off. Even with the deep discount they were still the same price as a normal upscale sample, i.e. a little more than I like to spend on samples. They seem to be alcohol-based rather than oil, and are probably no more than EdT strength. Most of them are not listed on Fragrantica, where I usually post my reviews, so I’m going to be reviewing them here, a few at a time. As always, I would like to emphasize that I write this review strictly as a consumer, not as an expert of any kind, and it simply reflects my own idiosyncratic, often curmudgeonly, personal tastes and opinions.

My introduction to the Rich Hippie offerings was Groovy. I’ll spend a bit more time on it than the ones that will follow, given that it epitomizes all that I dislike about this line. The first thing I smell in Groovy is strong rosemary, lavender, citrus, and evergreen tree needles. The other thing that I must be smelling is the juniper berry that’s reported to be in it. Whatever this concoction contains, it’s weak, it’s all top notes, and it’s fleeting in the extreme. From opening to the final drydown, it’s present for no more than 20-30 minutes and then, poof! - it’s gone. Groovy! A perfume that does a magic disappearing act! Man, like how cool is that?

I am totally mystified by how Rich Hippie can sell perfumes that last such a short time for so much money. From what I smell in Groovy, there are no expensive absolutes or other materials that could justify the outrageous price. The oils that I smell are some of the cheapest available, even if they’re the best of the “organic wild-crafted” crop as they claim. The “peace, love and harmony” that their blurb mentions were all free last time I checked, although admittedly in short supply.

Aside from the outlandish prices, the most disturbing thing about Rich Hippie is the rhetoric on their website. They state that “prior to World War II, all fine perfume was 100% natural and chemical-free” Huh? Ever heard of Chanel No. 5? Any of the other early 20th century classic perfumes? And what are natural materials if not chemical? Oh right - they exist only in the mystical corridors of the imagination and don’t really have an odor. But even then there are chemicals being released from synapses, so I don’t understand the whole “chemical” argument.

Ranting about “chemicals” in all contexts is fairly common, but the Rich Hippie website goes on to expound upon how “synthetic” perfumes are made from “petroleum” and how harmful they are to one’s health and how they “promote tumor growth”. Using scare tactics to sell perfume is not what I would call a “best practice”. After reading this I am appalled that I shelled out even a small amount of money for products from a company that spouts so much misinformation.

Don’t get me wrong. I have nothing against all-natural perfumes. In fact, I love good natural perfumes, and natural materials. I have nothing against emotional leading tactics in advertising. All perfume is advertised to appeal to the emotions rather than the intellect, and many advertising blurbs are pure flights of fantasy. However they do not masquerade as historical or scientific facts. A company that sells perfume at exorbitant prices should at least get their facts straight and use positive inducements to buy their product rather than unfounded scare tactics.

If you want some all-natural scents like Groovy, you might as well go to your neighborhood health food store, buy some essential oils for a few dollars and dilute them in a carrier oil. You’ll get just as good a scent with better longevity, and can use the money you save to buy a month’s groceries, a nice leather jacket, or a collection of old Simon & Garfunkel albums. Feelin’ groovy!

[Hippie-theme graphics adapted from Wikimedia]

BREAKING NEWS: WATER MAY PREVENT DEHYDRATION! (BUT IT HASN’T BEEN PROVEN)

2011-12-13T10:36:00.000-08:00

According to this article that Gail turned me onto, there’s a new EU ruling that bans companies that sell bottled water from stating that water helps prevent dehydration. Sheesh. No wonder the EU is in deep trouble.

Let’s start with the least ridiculous part of the story first. Why do companies need to state the obvious? Are people not buying enough water packaged in eco-hostile little plastic throwaway bottles? After all, the bottled water manufacturers don’t manufacture water, they just manufacture bottles (or buy them cheaply) so that people can drink a few sips from them, throw them away, and buy still more plastic bottles. The more bottles that are sold and thrown away, the more that sector of the economy grows. How about spending all of that money on providing clean, drinkable water to municipal water supplies everywhere so that people don't have to buy bottled drinking water?

Do people really not know that drinking water in its pure form or mixed with various flavorings will keep them from getting dehydrated? I can see the lawsuit now: Some idiot didn’t know that he needed water, because no one ever told him, so he never drank any liquids and died of dehydration. His family then sued the bottled water company for not publicizing the fact that drinking water from time to time is a good thing.

After participating for a short time on a US running forum where 90% of the discussion was on losing weight and “staying hydrated”, I had to conclude that people in today’s society don’t have sense enough to stop eating when they’re full, or to drink when they’re thirsty. It’s sad.

Anyway, on to the second half of the story, which is the EU’s decision to ban water sellers from stating that, “regular consumption of significant amounts of water can reduce the risk of development of dehydration”. Yes, that is the exact wording as given in the article. The company doesn’t even come out and actually say that water prevents dehydration, let alone “cures” it, they beat around the bush like the cosmetics companies that state that their product “if used regularly may help reduce the appearance of wrinkles”, or my favorite from many years ago, a company that stated in a print ad that its product had “totally nugatory effects”.

Now for the best part of all: After a three (yes, 3!)-year investigation, the EU determined that the statement could not be scientifically proven, and banned water bottlers from making any claims about water reducing the risk of developing dehydration, under threat of two years imprisonment. I wonder how much the investigation cost the Brussels administration and the EU as a community? Did someone actually search the scientific literature for studies “proving” the obvious? Do we need formal studies to tell us that eating food reduces the risk of starvation, or that breathing air reduces the risk of suffocation? Or that using common sense reduces the risk of engaging in stupid behavior?

If this incident had been on a comedy show, I would have laughed and dismissed it as an over-the-top joke. As it was, I had to search for other related news stories to confirm it and make sure that the date line was not April Fools Day. Apparently it’s true, although I still have nagging doubts, so I can only shake my head in wonderment about the absurdity of the whole incident and conclude that when one form of stupidity encounters another, they mate and produce an exponential increase in stupidity all around. Even if the story’s a hoax, the tendency of stupidity to reproduce exponentially still provides a good sociological model.

[Bottled water before and after pictures from Wikimedia]

MY WEEKEND “CURE DE SOMMEIL”

2011-12-12T11:22:00.000-08:00

This past weekend I didn’t post anything because I came down with a horrible cold, accompanied by full-blown flu symptoms. On Saturday I slept over 14 hours, and yesterday I slept about 20 hours. Today I’m almost recovered, ready to go in to work and give a final exam. When I’m sick, this is what my body tells me to do - just sleep till I’m better, and it seems to work wonders.

When I was a kid living in France, I remember hearing someone say that she was going to go do a cure de sommeil - a sleep cure. I don’t know exactly what it entailed, but I imagined that she just went to relaxing place far away from all distractions and slept to her heart’s content. An informal cure de sommeil is how I deal with migraines, flu, and anything else that hits me.

People in this society don’t get enough sleep. In the US, anyway, there’s a puritan idea that “early to rise” is somehow virtuous, and that work done before 10 AM is more valuable than the same work done later in the day. Many people have to be at work by 5 or 6 AM, and even school children have to be at school by 7. This time of year, they’re out in the cold and the dark waiting for the school bus. It seems cruel, especially for teenagers, who need to sleep in.

During the fall academic quarter, I was getting up at 7:00 every morning, which is not a good thing given that I typically don’t go to sleep until 1:00-2:00 AM. I need my 8 hours. Getting sick was probably a reaction to chronic sleep deprivation, allowing me to finally catch up a bit. I figure that if I’m able to sleep 20 hours at a stretch, my body must need it. Everybody needs a cure de sommeil from time to time. I highly recommend it! And don't wait to get sick.

[Sleeping Beauty painting by Henry Mynell Rheam, 1899]

ARTEMISIA: THE OTHER SAGE

2011-12-10T11:01:00.000-08:00

When I wrote about sage the other day, I mentioned sagebrush, which is not sage at all, but Artemisia tridentata. Artemisia is another widespread genus with hundreds of species, some of which are useful in perfume making.

Artemisia tridentata, commonly known as North American sagebrush, is one of the shrubby, drought-resistant bushes that grows all over the western part of the US in desert-like areas, including Eastern Washington. The plant is woody and tough, with leathery, silvery-gray leaves and yellow flowers. The essential oil, made from the leaves and stems, not the flowers, has a dry, pungent fragrance that’s a little like garden sage, but much more “wild”- smelling. If you could call a plant “gamey”, sagebrush would fit that description. I use this oil in my Arizona fragrance as part of the desert vegetation note.

Artemisia absinthium, or wormwood, is another shrubby plant with silvery-green leaves, and was the ingredient for which absinthe was named before it was regulated and reformulated using anise flavoring. Its traditional medicinal use is to eliminate parasitic worms from the gut. Historically, it was also used to flavor vermouth and some other wines, and may still be used that way in small amounts. So far I have not found this essential oil for sale by any of my usual sources, but I did locate some to try, and it should be on its way.

Artemisia dracunculus is garden-variety tarragon, used in cooking. It’s smaller than the other Artemesia varieties, the leaves are greener, and it has a characteristic fragrance that falls somewhere in the space between anise, basil, and sweet clover. I used tarragon in Kingston Ferry as part of the aromatic herbal component.

[All plant photos from Wikimedia]

MONA DI ORIO NUIT NOIRE

2011-12-09T20:22:00.000-08:00

This morning I read that perfumer Mona di Orio had died. As soon as I read the announcement, I knew that I didn’t feel like posting the topic that I had originally intended for today, which was on the frivolous side. Even though I didn’t know Mona di Orio, I felt as if I had lost someone I knew, simply because I know her perfumes. All day, through students’ presentations, grading exams, and the cold, dark drive home, this news, which, by all rights should have been impersonal, was lurking almost subconsciously at the back of my mind.

When I got home, I sought out the little sample of Nuit Noire that I’ve been hoarding, and am wearing it as I type. I hadn’t tried it for a long time, and had forgotten (or never realized) how wonderful it is. Maybe it’s just that it seems more precious given the context and the symbolism of black night. It starts out powerfully indolic and animalic, teetering right on the verge of too much skank for even a skank-lover, but never completely crossing that line. As the indole blends into the whole composition, it fills with orange blossoms and tuberose, powdery and animalic musks, spices, leather, woods, incense, and a special note all its own, a requiem symphony.

The wearing of Nuit Noire, a discontinued perfume, is my tribute to a talented perfumer, whose death is a loss to the entire fragrance community.

AROMATHERAPY

2011-12-08T08:44:00.000-08:00

I keep a file of notes that I occasionally pull out and look at, so here’s one from the archives. A year or so ago there was a discussion of aromatherapy on Basenotes, in which it was asserted by some that aromatherapy is an effective treatment for various physical ailments. I made some notes at the time because there seems to be a lot of confusion about the use of herbs taken internally, applied locally, and inhaled. I can only conclude that some (obviously not all) of the aromatherapy crowd simply search for the name of a plant along with the term “medicinal uses”, and conclude that inhaling fumes of an essential oil will have the same effect as taking the substance internally or applying a poultice, cream, or salve to the skin. Granted, there are some herbs that can be smoked or otherwise absorbed through mucus membranes, but it’s not always the case that one route of administration is as good as another. There’s also the issue of dose.

Because aromatherapy is such a popular theme, cutting across many segments of the fragrance world all the way from conscientious, well-educated, bona fide natural medicine practitioners and natural perfumers to commercial candle manufacturers out to make a few bucks with a synthetic fragrance-oil-scented petroleum product with the word “aromatherapy” stamped on the label, it seems reasonable to take a critical look at what aromatherapy can and cannot do. This post is an expansion and revision of what I wrote in response to one of the posts on Basenotes.

I think everyone would agree that odors have profound effects on behavior since they provide signals for behaviorally relevant stimuli. We are attracted to the smell of a bakery or other source of food, just as any other living organism is. When we smell something rotten we feel compelled to find the source of the odor and clean it up or avoid it. Certainly no one would dispute the fact that odors can affect mood and produce conditioned responses. When I smell my dark roast coffee brewing in the morning, it never fails to induce a good mood and start waking me up even before I taste it. If I smell dog feces left in our front garden by the neighbor’s dog, it induces a bad mood and makes me heap curses on both the dog and the neighbor. Smelling perfumes almost always cheers me up, and there are some perfumes that I keep around just to smell rather than wear.

No one would dispute the fact that odors can affect behavior since they clearly attract or repel, just as no one would dispute the fact that odors can affect mood, but this is fundamentally different from claiming that simply smelling an odor can cure acne or diabetes or kidney stones. I think the problem is that no one ever really defines "aromatherapy" and some people use it in the sense of behavior modification, others in the sense of medical treatment, some in the sense of psychotherapy, and others in the sense of mood control, meditation, energy boosting, or relaxation.

The oft-repeated assertion that aromatherapy "works" is based on the universal observation that people generally feel better when they have pleasant odors to smell. This effect is undoubtedly due to subtle changes in brain state and neurotransmitter levels, so it is a real physiological phenomenon. Odor can act as a distraction so that attention is shifted away from a painful or unpleasant sensation, be it physical or psychological. The feeling of well-being induced by pleasant odors can have physiological effects such as lowered blood pressure, deeper breathing, muscle relaxation, and changes in patterns of brain activity. These uses of odors are all scientifically valid, and are not the same as claiming that odors can directly treat or cure specific diseases or conditions. A general lack of rigor when talking about aromatherapy is what sometimes makes it seem like a dubious snake-oil marketing industry instead of an art and science that potentially benefits us all.

What is your experience with aromatherapy?

[All images from Wikimedia]

VANISHING SPECIES: ROSEWOOD

2011-12-07T10:31:00.000-08:00

According to the UN Environmental Program as cited here, about 150-200 species of vertebrates, invertebrates, and plants go extinct every day. This rate of extinction is unprecedented in history and can be directly attributed to the exploding human population and their reckless activities.

My thoughts on the topic of mass extinctions, including sources of natural perfumery materials, were prompted by a recent discussion of rosewood essential oil on one of the perfumers’ online groups. Rosewood, Aniba roseadora, is a South American tree that has been heavily exploited in Brazil for its aromatic oil, to say nothing of the use of the wood in constructing guitar fretboards and decorative parts, although this may be a different species from the one distilled for oil.

According to Cropwatch, most of the rosewood oil has historically been purchased by local representatives of the big European fragrance manufacturing companies, who have exported more than 100 tons of rosewood oil every year since the 1980s. It’s reported that rosewood oil is a necessary component of Chanel No. 5, among other mass-produced perfumes and commercial perfume bases. Unfortunately, this exploitation of rosewood trees has led to their decline, and ultimately to their threatened extinction.

I am not proud of it, but I am the owner of two different batches of rosewood oil. One was acquired many years ago, before there was a threat to the species, and the second one was acquired before the threat became common knowledge. Even though I love the smell, I do not plan on buying any more rosewood oil, even if it were available and affordable.

Apparently rosewood oil is commonly adulterated with pure linalool, which is one of the major constituents of the oil anyway. I don’t know whether my versions are adulterated, although I suspect the newer one probably is. In any case, neither one smells like linalool, meaning that linalool by itself is not an adequate substitute for rosewood. Rosewood does have the sharp, aromatic, linalool scent as its basis, but it’s much richer and more pleasant, containing woody, citrusy and rosy-floral notes that give it a character all its own.

It’s sad to see so many amazing species exploited to the point of extinction. All I can do as a perfumer is to try to avoid using any natural materials that come from threatened species, or those that appear to be obtained by questionable means. It’s not just IRFA that’s reducing the perfumers’ palette, it’s the excesses committed by unscrupulous suppliers and users of natural materials.

[Photo of guitar with rosewood fretboard and trim from Wikimedia]

RANDOM REVIEW: ESTEBAN ORIENTAL SPICE

2011-12-05T08:40:00.000-08:00

Despite the name, there’s not a lot of spice in this EdP. Instead, it starts out with loads of warm sandalwood! There are some powdery, fruity, jordan-almond like notes along with it, but it’s the sandalwood that dominates. It’s an excellent sandalwood, reminiscent of the old-fashioned Mysore variety. I love it!

The scent is fairly linear for several hours, during which time there’s quite a bit of sillage. Eventually it dries down into a rich, creamy-sweet vanilla skin scent. An internet search didn’t turn up much information on Oriental Spice, but suggests that it was only produced for a short time before being discontinued. That’s too bad, because it’s a gorgeous candied sandalwood scent that would be very much at home in my perfume wardrobe, if I actually had such a thing. If you ever come across this fragrance, it's definitely worth trying.

I know people are always complaining about their favorite perfumes being discontinued, but there are compelling reasons. Just in the year and a half that I've been making perfume I've seen more than one supplier of raw materials go out of business. I've seen raw materials become unavailable, or suddenly become prohibitively expensive. My guess is that Estaban's Oriental Spice was discontinued because the sandalwood used in the base was no longer available. I don't know if it was natural or synthetic, but it was really, really good. Sometimes reformulation is not the answer. Better to go out in style than fade away to a ghost.

[Sandalwood flowers photo from Wikimedia]

CLEANING FRENZY REDUX WINNER

2011-12-04T08:52:00.000-08:00

In the second round of drawings for the cleaning frenzy goodies, today's winner is:

TIFFANY

I'll send the box as soon as I get your mailing address. If the perfume is not claimed by next Sunday, I'll just contact the next person on the list who has some sort of contact information.

CREATING PERFUMES: FROM IMAGE TO BOTTLE

2011-12-03T09:57:00.000-08:00

Or how to get from here ...
Occasionally someone asks me how I go about creating a new perfume, or there’s a discussion in one of the perfumers’ chat groups about the best way to create one. It seems there are as many ways to go about the process as there are perfumers. Some people just mess around randomly hoping for a good combination. Others go about it in a compulsive, methodical way, trying all possible combinations in different stereotyped ratios as laid out in the old-fashioned Carles method. I guess I fall somewhere in the middle of the continuum.

I don't do the equivalent of doodling or noodling hoping for inspiration. I always start out with a concept - a place, an event, an experience, a person, an odd flower, or something. The concept includes a mental "picture" of the scent that I want to create. I'll jot down a list of the notes, and often the specific materials that I think would go into creating the scent. I don't write down proportions at this point, although I have a fairly good idea of what they should be, eliminating the need to go through a zillion iterations of ratios. I really don't work top-down or bottom-up, I work on it all in parallel. At this point what I have is essentially a fairly detailed brief to myself. If I need an accord that I don't have, I'll make it first before I start formulating. This can take a while, because it too has a “picture” that I have to match.

When I start formulating the perfume itself, I often still do something that I did as a beginner. I mix the top (i.e., most volatile materials) middle (moderately volatile) and base (least volatile) separately, to the extent that this is possible. That way I get a rough sample of what will be left when the top and middle notes have faded, and what the initial impression will be right out of the bottle before much of the mid and base kick in. Of course this isn't the whole story since some base and mid note materials will contribute immediately, and some top notes will linger. I use a lot of naturals and some accords that have their own complete set of top/mid/base notes, so it's often hard to fit them in one of the standard slots. Nevertheless, this exercise helps me imagine them together with all of their components. At this point I tweak proportions, add things or decide to leave things out, and when I'm satisfied with the resulting building blocks I combine them and let them sit for a while to see how they interact, hoping the final product will be close to my initial “picture”.

A lot can happen during the honeymoon period as the materials adjust to each other. Sometimes the result is good, sometimes it's not so good. If there's something missing or in need of adjustment, I do it and let it sit again. All through the process I write things down by hand in a notebook, crossing out and modifying as I go. I know I’m a luddite in this respect, but I’ve had enough computer crashes in my lifetime to be wary of saving valuable information on a hard drive. By the end the page(s) usually look pretty messy, but when the tweaking is all over I transfer the final formula to an electronic document that I print out and save in my hard-copy formula “bible”.

...to here.

Sometimes mistakes can have lucky consequences, so I would never discard something because I had measured wrong or picked up the wrong bottle by mistake, which I’ve done a few times. Serendipity is important in every art form (and in science, too), but it seems to be especially important in perfumery. That’s why I don’t think anyone can ever make perfume in a completely rational, methodical way.

RAVE: CAMELLIAS IN DECEMBER

2011-12-02T09:01:00.000-08:00

For the past week, every day when I walk to class I pass by a camellia bush that’s suddenly burst into bloom. Camellia japonica thrives here in the Pacific Northwest, often reaching the size of a small tree. The one I’m talking about, though, is small, no taller than I am, and covered with single, white flowers. Flowers are definitely a welcome sight in December, when it’s cold and rainy, and starts getting dark at 4 in the afternoon.

Of course I had to stop and smell the flowers. There are a number of perfumes that claim to include a camellia note, but I’d never been impressed by the smell of camellias. My recent evaluation confirms what I’d experienced before. Standard garden-variety camellias have an odd, earthy, minerally, musty smell like certain fertilizers or pesticides. No, it’s not products dumped on the plants, it’s the flowers themselves. Deep down at the bottom of the scent there’s a little bit of sweetness, sort of like a pink or red peony, but it’s mostly hidden. I wouldn’t want to use the typical camellia fragrance in a perfume, at least not as a main note.

There reportedly are other species of camellia with a pleasant fragrance, but I’ve never encountered them. Now I’m curious. Walking on some other routes yesterday evening, I saw other small camellia bushes with the same single white flowers. Now I’m wondering if they’re a dwarf variety that blooms early in the season, or a different species entirely. There’s another area on campus that has a near-forest of big camellia trees in shades of red and pink. They’re covered with buds, but no flowers yet. I think the bright colored, double-flowered ones bloom a little later. The ones in my garden typically bloom around Christmas.

The roses in the campus rose garden look a little shabby, but are still blooming. There are also several other varieties of bushes blooming right now with fragrant flowers. One is a type of Viburnum, and the other is one that I’ve never heard the name for. The leaves look a lot like those of the houseplant called Schefflera, and the flowers are small, white, with a shape in between strawberry and citrus flowers, and sweetly fragrant. I think the leaves are fragrant, too. They grow all over the place in Seattle, so I should know what they’re called. Googling “fragrant shrubs” didn’t help. Maybe I should post a picture so someone can identify it.

In any case, I’ll have to take a trip to one of the garden centers to see if they have any fragrant camellias and try to identify the Schefflera-lookalike shrub.

Fragrant or not, I love the color and sense of hope that camellias bring to the dead of winter.

DAPPER DAN

2011-12-01T09:14:00.000-08:00

Ideas for perfumes come from the oddest places. Are you old enough to remember the film “O Brother Where Art Thou”? Remember George Clooney’s character and his fictitious “hair treatment”, Dapper Dan? Well, I just discovered what Dapper Dan smelled like!

My husband’s hair is thinning, and somewhere I read that spikenard is used in Tibet to promote hair growth. Maybe it’s just folklore, but a man losing his hair will try anything. Isn’t that what snake oil was for? OK, maybe snake oil had some other applications too, but when everything else is in good shape, a man worries about his hair. Following in the footsteps of Maslow, I’ve formulated Doc Elly’s hierarchy of male vanity concerns. Hair is right up there near the top of the external appearance level.

I did a little research on herbal hair remedies, and came up with a mix of essential oils that may or may not have an effect on hair growth, but at least they smell good and produce a strong placebo effect. The current version of the preparation includes spikenard, lavender, rosemary, and sage in a coconut oil carrier. This morning I was lying in bed inhaling the lingering scent of the mix on the pillows and thought, “Dapper Dan! That’s what Dapper Dan smelled like!”.

OK, you guessed it. Now I’m fantasizing about making a perfume called “Dapper Dan”. It’s going to have lots of aromatic herbs and rooty things that together produce a slightly sweet-smelling combination. With luck it will be an all-natural composition. Of course it would have to be a solid perfume so that it can do double duty as a “pomade”. I’ve never made a solid perfume before, so that would be a new adventure. Now I need some good 48-hour days and a bigger notebook for all my briefs to myself … George Clooney did have nice hair, though …

[As far as I recall, the Dapper Dan can is from Wikimedia]

CLEANING FRENZY REDUX

2011-11-30T08:47:00.001-08:00

Only one batch of cleaning frenzy goodies was ever claimed, so I'm going to hold a new drawing on Sunday (December 4) for the rest of the items - just in time for Christmas. Everyone who entered before (except the two previous winners) will be included in the new drawing, but if you want to add your name to the list you're welcome to do so.

I just saw that there is a huge list of unclaimed perfume on Cafleurebon, including some 5-ml mini bottles that I offered. Some of it is really nice stuff - even big full bottles. The number of people who fail to check and see whether they won anything kind of boggles my mind. Do people buy lottery tickets and never check to see if they won anything? Do people enter drawings for full bottles of expensive perfume and never check to see if they won it? I really don't get it.

In any case, the three people who wanted samples of norlimbanol and paradisamide will be getting them soon. I plan to ship them off later this week. All of you are on my "testers list", so I have your addresses.

Stay tuned for more giveaways as I go through my cupboards and drawers. And please check all of the drawings that you enter!

[Photo of US military draft lottery, 1969, from Wikimedia]

RANDOM REVIEW: AVA LUXE MADELINE

2011-11-29T08:46:00.000-08:00

It’s time for the Random Review of the week. I generally like Ava Luxe perfumes, but today’s is definitely an odd one.

Ava Luxe Madeline
This perfume oil starts out strong, with a bizarre, almost metallic, tobacco-like note that I can’t identify. It reminds me of touching the stems of angel’s trumpets or other solanaceous plants. It’s as if the scent wants to drag my nose into some sort of black hole where it really should not be going, like a dementor trying to suck my breath and soul away. This strange feeling lasts for a good hour, after which old-fashioned dentist’s office clove oil takes over for a while, with the scent finally settling down into a sweet, vanilla and nutmeg spiced eggnog.

The eggnog phase is a yummy gourmand, but the path to get there was like a trip through the house of horrors, where some nightmare creature was trying suck the life out of my nose. The rest of the drydown is an innocent concoction of egg, milk, vanilla, and nutmeg that’s a little boozy at first, but then loses even that note and smells good enough to eat in the form of a flan. Madeline is a perfume that starts off evil but, like Scrooge, eventually becomes converted to a life of philanthropy, distributing good cheer at holiday parties. It certainly is an interesting ride.

As always, I would like to emphasize that I write this review strictly as a consumer, not as an expert of any kind. It is completely subjective and simply reflects my own idiosyncratic personal tastes and opinions.

[Eggnog (lait de poule) photo adapted from Wikimedia; Dementor photo from Harrypotterwikia]

SAGE

2011-11-27T12:07:00.000-08:00

What would turkey stuffing be without sage? I started thinking about this herb during the preparations for Thanksgiving dinner when it was revealed that the person who was hosting the dinner didn’t have any sage in the house or garden, so the family member doing the cooking sent her out to the neighbor’s to get some.

The kinds of sage we are most familiar with are only a few of the many hundreds of species in the genus Salvia, which grow worldwide. Salvia is in the mint family, so it’s not surprising that at least some species have aromatic leaves.

The kind of sage that grows in the garden and is an obligatory ingredient in turkey stuffing is Salvia officinalis, also known as Dalmatian sage, a bushy herb native to the Mediterranean. It’s a pretty plant, especially the variegated leaf type, and grows well in the Pacific Northwest. The cute little plant in the photo has long since become a big, woody thing. The purple flowers are attractive not just to look at, but to bees, too. The essential oil of Dalmatian sage has a mild, aromatic, slightly dusty, earthy, musky and salty scent, more or less like crushed fresh sage leaves. I haven’t used it in any of my perfumes yet, but definitely need to experiment with it.

Spanish sage, Salvia lavandulifolia, is similar to the common garden variety, but with narrower leaves. The essential oil smells like a stronger, more camphorous version of officinalis. I think it would be a wonderful addition to a perfume instead of lavender, which I’m not really crazy about in perfume, at least as a prominent note.

Clary sage, Salvia sclarea, is more weedy looking than the other types of sage, with large, broad, heart-shaped leaves. The essential oil smells more woody and flowery than the other types of sage, with a characteristic, slightly metallic fragrance all its own. I just learned that clary sage was traditionally used to flavor muscatel wine and some types of vermouth.

A discussion of Salvia would not be complete without mentioning Salvia divinorum, a Central American species that is supposed to have psychoactive properties. I have to say that I was not impressed by any of its properties. It looks like a weed, it isn’t very aromatic, and as far as I know there’s no essential oil extracted from it, although there are websites that sell all sorts of other, presumably aqueous, extracts. Even if there was an essential oil, I doubt that it would be useful as a perfume material.

Sagebrush is not sage at all, but a type of Artemesia, but that’s a topic for another post.

My favorite culinary use for sage is to cook a batch of tortellini, chop a bunch of fresh sage leaves, sauté them in butter, add crème fraiche, salt, and pepper, and sprinkle the whole thing with a little freshly grated Parmesan cheese. Delicious!

[Photos of Salvia lavandulifolia, sclarea, and divinorum from Wikimedia]

ORCHIDS ON FRAGRANTICA

2011-11-26T21:29:00.000-08:00

Just want to let everyone know that there's a beautifully illustrated article about orchids on Fragrantica, featuring all of my orchid perfumes. Elena did a wonderful job putting it together!

THINGS BEST LEFT TO A PROFESSIONAL

2011-11-25T13:37:00.000-08:00

I’m housebound today, refusing to venture out into an environment where an astounding number of people have been whipped into an irrational shopping frenzy by the media creation, “Black Friday”. For those readers not in the US, Black Friday is not the original stock market crash by that name in 1869 or the day after the stock market crashed in 1929; it’s the day after Thanksgiving. In recent years it’s been turned into a sort of holiday in its own right, a carnival celebration of consumerism. All of the stores have sales that include loss leader items that lure customers in and entice them to buy large quantities of random goods. This year I read that many stores were opening at midnight on Thursday and staying open 24 hours so that people could start their shopping early and end it late. Personally, I fail to see the attraction of spending hours waiting line for a store to open so that I can buy the same stuff I could buy any other day of the week, month, or year. I’d rather pay a little more and shop in peace, at my leisure for things I really want.

This leads me to thoughts about household gadgets that are probably leaping off the Black Friday shelves today, and DIY processes that would better be left to a professional. More specifically, the topic of the day is juicers. The resident male of the house went off for a trip to Portland with his brother, but left behind all of the debris from his latest foray into juice-making with his big macho juicer that takes up more than its fair share of counter space (of course, he says the same thing about my shoes in the closet, but we all know that’s different).

I know fresh juice is theoretically a good idea, but somehow I just don’t get it on a practical level. After feeding fruits or vegetables into the apparatus and extracting a relatively small amount of juice, there’s a huge pile of pulp to dispose of, a machine that has to be disassembled, multiple awkwardly-shaped parts that have to be cleaned, and a machine that has to be reassembled. It’s even worse if the juicer doesn’t get cleaned right away and the debris gets dried out and fused to all of its unwieldy parts. The picture, taken from the manufacturer’s website, is designed to make the juicer look much smaller and more compact than it actually is, and omits the oddly-shaped juice collector thingie that fits under the spout. I’m sparing you, gentle reader, the horror of seeing this sleek, industrial-looking apparatus filled with moldy, rotten vegetable matter.

There’s perfectly good ready-made juice to drink in every grocery store. It tastes just about as good. Maybe I’m not a connoisseur, since I don’t drink juice very often, but that’s how it seems to me. And why not just EAT the damn fruit? That way you get it all and there’s little or nothing to clean. Fresh fruit tastes really good, and chewing it makes it taste even better.

I feel the same way about food processors, even though I’ve never had one - what’s wrong with a good sharp knife or a grater? Then there are electric mixers (never had one of those, either) - what’s wrong with a bowl and a spoon or hand-operated whisk or beater? And home ice cream makers (was given one as a present) - why not buy good ice cream ready made or skip Black Friday, save up, and take a trip to Florence, where the professionals make the best ice cream in the world? And bread makers (never had one) - why not go to a good bakery and buy professional quality bread?

What are your thoughts on gadgets? Are there ones you love? Are you like me and find most of them to be way more trouble than they’re worth? Should I invent a home perfume mixing machine, patent it, and get the box stores to sell it on Black Friday to people who won’t ever use it?

[Schwarzer Freitag in Wien, 19th century print by unknown artist; juicer photo from manufacturer's website]

THANKSGIVING THOUGHTS

2011-11-24T11:36:00.000-08:00

Since today’s the Thanksgiving holiday in the US, it’s natural to think about all of the things we’re thankful for. Of course there are basic things like a roof that doesn’t leak in all the rain we’re having, enough food to eat, electricity and heat in the dark of winter, running water, and enough money to pay for these things. There’s family, friends, and all the virtual friends that I’ve met through the box I’m typing on - which I also appreciate no end and take for granted unless there’s some failure.

But I decided to combine Thanksgiving with my rave of the week, which I was thinking about last night. As a perfume maker, I couldn’t do it without the raw materials. And there are some outstanding companies that supply raw materials in the quantities that I need, not by the ton. I’d like to send out a special thank-you to some of them for making what I do possible.

First, there’s Liberty Natural, the company in Oregon (almost a neighbor!) from whom I buy many of my essential oils, extracts, and absolutes. They have a fantastic selection, the quality is always good, they give adequate information about their products, the prices are reasonable, and they ship promptly. If an item is backordered, they phone me to let me know. What more can I ask? Next time I’m in Oregon I should try to visit their lavender farm.

Then there’s Eden Botanicals, a California supplier of essential oils and absolutes. They have some things that Liberty doesn’t, they’re on the same coast, the quality is always good, and their clear labdanum absolute is the best around. They also have good information about their products, prices are reasonable, and they ship promptly. They always include a lot of small samples with the shipment. That’s how I got to try fossilized amber, oud CO2 extract, mate absolute, and some other interesting things.

Finally, the outstanding supplier without whom I couldn’t function is The Perfumer’s Apprentice, a unique company in California that supplies aroma chemicals in small quantities appropriate for someone who doesn’t make perfumes on an assembly line in a huge factory. The owner, Linda Andrews, is incredibly helpful, answering every e-mail right away and trying to accommodate her customers in every way possible. She is a wealth of information on aroma chemicals and their sources. I am eternally thankful to Linda for making my life as a perfumer possible. I’ll raise a toast to her at today’s big Thanksgiving feast.

There are also quite a few other companies from whom I order a few things, and I'm grateful for the access I have to so many wonderful materials through the internet.

Finally, I'm extremely grateful for the readers of my blog and the opportunity to share information and ideas through this medium. A big toast to you all!

[Turkey pie still life by Peter Claesz, 1627]

THE NEW FEUDALISM

2011-11-23T09:43:00.000-08:00

Occasionally I write on topics not directly related to perfume. Today is one of those days. Over my morning coffee I was reading an article about the huge amount of debt accrued by those pursuing a graduate education these days. This is on top of the enormous debt they have racked up to obtain an undergraduate degree. Graduates of higher education programs now commonly leave school with education debt the size of a home mortgage and little prospect of ever having a job with a salary adequate to pay it all back, let alone buy a real house, pay a real mortgage, and live the capitalist (or even the bohemian) dream. Faculty jobs are few and far between, even more so since most aging faculty can no longer afford to retire due to years of flat-lined salaries if not outright cuts, along with retirement accounts that have been sucked dry by the wheelers and dealers of Wall Street. The top 1% of university administrators and football coaches are another matter, but are not relevant to this discussion.

It’s easy to say that graduate students know what they’re getting into and make a conscious choice to live a life of poverty and/or indentured servitude to the finance industry, but unfortunately it’s more or less the same scenario no matter what career path a student decides to pursue. Even dentists and lawyers leave school with huge debt and have to work for years to pay it off. Given the unrealistic expectations created at every socioeconomic level by those whose goal is to “grow the economy”, everyone is encouraged to live beyond their means or else feel inadequate.

The whole myth that the economy must grow infinitely in order to be healthy has long been one of the sacred cows of the capitalist philosophy. However, capitalism, like any other system taken to its ultimate extreme, has the potential to backfire. The fact is that the earth and every society has a finite amount of resources. Those who are most focused on “growing” their share of the resources must inevitably, at some point, start taking resources from those who are less fanatical about amassing them. The result that we see now in the US is wealth that is concentrated in a tiny percentage of the population, represented by a few huge corporations that own practically everything, including the government. Capitalism has ended up taking us back full circle to a feudal society in which the new nobility are the corporate entities that make up the industrial-military-medical-financial complex and their rulers. The serfs and indentured servants make up the rest of the population, who must work like drones to keep the nobility in the style to which they are accustomed. Debt is one form of servitude. Scrambling to keep up with payments leaves little time to think about the situation.

The article on student debt quoted a Bruce Springsteen song lyric from 1982, which says “I’ve got debts no honest man could pay”. That pretty much sums up the situation of a great many honest people in the US today, not just gamblers in Atlantic City. I’m not sure what the best strategy is to reverse the trend toward neo-feudalism, but certainly the first step is to acknowledge it. I think the “Occupy” movement is an instinctive, albeit fuzzy, step in that direction.

Every ruler needs his fool, even though they don’t listen to them until there’s a crisis, so I’ll end this with a fool's message to the one percent,

“With a heigh and a ho and a hey-nonny-no, pay your share of taxes and curb your greed, nuncle. Even vile vermin can’t afford to kill their host.”

[Castle and modern mansion photos from Wikimedia; King Lear painting by Willian Dyce, 18??]

INFUSION D’ARGENT

2011-11-21T08:48:00.001-08:00

After going through a slump this past summer and fall, I’m starting to get excited again about the projects that I left on the drawing board in sketch or outline form.

Last summer I wrote about my idea to make a limited-edition scent based on paper to celebrate the first anniversary of Olympic Orchids Perfumes. I kind of forgot about it during the time surrounding my mother’s death, but I was reminded of it again when I was simultaneously sniffing a newly-acquired material that I was testing, and going through some of my old files. When I have ideas, I usually write a brief to myself in the little notebook that I always carry around. Sometimes I transcribe them to my laptop, and this time I had done so.

Here’s the brief:

We all could use an infusion of cash into our bank account, but this is a different kind of infusion - the scent of money. It’s the papery fragrance of a well-worn dollar bill (or 5,10, 20 or more, they’re all alike, recent attempts to tint the green rectangles with pink and peach notwithstanding!). The paper, with its own characteristic smell, is infused with the scent of leather wallets and purses, musky pockets, tobacco, a hint of cheap and expensive perfumes, and the thousands of mysterious places that the tough little piece of paper has visited. Now grind up some greenbacks and tincture them to extract their scent - not literally, but in theory. The result would be called “Infusion d’Argent”.

What better paper to be inspired by than old-fashioned banknotes? Euro banknotes smell similar to US ones, but not as strong. Maybe they’re not as absorbent, or maybe they’re all newer than the oldest dollar bills, which have been knocking around for quite some time. I suppose purse and wallet perfumes have been done before, but hasn’t everything?

At this rate, I’ll always be behind by one year, but maybe I can double up at some point. The idea is that the perfume would be a limited edition, released in July of one year, and sold for a year from the release date. As soon as I finish a stack of writing tasks that I have to do for my “day job”, I’ll get started on it!

CLEANING FRENZY GIVEAWAY WINNERS

2011-11-20T09:30:00.000-08:00

The two winners of the cleaning frenzy drawing are Meredith and glitterandsmut! Congratulations to both of you! Please PM me your full names and mailing addresses.

I swear I didn't just pick the first two people on the list - I actually wrote everyone's name down on a piece of paper, shook them up really well, closed my eyes, and drew two out of the hat.

If you're not a winner this time, stay tuned for Cleaning Frenzy Part 2. There will be more stuff coming along as I go through my perfume stashes.

RANDOM REVIEWS: THREE FROM URBAN RITUELLE

2011-11-19T17:51:00.000-08:00

I didn’t plan it, but I seem to be starting some weekly features, the “Rave of the Week” and the “Random Review of the Week”. As always, I would like to emphasize that I write these reviews strictly as a consumer, not as an expert of any kind, so they simply reflect my own subjective and idiosyncratic perceptions, tastes and opinions.

Urban Rituelle is an Australian company whose main business appears to be manufacturing bath and body products. I suspect that their perfumes are just the functional scents that they use in their soaps and lotions. They're inexpensive and, a while back, TPC had samples on sale, so I tried them. All of the scents seemed simple and light, like EdTs, and at least two of them were in a thick, sticky carrier like dipropylene glycol or isopropyl myristate.

Urban Rituelle Beachcomber Pink Jasmine
The liquid is an unnatural pink, and is a mix of sweet jasmine, gardenia, and some tropical notes that together produce a cloying, floral scent that fortunately makes a speedy exit with a linear trajectory. Not my style.

Urban Rituelle Beachcomber Coconut and Ginger
I smell the coconut right up front, but can’t say as much for the ginger. If I try hard, I can imagine a synthetic ginger lily note, but no spice. It’s basically a subdued suntan oil or lotion functional scent, not bad, but not particularly novel or interesting. The sillage is modest, but the scent lasts for at least 5-6 hours on skin. If you want a low-key scent that’s pretty much just coconut, this is it. It’s not bad for what it is, but it doesn’t do much for me.

Urban Rituelle Voyager Persian Jasmeen
This is a simple floral scent that seems like a hybrid between jasmine and lilac, more lilac than jasmine. It has moderate sillage and sticks around for at least 6 hours on skin. The scent remains linear throughout. It’s not bad as an accord, and would work nicely as part of a more complex composition, but it’s too strictly floral for my taste.

[Jasmine photo from Wikimedia]

RAVE OF THE WEEK: TWO NEW PERFUME MATERIALS

2011-11-18T08:46:00.000-08:00

Many aroma chemicals are just chemical building blocks that are not particularly attractive on their own, but play a key role when combined with other things. It’s strange how, after working with them for a while, I can smell their potential roles even though I don’t like their odor when they’re on their own. This makes sense when you think about the fact that each aroma chemical is a single molecule, unlike natural materials, which are usually “cocktails” of many molecules. However, once in a while there’s a single molecule that has all the character and richness of a natural cocktail. I just discovered two of these amazing creatures.

They were both in a batch of new aroma chemicals that I purchased recently. One of them was so compelling that I’ve already worn it as a perfume on its own. Here they are:

Norlimbanol (aka timberol) is like the best woody cedar-type fragrance you ever smelled. It exudes aromatic woodiness taken to exponential levels, but it also has a rich, sweet undercurrent to it. Others who have written about it describe it as “dry”, but I don’t find it particularly dry. If I didn’t know it was an aroma chemical, I would say it was a perfume in its own right, just as essential oils and absolutes are perfumes in their own right. I’ve tested it on a paper strip and found that it stays fairly linear and lasts for over a month. As a woody scent, it’s not surprising that it would function as a base note. I liked the paper strip so much that I used a tiny dab as a perfume and - wow! It’s fantastic. It not only provides a long-lasting aromatic woody scent, it actually changed on my skin, becoming richer, sweeter, and almost musky over the course of the day. I’m in love with norlimbanol, and can’t wait to use it in a perfume.

Paradisamide smells just like fresh passion fruit (maracuya) and guava. It’s not only a tropical fruity scent par excellence, but -- get this -- it’s a base note. On paper it lasts for over a month, changing very little during that time. I haven’t tried wearing it as a stand-alone perfume yet, but that’s definitely on the agenda. I can see using this in composing tropical fragrances, including some based on orchid flower scents. The possibility of having a fruity scent that lasts throughout the evolution of a perfume opens up a host of interesting possibilities.

If you’d like to sample these two scents, leave a comment. I’ll have a drawing for two sample sets of norlimbanol and paradisamide, diluted to perfume concentration. Also, stay tuned for the announcement of the winners of the Cleaning Frenzy Drawing this Sunday.

[Tree and fruit photos adapted from Wikimedia]

COCKTAILS AND NATURAL CHEMISTRY

2011-11-16T08:18:00.000-08:00

This recent article on natural perfumes was brought to my attention by Dee Howe on Botoblog. Overall it’s quite a good write-up on the use of natural materials in perfumery, but I was struck by a quote in the article stating that natural perfumes, unlike synthetic perfumes “are not a cocktail of chemicals”. I did a double-take on this one. If natural materials are not chemicals, what are they? Some sort of magical ether that contains no molecules at all?

There seems to be widespread misuse of the term “chemicals” as a pejorative when, in fact, everything in nature is made up of chemicals. Every molecule, natural or synthetic is a chemical. Our bodies are complex collections of chemicals. The food we eat is nothing but chemicals. The plants that grow in the wild and in our gardens are sophisticated aroma chemical factories that produce odors to attract pollinators to their flowers. On the flip side of the coin, their vegetative parts often produce chemicals that repel, disable, or even kill pests.

Many of those attractants, repellents, and insecticides are exactly what our own noses find attractive. It’s tempting to speculate that, historically, plants with pleasant odors have been domesticated, thereby increasing their chances of survival in a world where more and more of wild nature is being destroyed by an exploding human population.

I sometimes feel like the odd perfumer out, standing in no-man’s-land in the pitched battle between two opposing camps of extremists. On the one side there are those who advocate aroma chemicals for their “purity”, “reproducibility”, “hypoallergenic properties” and all of the other virtues attributed to chemicals made in factories. On the other, arguably more vocal, side there are those who advocate the use of nothing but natural materials, simply because they are mysteriously produced by plants (or in some cases, animals, but that’s a different issue).

The truth is that toxic chemicals are made both in factories and by plants. Helpful chemicals are made both in factories and by plants. Some of the aroma chemicals made in factories are the same molecules as those made by plants. Most essential oils, absolutes and tinctures that are lauded for their simplicity and “purity” are actually cocktails of dozens or hundreds of different molecules (i.e., chemicals). In fact, that’s what I love about natural materials. They are cocktails with a richness of fragrance and a “personality” that’s not often found in synthetic molecules. Give me a good cocktail of chemicals like an aged olibanum, Mysore sandalwood, Bourbon vanilla, coffee absolute, kewda attar, rose de mai -- or even a good mojito -- and I’m a happy perfumer!

[Cocktail photos all adapted from Wikimedia]

SPIRIT OF GINGLE

2011-11-15T08:30:00.000-08:00

Some time ago I acquired an odd bottle of perfume from a person who was selling off some items she no longer wanted. I had never heard of “Spirit of Gingle” and my attempts at research on it turned up absolutely nothing, so of course curiosity got the better of me and I sent off for it. It’s a 1.7 oz cylindrical clear glass spray bottle with gold lettering and gold colored trimmings at the sides and top, including a disc-shaped cover that swings aside for spraying. The juice inside is a light blue-lavender color. It says it was made by a company called Gingle, in Paris.

I finally got around to trying it the other day, and found that it features citrusy aldehydes, a nice fruity tobacco note, the standard harsh commercial woody base, and some generic fruity-floral notes. It smells vaguely like Givenchy Hot Couture, which I just happened to sample a few days after trying Gingle. Somehow, it seems that randomly sampled perfumes often come in serendipitous groups. Spirit of Gingle is nothing really special, but it’s not bad, either. It’s certainly wearable, and it’s definitely a curiosity.

If anyone out there knows anything about this obscure perfume or the company that made it, I’d love to hear from you!

CLEANING FRENZY DRAWING

2011-11-13T09:37:00.000-08:00

I am currently in the midst of one of my periodic cleaning frenzies and purges, anxious to get rid of a basket full of perfume-y things that I don’t want or need, so am going to hold a joint drawing here and on Fragrantica for two batches of mostly very commercial perfumes. Each batch will include one of two full bottles (Curve Crush or Liz Claiborne Spark) and three of six minis (Guerlain My Insolence, Elizabeth Arden Red Door, Baby Phat Goddess, Calvin Klein Euphoria, Coty American Original, and a Bvlgari with no other name on the bottle. Each batch will also include a few carded manufacturers’ samples, some single-note fragrance samples, the origin of which I’ve forgotten, and several of my own perfumes in the original little 5 ml green industrial-type bottles that I used when I first started selling them at orchid shows.

If you live in the US and would like to be entered in the drawing, just leave a comment to that effect. You can also indicate your preferences as to which FB and/or minis you’ll get. If the two winners both want the same things, I’ll flip a coin to decide how to split the booty. The winners will be announced a week from today, Sunday, November 20.

SMALL CHANGES ON WEBSITE

2011-11-12T09:17:00.000-08:00

As the number of perfumes I make has increased, the number of samples in a full sample pack has also increased. The time had come for some adjustments, so I am now offering several options in the standard sample pack: a 5-pack for $10, a 10-pack for $15, or a full sample pack for $20. The customer gets to choose the fragrances in the smaller packs. The deluxe sample pack, shown in the photo, is unchanged. All of the sample options are still nominally priced compared to the going rate for samples.

I’ve also discontinued the 50-ml bulb spray bottles, since the bulb atomizers tend to malfunction. They look nice, but if they don’t work reliably, they have no place in my lineup.

The final change is new packaging for the soaps, along with a more limited selection of soap fragrances at any given time. I never really liked the bulky food take-out boxes that I was using, which were hard to store and not conducive to finding things. I finally found some much smaller natural “kraft” cardboard boxes that just fit the soaps, take up minimal room on the storage shelf, and can be labeled in a way that keeps the names in plain sight. Another soap packing problem arose due to the use of tissue paper to wrap the soap. With time, the oils in the soap discolored the tissue paper, making for an unattractive sight when the soap was unpacked. I now have clear shrink-wrap sleeves that protect the soap and its outer packaging. I hope that these changes will help increase the shelf life of the soaps and improve their presentation.

After more than a year of selling perfume products online, I feel like I’m finally starting to get a good set of methods in place for production, packaging and marketing, but I suspect that it will always be a work in progress. My next project will be re-organizing my perfume organ and work area, but that’s an undertaking almost as daunting as climbing Mount Everest.

RAVE OF THE WEEK: GOLDEN DAY AND SILVER NIGHT

2011-11-11T08:42:00.000-08:00

Sometimes I feel like I spend most of the time on this blog complaining about one thing or another, so should try to write a really positive post once a week. This week it’s all about the gorgeous weather we’ve been having and the extraordinary beauty of the area where I live and work.

Yesterday was one of those rare fall days when it’s relatively warm and the sky is deep blue and completely clear. Walking across campus just before the sun set, I was overwhelmed by the bright golden light that came, not from above, but horizontally as the sun neared the horizon. This bright horizontal sunlight seems to be a specialty of the Pacific Northwest, where the air is still relatively smog-free and the sun can keep shining fully until the very last minute. Most of the trees are in full color, just starting to drop some of their leaves. I reveled in the golden sun illuminating screens of red, orange and gold leaves, the shadows projected infinitely to the side instead of falling on the ground, the joy of swishing my feet through piles of dry, multicolored leaves, stepping on the occasional fallen snowberry and listening to it make that crisp “Knallerbsen” pop, and the indescribable woody, earthy, moldy, aromatic scent of leaves that are just on the verge of decomposing. I don’t know of any perfume that fully captures that fallen-leaf scent, but Ineke’s Evening Edged in Gold comes close to capturing at least some facet of the euphoric-melancholy visual atmosphere of a sun-gilded transition from afternoon to evening like the one I’m describing.

Last night the moon was full, or near full. Walking outside with the full moon overhead, the sky was colored that 3-dimensional deep blue-black that’s most often seen on a bright night in the desert. The moonlight was strong enough to bring up some subtle color in the silvery glaze of light that coated everything it touched, and cast sharp, black shadows, this time from above.
The strength of the moonlight was amazing and took me back to times in my childhood when I would wake up in the middle of the night with the moonlight shining into my room, get up, go downstairs, and wander around outside, feeling a strange sense of nostalgia and longing, seeing everything in a new, unaccustomed, and sometimes frightening way. Night always accentuates scents, so the smell of fallen leaves was particularly strong, wet, and earthy under the moon’s influence. The moonlight made me think about making a perfume called “Shadows of the Moon”. As if I needed more perfume ideas.

Sunset paintings by Albert Bierstadt (18??), and Konstantin Bogaevsky (1896); Moonlight paintings by Ilya Repin (1896) and Albert Ryder (1890)

ODOR EMERGENCY!

2011-11-10T08:39:00.000-08:00

Yesterday evening while I was working in my “day job” lab, all of the fire alarms in the building went off. The people I was working with carried on with what they were doing while I went to investigate. This may sound blasé, but out of all the numerous times I’ve experienced fire alarms, I have yet to experience an actual fire or other emergency associated with them. The one time I did experience an accidental fire, no alarms or emergency responses were involved, but that's a story for another day. Fire alarms in public buildings seem to malfunction on a regular basis, so no one takes them seriously.

After the alarms sounded, I had to leave the building to find out what was going on since everyone had been ordered outside. It looked like a dire emergency since there were two enormous fire trucks parked at the entrance, at least a half dozen police cars and vans, and a crowd of several dozen firefighters, emergency medical personnel, university security people and police officers running around. There was even a police dog on a leash, sniffing the ground.

At first no one seemed to know what was going on, but as I located and talked to the protagonists, the story slowly emerged. It turns out that someone had called the department main office manager complaining about an “odor” in one of the shared work spaces. He checked the space in question and didn’t smell anything, but called building maintenance anyway to report it, making it clear that it was not an emergency. Shortly thereafter the alarms went off and the massive turnout of fire and police crews appeared on the scene, ordering everyone who was visible to them evacuate the building. The group of students standing behind me on the sidewalk speculated that the odor was from a corn dog that one student had been eating, and/or the farts that followed its consumption. It’s as good an explanation as any and serves to highlight the absurdity of the reaction.

This grotesque overreaction to the report of an “odor” highlights the US obsession with “safety” and the paradox created by overreacting to vanishingly small possibilities of harm for fear of legal repercussions. Another good example of this phenomenon is a tsunami siren that is sounded every day in a coastal town near here. The alarm is sounded to “test” it, but clearly everyone in the town has learned to completely ignore it, so if there actually were a tsunami on the way, everyone would continue going about their usual business. We’re surrounded by the wolf cries shrieked out by tsunami alarms, fire alarms, smoke alarms, and other alarms that are constantly being tested, malfunctioning, or sounded in response to trivial, innocuous occurrences. If there ever were a fire, we would have to depend on our noses and our common sense to alert us that we need to get out of the building.

I can well imagine that the next time the fire alarm goes off in our building, it will be because someone complained about an “odor” from a perfume that someone was wearing, and the complaint got transmitted to 911. That makes about as much sense as a corn dog, and maybe a better story.

[Wolf photo from Wikimedia; fire alarm image adapted from Wikimedia]

CINNAMON PINE CONES

2011-11-09T08:35:00.000-08:00

Late last month I had to go to the fabric store to buy some cloth to cover a prop I was making for an upcoming show. I hate all fabric stores with a passion. There’s no need to go into details except to say that the fabric cutting and checkout system always seems to move in slow motion and is highly bureaucratic. I don’t do well dealing with the bureaucratic mentality in any form, and I really don’t want to lounge around at the fabric cutting counter holding my number, waiting for the cutters to discuss with a semi-conscious customer which tiny floral pattern will look best next to another tiny floral pattern on a quilt, slowly comparing one piece of cloth after another without anything actually getting cut, all the while nearly choking on cinnamon fumes.

Speaking of cinnamon fumes, before even entering the store I was assaulted by the strongest cinnamon odor I’ve ever smelled - much stronger than real, pure cinnamon. I thought the management must be pumping cinnamon scent into the store, so I asked one of the women who worked there what the cinnamon smell was. She replied, “Oh, it’s just the pine cones. It would be too expensive to use cinnamon scent”. Pine cones? Since when do pine cones smell like supercharged cinnamon? I asked another person who worked in the store if she noticed the in-your-face smell of cinnamon, and whether it bothered her at all. She replied that she hardly noticed it, but when she came in to work in the mornings it made her feel as if she had a lot of energy. She assured me that the cinnamon scent came from “the pine cones”. I probed a bit further and found out that there were bags of ponderosa pine cones stacked in the area between the two sets of doors at the entrance, and these were the source of the scent.

Sure enough, the pine cones were right there in the entry lobby, in net bags, exuding a powerful artificial cinnamon odor. I suppose they had been soaked in cinnamon scent, but why? Ponderosa pine cones have a lovely scent of their own, subtle though it is. A few dozen bags of these cones scented the entire large supermarket-size store, even though they weren’t technically IN the store. What would a whole bag of cones do to a small house or apartment? Kill bedbugs?

I suppose the idea is to buy a bag of cones and place them in strategic locations to promote a holiday-like atmosphere and attitude through continuous inhalation of cinnamon. Welcome your guests with a blast of cinnamon coming from an innocent-looking little pine cone! Inspire your family to purchase mass quantities of retail goods through constantly inhaling cinnamon scent! Sell your gigantic foreclosure-prone house by fumigating it with cinnamon pine cones!

In all fairness, the pine cones are probably meant as Thanksgiving or Christmas decorations, so when they’re delivered to the stores in early October they have a while to go before being sold and used for their intended purpose. In the meantime, maybe the cinnamon scent will be reduced to a pleasant level, but wow! Like the agarbatti scent that permanently invades every item bought in little Indian clothing shops, cinnamon is probably going to be a signature scent that permeates every item sold by this fabric store for the entire coming year.

What do you think about holiday-theme ambient scents? Do you enjoy them? Do you use them? What are your favorites and least favorites? Do they influence your attitudes and behavior?

[Pine cone photos from Wikimedia]

RANDOM PERFUME REVIEW: NEW VICTORIAN

2011-11-08T08:15:00.000-08:00

I’m not sure why I feel obligated to try every fragrance sample that falls into my hands, but I do. I think I’ve been pleasantly surprised just often enough to give everything the benefit of the doubt, no matter how much I think I’m going to hate it. I’ve had a carded sample of Jessica McClintock's New Victorian for ages, ever since some SA threw it in a bag when I made a purchase of another item. I recall smelling it from the vial, recoiling in horror, and burying it in a box trying to forget that I had it. Jessica McClintock’s clothing is so not my style that it seems ridiculous to be sampling one of her company’s perfumes, but I do feel like I need to give it a fair trial before reaching a final verdict.

I feared that it would be super-floral, and so it is. It’s a generic drugstore floral base supplemented with enough jasmine to be distinctly identifiable. It’s an amped-up version of some earnestly conventional sorority girl’s shampoo and conditioner. It’s utterly disgusting, but at the same time makes me feel as if I’m masquerading as someone totally out of character, which is kind of fun in a perverse sort of way. It feels like wearing a junior version of Alien, ready to go to the prom in my shiny, frilly, strapless dress (if only it would stay up!). As it dries down, it becomes even more like a standard functional scent for hair products, and I have to wonder why this type of fragrance seems to be so appealing to so many people, in so many applications. New Victorian appears to still be in production, after all these years, so it must be popular. The world is full of mysteries.

CARDAMOM: LOVE IT OR HATE IT

2011-11-06T12:10:00.000-08:00

My recent post about a perfume I’m working on, Café V, raised in my mind the issue of why the scent of cardamom is so aversive to so many people. To me, it’s just the delicious spice that’s put in chai, sweets, and sometimes coffee, to enhance its flavor.

Cardamom (or cardamon, as it’s sometimes spelled) is a plant related to ginger, and native to India. The part that’s used for spice and to make essential oil for perfumery is the seeds, which come in three double rows of small brown or black seeds with a shape that’s somewhere between a sphere and a cube, tightly packed in a woody pod.

There are two different genera of plants known as “cardamom”. Elettaria cardamomum, which is called “green cardamom”, “true cardamom”, or “cinnamon palm”, is native to India, and is the commonly used spice, also known as “elaitchi”. Amomum, also called “black cardamom”, is native to other parts of Asia and Australia. I’m not sure I’ve ever encountered the black variety in a spice shop, but will have to check my local Indian grocery and see if they have any. “White cardamom” is just the green cardamom pods that have been heat-treated and bleached to make them look cleaner.

The cardamom plant looks like a giant ginger plant, or an odd sort of palm, growing to 15 feet tall. It flowers with long stalks of light green and violet flowers that develop into the seed pods. Apparently it can be grown as a house plant, although I’m sure it prefers growing outdoors on a cardamom plantation in nice tropical weather.

In cooking, cardamom is used as a flavoring in chai and coffee, in many different Indian sweets and curries and, oddly enough, in Scandinavian baked goods. I think maybe the reason why most Americans and Europeans dislike cardamom in perfume is because it’s unfamiliar. Maybe it smells like a weird form of cinnamon or cloves. It’s a lot sharper, more resinous, and aromatic than cinnamon, and a lot more complex than cloves, without the smoky aspect of cloves.

I’ve used cardamom in small quantities in Kyphi and Gujarat, but in those compositions there’s so much else going on that the cardamom just blends into the general mix and probably can’t be identified. When I used it in Café V, it was a principal note, so people picked up on it. I like cardamom better than cinnamon in perfume, but that’s just my own preference. I certainly like cardamom better than cinnamon in coffee and tea. I would almost wear cardamom oil alone as a perfume, but I can imagine that it would not be well-received by all who encountered its sillage. Others would just wonder, “Where’s the chai?”.

[Cardamom plant and botanical illustration from Wikimedia]

CATASETUM EXPANSUM: A MINTY-FRESH ORCHID FRAGRANCE

2011-11-05T15:40:00.000-07:00

Catasetinae are an odd group of orchids. Unlike most other orchids, they often have either male or female flowers depending on growing conditions, although sometimes the flowers are hermaphroditic. If this sounds confusing, it is.

Right now I have a Catasetum expansum that’s in full bloom with large, shiny, light green flowers. I didn’t realize at first that they were fragrant, but quickly discovered that they smell just like spearmint with a little touch of anise. It’s the coolest, freshest orchid scent that I’ve ever smelled. It could be a toothpaste or chewing gum. Not really perfume material, but interesting nonetheless.

The flowers on my plant are male. When I touched one of them on the little spring-loaded trigger right over the lip, the pollinia shot out at high speed, as if from a gun, even making a little explosive sound. The two pollinia are attached to a tiny white tab with a dot of sticky stuff at the base. They stuck to my hand, just as they would stick to an insect’s back for transport to a female flower that actually offers a sip of nectar, not just a slap on the back.

I’m not sure what kind of insect finds spearmint attractive, but there must be one.

THE NEW FRAGRANCES: CAFÉ V

2011-10-27T08:59:00.000-07:00

The last of the new fragrances was Café V, presented in two different versions. I learned something very interesting from the testing of these two, and will take the fragrance back to the drawing board for adjustments. This is the last super-long post for a while, I promise!

GAIL
Café V#1
Initial: Sweet tobacco smoke and something like carnauba wax
5 minutes: Vanilla, tea and cocoa. The carnauba wax is still strong.
15 minutes: The waxy edge is blending with the vanilla and cocoa. The smoke is still evident.
30 minutes: The carnauba wax is still around but becoming less prominent. Some warm woody smells.
50 minutes: Cinnamon and some other spices appearing as wax dissipates.
2 hours: Wood, spices, vanilla. The wax is just about gone.
6 hours: Dries down to a familiar combination of nutmeg, vanilla, and spices.
General comments: The most memorable impression I had of Café V #1 was the odor of carnauba wax. After 2 hours this scent shifted from specifically carnauba wax to just a general “waxy” smell which lasted until about 4 hours into the test. At 6 hours there was still a hint of wax mixed with a distinctive Olympic Orchids blend of nutmeg, vanilla, etc. While I like the smell of carnauba wax I wouldn’t want to wear it as a personal fragrance. I like this scent from about 50 minutes to the end.

Café V #2
Initial: Sweet tobacco smoke, some spices and carnauba wax (less penetrating than in #1)
5 minutes: More spice, even less carnauba wax
15 minutes: Vanilla, cocoa, spice, generic wax
30 minutes: Less of an edge all around than #1. Vanilla, wax, pice, cocoa
1 hour: More vanilla. Some leather.
2 hours: Light vanilla, leather, very light cinnamon and spice.
6 hours: Light vanilla and leather. Very light combination spice. Familiar Olympic Orchid drydown like #1.
General comments: When I read your notes I couldn’t believe that I had totally missed the coffee element in both of the versions. #2 is creamier, less edgy than #1. I also don’t get as much of the carnauba wax in the opening of #2. #2 is easier for me to wear but it has less personality than #1.

CELINA
Cafe 1 seems to be little bit more woody and the cocoa is toned down compared to version 2. I don't know if that reflects the concentrations or version 2 has different notes that are enhancing the cocoa. Maybe that could be explained by the presence of the creamy note. In version 2 the cocoa is more rounded and sweeter.

Cafe 1 feels more quiet , woody and leathery and the cocoa is showing more its dark and earthy side. It feels the other notes are surrounding the leather.
Version 2 somehow feels more friendly and rounded. After reading the composition I can definitely see that even if "the creamy note" is hard to define, still helps that first impression of friendliness; the cocoa is more chocolate-y but still dark, the leather is still there, but the coffee note comes out more defined. However, all notes blend together, they feel like being part of the same fragrance. They play the same melody.

In version 1 the coffee is more roasted and less smoky, it blends in the leathery tone, in Vesion 2 the coffee is smoky but little bit more defined and rounded with a gourmand feeling. Foody gourmand and not sweet gourmand.

If I have to choose that would be difficult. Ver 2 is little bit more accessible and also more loud, couple of notes more accentuated. Ver 1 feels more toned down, without that gourmandisime tone, feels more dry and distant, but distant in an inviting way. It makes you want to go back to get a bit more, like you are not satisfied enough. It makes you wonder.

Ver 2 is more about the coffee. Everything blends into it. After a sniff it my brain is able to remember the fragrance.

Somehow ver1 is hard to catch and describe. It feels like a fragrance with a multitude of faces. Coffee and leather and woody and smoky.

I have a hard time deciding what I like more.

LAURIE BROWN
Café V version 1- It opens with cinnamon, and leather, and sweetness. Too much leather for my taste. I have a problem with leather scents- even though I know darn well they have other things in them, leather tends to be all I can smell. Mike sent me a sample of one he made (the Paris Metro one) that had leather and flowers, and all I could smell was leather. I’ve tried to use leather myself, and finally gave up when I had it diluted to 1% (using leather accord from TGSC) and it was still overpowering. But, at least, with yours, after about a half hour the leather fades a bit and it gets sweeter. But I’m afraid I don’t smell it as very complex, even though I can see from your notes it is.

Café V version 2- okay, I love this one! It opens with a cinnamon bun hot out of the oven, warm and spicy. Five minutes in the leather steps forward, but the scent is still spicy, not skanky. The cinnamon fades a bit and lets the other spices out. The creamy note is defiantly noticeable- it kept making me think of ice cream. I love creamy. Never did smell the coffee. This one lasts a good amount of time on me; the balsam and myrrh and leather really hang in there- I can still faintly smell it after over six hours. AND the leather, though very apparent, never dominates. I was able to enjoy it rather than cringing from it! It would have never occurred to me to put leather and gourmand together, but it WORKS. Wonderfully.

EdC
Cafe V [1 and 2] both seem like fougeres with different top notes - something green in the #1 and incense in the #2. The fougere part of each has something that smells industrial to me, sort of like 3 in 1 Oil. I like it! I think I may have suggested using it in someone's discussion of what a steam punk perfume would be. It's not dominant.

I’ve tried going from one sample to the next (keeping them in different rooms). I found the Café V #1 to be slightly sweeter and the Café V #2 to be slightly more woody. I hope this helps with your planning, but it’s probably better if not too many people share my association of machine oil with myrrh. Or you could call it steam punk and put some sort of gothic Dickensian label on the bottle.

ROBERT
Café V: Unfortunately, both these variants are not my cup of tea (or should I say, coffee). There is a note in both these scents - also very dominant in Kyphi and somewhat less noticeable in Bay Rum - that I don't care for. And I can't put my finger on what it is! Mind you, while I LOVE coffee, I have yet to find a fragrance that contains coffee that I like - with the exception of Jean Laporte's L'Eau de Navigateur where the very heavy spices seem to enhance the coffee note. I am sure that you will get positive responses from your other testers on both these scents, but I would have felt like a hypocrite if I didn't give my honest opinion. Incidentally I have been wearing and enjoying your three other samples that you sent to me. I even tried mixing a very small amount of the Salamanca with some Rose Chypre and the result was very beautiful - at least to me.

JOAN ELAINE
Cafe V 1
First impression: creamy mocha w/ a touch of bitter coffee
Vetiver and patchouli? violet leaf?
2nd testing, one week later: a nutty, oily note, walnut-like. Citrus - peel, not juice. 5 min. in, there seems to be a note that's hovering above, all-spice or nutmeg, mace? Feels discordant to me.
20 min in: notes smell more harmonious at this point, but something still seems to be hovering.
35 min. in: I think I have identified the hovering smell - it's not "discordant", it smells like a spice I don't like: cardamom. I think that's the nutty, oily smell too.
I like the creamy/bitter contrast.
On paper, it smells delicious, like chai without the black tea. Unfortunately for me, it smells flat and oily on my skin!
cafe V 2
Orange mocha!
This doesn't smell creamy, it smells citrusy - more orange, bitter coffee and cardamom. I prefer this blend to no.1.
On paper, it's quite juicy and vibrant, chocolate-y, rosy, a little spicy. Patchouli, rose, nutmeg? It smells wonderful.
For some reason, it smells flat on my skin- again, that nutty, oily smell. However, 10 minutes in, it starts to pop up - spicy coffee.
Pleasant and cozy, it would make a beautiful scent for Autumn.

DIANA
Cafe V #1 - No medicinal opening here, dry and less sweet or creamy so not really gourmand, though still foodie in a way. Like the smell of fresh roasted coffee beans instead of a coffee drink or flavored food. It's less chocolate-y and more like a good shot of espresso from beans with a touch of coffee to them. It's less aggressive than two, and the sillage is smaller, but I like it very much. I probably prefer #1 to #2, which surprised me because I normally love sweet foodie, but this really spoke to me.

Cafe V #2 - I get an almost medicinal sweetness in the immediate opening here, like a combination of dry bitter chocolate and moss. Almost liqueur-like, like one made of coconut and chocolate liqueur. I definitely get the leather, like new fresh leather, newly treated for commercial use. Veeery foodie, particularly next to #1. The whole thing in my mind is like an exhibit in a modern art exhibit: a coffee cream filled dark chocolate petit four made, not from food, but made entirely of different colors, textures, and ages of leathers.

INES
I really am sorry to say that something in those two samples doesn't work well with my stomach. I'm guessing the leather-cardamom combination. That doesn't happen often, but recently it also happened with DSH Cuir et champignon.
Of the two, I think version 1 is lighter on my stomach. It smells to me rocky, sweetly, lightly coffe-ish and smoky.

Number two has a lightly meaty quality I couldn't place where I was getting it from the notes and seemed to me a bit stronger version of 1. I don't understand the idea of meaty smokiness but it just doesn't suit me, so if I were you, I'd take my thoughts on these 2 out of the equation.
----------------------

All of the comments were insightful and fun to read, and there were two comments that I was particularly struck by - the characterization of Café V as “steampunk” and the one that described it as a modern art rendition of a petit four made entirely of leather. Now that I think about it, a big industrial espresso machine does have a steampunk look, so it's right in keeping with the theme. And I love the idea of the leather sculpture.

Poetic descriptions aside, the first and most important thing that I discovered from these reviews is that a lot of people intensely dislike cardamom. This comes as a little bit of a surprise to me, since it’s one of my favorite spices. The first adjustment will probably be to either back off a lot with the cardamom or omit it entirely. The second thing - not a surprise - was that the coffee needs to be bumped up. The addition of the creamy note seems to be a toss-up. Some like it, others prefer the version without it.

Some impressions are all over the map - carnauba wax, 3-in-1 oil, meat, orange, etc. I don’t worry too much about these outliers, since everybody comes up with their own odd take on things. What I do worry about is several people mentioning that the cardamom was overpowering and the coffee hardly noticeable. I think the chocolate needs bumping up, too.

The bottom line seems to be that this is worth pursuing, but will require some more work to make it appealing to the majority of people.

[All images, including the anonymous painting, are from Wikimedia]

THE NEW PERFUMES: EMERGENCE

2011-10-22T11:54:00.000-07:00

I’ve presented the two perfumes that I’ll add to my line, and now it’s time for the two that I’m going to rethink a little before deciding what to do with them. The first of these is Emergence, meant to represent the first few indolic days of an orchid’s bloom, before it goes into full production of its main theme.

GAIL
Initial: Immediate blast of sweet and funky fruit and flowers
1 minute: Some sandalwood? Camphor is here but more like an aura than a distinct fragrance note.
2 minutes: Some sweet citrus appears
5 minutes: The fruity funk still predominates, but the citrus and camphor push through
6 minutes: Here comes some honey. Also can detect some amber (?) and labdanum (?). The fragrance is losing its sweet edge and is blending into the familiar Golden Cattleya.
15 minutes: The initial funk has still not faded. I think I would like some cedar and more camphor at this point
30 minutes: “Golden Cattleya” is here with a sweet, camphor halo.
1 hour: Similar to 30 minutes but weaker.
2 hours: Lingering orange, honey and a little spice (?)
6 hours: A trace of what I smelled at 2 hours. All but gone.
General comments: The initial sweet blast was almost too much for me but it didn’t take long for the first impression to resolve into a modified “Golden Cattleya” with a lovely aura of camphor. The sweet introduction, including indole and civet and some fruit or other seemed to be stronger in “Emergence” than in the prototype “Cattleya #1”. While I find these quite strong my husband really likes them. There is something very sexy and brazen about the first impression of this fragrance.

CELINA
This is my old love. I can feel the top note are changed. Indolic and slightly camphorous. Beautiful. The base is less sweet and I like that. If the old version was more opulent and rich this one comes with a little bit of introduction. I love indoles so even a higher ratio would have been fine. I find this fragrance unique and lovable. No attributes will make justice. No description can be satisfying. This is a fragrance you have to smell and enjoy.

LAURIE BROWN
After the dryness of the first two scents, this one really startled me. So sweet! And not just sweet, but effervescent! It was like Sweet Tarts (those sour/sweet candies we had as kids, er, 50 years ago) and it *fizzed* in my nose! I’d love to know how you managed that. I’d mix it with something winey and try for champagne in a scent! Anyway, after about 10 minutes the fizzy goes away for the most part and the scent deepened, and it smells like musk and feels like mink. After 30 minutes, it is powdery, warm and golden, but still sweet. I LOVE it, and was sorry that it faded so fast on me- an hour? But like I said above, that’s not unusual for me. I don’t know what notes a standard Golden Cattleya has but I think I’d like it. Aha! Reading your notes again I see there is civet- that’s where the mink came from.

EdC
Emergence seems like it stays "the same" (something like orange) but changes character from a fruit to a floral to a spice to a wood. I have to check "the same" by comparing samples put on paper at different times but it's something I haven't heard of any perfumer doing before. Love it!

[After trying them all] Emergence remains my favorite. To my nose it started as a sweet fruity orange, then morphed into a semi-floral orange, a citrusy orange, a spicy orange, a woody orange, and finally a dusty orange, all over about 15 hours (on paper). Surround was good but I wouldn’t worry about intruding on others.

ROBERT
My first thought was that this was a copy of Golden Cattleya. However, when comparing them side-by-side, there are distinct differences: the Emergence is fresher and lighter with some sort of medicinal note while the older version is very heavy, sweet and sultry. I believe that the older version is a better fragrance; it seems more rounded and more distinctive. Golden Cattleya reminds me of Guerlain's L'Heure Bleue. While the fragrances have distinctively different notes, they both have the glow of sunset and an enduringly heady projection. Golden Cattleya seems to come from a different era - one where opulence and indolence were common among the extremely wealthy. Narcisse Noir also belongs in this category.

With that being said, I would probably wear the Emergence on special occasions; the Golden Cattleya is just too floral and sweet. Basically I see Emergence as a good fragrance but Golden Cattleya as being better and perfect on the right woman. I am just very thankful that someone is making fragrance that is neither "fresh", "clean" nor "on-trend" and does not smell as if it comes from a chemical factory!

JOAN ELAINE
First impression on skin: citrus leather, a little creamy. Sweet but not sugary -honeyed!
Signature - this perfume was created by Ellen Covey, no doubt!
Second testing a week later - Reminds me of Golden Cattleya. Do not smell anything leathery. I tested it the same night I tested Salamanca - maybe that's why I thought I could smell leather?
Very well blended at top. Neroli? Orange blossom? About 5+ minutes in, seems more floral - narcissus and jasmine? Smells fantastic!
Seems to be getting sweeter now, 15+ minutes in, candied.
30 min: muskiness seems to be emererging. I like this- like a honeyed-skin, ripe peaches.
Sunny, sweet and sexy!  

DIANA
Oh so pink! But also something bitter and dry at the front. I get a lot of civet, so the scent gets earthier throughout the drydown. It reminded me of candied roasted pecans rolled in fertilizer. After looking at brief: the dryness must be the camphor. Personally I get a lot of civet, almost too much. That can be good, under the right circumstances. For me, though, this might be just a touch too much.

INES
Well, it really reminds me of your other orchid scents. Unfortunately I didn't try those side by side with this one, I can just tell it has your orchid signature. And before you take me wrong, I really like that. It's uniquely yours and very enjoyable.

Starts sweet and lightly fruity and reminds me a lot of a type of bubblegum we had here when I was little. Afterward, sometimes I get an ambery feel I enjoy a lot, and sometimes I don't, but it doesn't seem to change a lot.
------------------------------
The comments overall seem positive, but the take-home message that I got is that it’s still a little too close to the original Golden Cattleya. After sending out samples, I found that the indole, civet and camphorous notes progressively decline as the concentrate sits. These notes were super-strong at first, but are now quite subtle. The differences in the extent to which people smelled indole, civet, and camphor may have had to do, in part, with the time that the blend sat before testing. I have learned that this particular formula requires a very long time to stabilize. I’m trying to decide whether to tweak it some more or just move on to another indolic, civet-drenched orchid scent, that of Encyclia radiata. I think I may go for the Encyclia.

After all of this testing, I will probably end up with a list of fragrances that will never be listed on the main pages of my website, but that can be special-ordered through the wild card option if anyone wants them.

THE NEW FRAGRANCES: SALAMANCA

2011-10-16T12:51:00.000-07:00

Salamanca is the second test fragrance that seems to have been well-received by most everyone who tried it, so I’ll be gearing up to produce it, too, at least for a while. Here are the remarks of the testers, only slightly edited to consolidate information about this scent:

GAIL
Initial impression: Sweet, smoke
4 minutes: More smoke, paper, industrial oil smell, oiled leather
33 minutes: Industrial oil smell has faded somewhat. Smoke remains. Noticing some earth, hay or grass and sweet flowers.
1 hour: Industrial smell gone but smoke remains. Perhaps vetiver? The same earth smell, hay or grass and sweet flowers.
2 hour: Dry grass, sweet flowers, light vetiver. The heavier smoky smell is gone.
6 hours: Just a light sweetness remains.
General comments: I found this to be the most interesting of the samples. The industrial oil smell I refer to is what I recently encountered when I opened a wooden crate that contained a wood chipper made in China. I could also describe the industrial scent as the smell of a fire burning high clay content paper and plastic. While I found the industrial oil scent intriguing, I was glad when it faded. I did a test a couple of days after this recorded test and found that the industrial smell faded a lot faster the second time. I like the dry aspect of “Salamanca”, the hay, earth and sweet flowers and would wear it as is with no changes. When I opened the envelope I was surprised to learn of the air-cured ham!

CELINA
It reminds of Leather Oud by Dior. However I like this one much more. It feels more refined. The woody- herbal side is a perfect combination.

Definitely immortelle in it. I love its dryness and the lack of sweetness. It feels arid and partly raw but in my books this is a perfect leather. It is really beautiful.

It is all about the leather, the other notes feel like a glove embracing it. They add complexity, enhancing all the aspects of the central leathery accord. For me this is just perfect.

Maybe other noses would prefer it less dry and feel it more accessible if there was a warmer undertone. I am not thinking about vanilla or tonka that are too much on the sweeter side. Maybe a warm tone with an animalic feeling that would embrace the leather. Maybe Labdanum in a very low ratio 0.01 - 0.001/1 ml of total extract. More like an aura and not a main player.

Also I like the soft smokiness. It gives more substrate to the base.
The herbal tones are a perfect match. They become more evident in the late drydown once the leather tones down. I love the woody accord. Maybe there was no intention to have a woody accord but somehow all the woody notes come together. They blend perfectly with the herbaceous earthy notes.

This leather is just glowing. Obviously I love it. One of the best modern leathers.

LAURIE BROWN
This is a fairly linear scent on me. At the very opening, just for an instant, there is a harsh note that fades almost instantly. Then the scent is very dry, a hayfield in late summer with no sweetness. I smell a tiny touch of leather. I think you hit this one right on the head based on your description- I tried it on a dry day and it was right with the feel of the day; I tried it on a very humid day and it made me feel better and less sticky! (ah, the brain is a wonderful thing) All the bottle needed was the sound of grasshoppers creaking around… I need to get hold of some mitti. I’ve tried to do a scent before that had grass and herbs and earth, and failed at the earth. I’m wondering if the mitti would do the trick.

JOAN ELAINE
First impression on skin: leather? cedar? birch tar? cumin?
Second impression, one week later. Upon application, seems so tightly blended, nothing is popping out at me. Has a smoothness to it, and an effect of smokiness that doesn't choke like breathing in smoke would - almost like the feel of smoking a menthol cigarette. Smoky, yet smooth.
15 minutes in, this one really builds a momentum on my skin, it's quite radiant, but no change. Mostly linear. A few minutes later, I smell a light floral note. Jasmine or rose? I would love more!
The dry down gets smokier, campfire smoky, but there is also a herbal scent in there, coriander perhaps? I quite like the drydown!
On paper, I smell a grassy note, and a minute later begins to get smoky/leathery. I can smell a floral note, rose? Is there a bit of tobacco in there? Salamanca smells better on paper than on my skin. On the right person, this would smell fantastic!

EdC
I find Salamanca to be dominated by the note that’s probably myrrh but that my nose keeps identifying as 3-in-1 oil. When I smell myrrh, it doesn’t smell like machine oil. But it doesn’t smell very strongly of anything to me – maybe slightly woodsy but not smoky. Yet when I smell the 3-in-1 oil right after the myrrh, I don’t smell the oil much either. I guess there’s something in common & I’m not very sensitive to the differences. Maybe my brain insists on identifying the unknown as the thing it knows better.
I’ve tried going from one sample to the next. The Salamanca seems much the biggest and the most like 3-in-1 oil. But I also get a lot of frankincense and maybe just a touch of orange. I like the frankincense I own but it is a very short-lived top note. The frankincense in Salamanca lasted at least 3 hours. So Salamanca is my favorite of these three [the other two are the different versions of Café V].

DIANA
You know what this smells like it me? A lovely new leather notebook and a pair of brand new leather shoes. It's a great smell, and incredibly identifiable. As a journal writer for most of my life, I know and love this smell. To me? Smells like new beginnings. Looking over the brief you wrote: I think it's a good description. I get all the things you mention except for the ham (okay maybe a little smoked meat in there, but on me its overwhelmed by leather). Grass, leather, the faintest hint of immortelle -- all there. I love how musty/dusty it smells -- a good old used book store! My favorite of the group. So pretty and so familiar and beloved a smell it makes me feel a bit verklempt. Wonderful -- don't change a thing!

INES
I really enjoyed this one, the dry, sharp beginning but in my mind it smells more enviromental than perfumey. Which I guess is what you were aiming for. The smell of the city. It really smells like a person being somewhere and smelling around himself. Plus, I really like the idea of leather and polish, it reminds me a lot of shoemakers shops when I was little. It's strong, potent, dry as dust but also sharp with a herbal tinge (like a very fragrant shrub). On me it basically dries down to the same thing it started from, only less sharp and dry.

----------------------------------------------
There seem to be two camps on Salamanca, those who smell machine oil and/or notes unrelated to anything that’s in the mix, and those who smell dusty dry grass and leather. For the life of me, I can’t figure out why there should be this bimodal distribution, but it seems to be fairly typical of population reactions to perfume, when enough people sample it. It must have to do with the genetics of olfactory receptors, or maybe it’s simply different experiences, in this case recent experience with machine oil of certain types. It’s possible that the mimosa absolute that I used comes across as “oily” to some people, since it does have an odd, sharp note at the beginning. There’s no smoke, although people seem to interpret the vetiver or some aspect of the leather as smoky, and I can certainly understand how either or both of these might seem smoky. I think on the whole, though, people perceived pretty much what I set out to represent - a dry, dusty, leathery, grassy, herbal scent with the woodiness of vetiver and just a touch of sweetness added by the mimosa and immortelle.

On the whole, the reactions were positive enough to encourage me to go ahead and produce Salamanca for as long as I can obtain the materials that go into it. It contains a quite a few natural materials, including a wonderful vetiver-mitti codistillation that I used in the dry grass accord. To my surprise and chagrin, soon after I formulated Salamanca, the supplier stopped carrying the vetiver-mitti combo along with a lot of other materials, so unless I can locate a new source, Salamanca in its present form will be a limited edition. However, I have a decent supply for now, so onward with this one!

THE NAMING OF THE ROSE

2011-10-13T09:43:00.000-07:00

Before I can launch the rose chypre fragrance, I have to name it. Several of you proposed names, and I’m considering all of them at the moment.

Waftbycarol: “PATALA, which is Sanskrit for rose colored.”

Queen Cupcake:” Le Spectre de la Rose. It was the name of a ballet by Karsavina and Nijinsky, the charming story of which is told here. A young girl returns from the ball, enchanted by the scent of a rose given her by a young man. She falls asleep and dreams that she waltzes with the spirit of the rose. What a romantic and intoxicating scent is rose!”

EdC said...
“This may be too literal but I suggest, The Rose Escapes. I initially smelled a dry rose with just a bit of leather. Pretty soon the leather took over & dominated. But then over time the leather faded and the rose remained free of leather for a long dry down.”

Celina said: “If the top notes were less musky I would have called it Rose Couture or Chypre & Couture.”

These are all wonderful suggestions. Patala also refers to the underworld in Hindu mythology, so might not seem like the best choice. On the other hand, maybe it would be fitting for a musky but intellectual rose that’s like a lover’s bouquet of two dozen roses that have been destroyed in an angry outburst by putting them through a wood chipper (Diana, as you can see, I love the wood chipper image!) How about “Crushed Rose”? “Rose Crush”? “Mangled Rose”? Of course after the roses have been through the chipper, they’re just floating around as ghosts, so “Le Spectre de la Rose” fits, too. I like the ballet reference, since it goes with the idea that the scent is both sensual and intellectual, just as a ballet is full of both emotional abandon and physical discipline. According to EdC, the rose temporarily escaped the clutches of the wood chipper, but eventually got shoved in there anyway to release all of the fragrance from its macerated parts. Celina’s suggestion of “Rose Couture” goes with the intellectual and traditional aspects of the scent. The bottom line is that I like all of these suggestions, and find it really hard to choose just one.

In the end, I’ve been calling it simply “Rose Chypre” for so long that maybe that’s become its name by default. What do you think?

[Vase of roses painting by Ferdinand Georg Waldmueller, 1843]

WHEN IS SHARP FLAT?

2011-10-09T12:21:00.000-07:00

This morning I sampled Andrea Maack’s “Sharp”. I expected this EdP to be … well … sharp - full of aldehydes and galbanum, or something along those lines, but it’s not. In fact, it’s the exact opposite. It’s soft and matte, more a light woody vanilla gourmand than anything else. It’s like white almond nougat, mostly just sugary sweet with traces of meringue, toasted almond and vanilla. What makes it different is the woody aspect, as if it had been made in an oak barrel. The whole thing is underscored by white musks, not obtrusive, but filling out the composition. After my initial encounter I read the list of notes, which are pretty much in line with what I smelled, except for the listed orange blossom, which is minimal at best, although orange blossom does briefly appear close to the skin about an hour or two into the drydown if one goes looking for it. In the end, it’s a standard, soft vanilla-musk.

I was liking the scent a good bit, in a low-key sort of way, until I read the manufacturer’s list of notes, which immediately sent me into rant mode. What the **** is “angel skin”??? Andrea Maack is an icelandic artist who farmed out the making of several perfumes to a French manufacturer, so maybe it’s an Icelandic name for white nougat, but then why not use the common name for the candy? If it’s not an obscure type of candy, then it’s completely unhelpful to the person trying to decide if they want to try the perfume, since I would think the common assumption would be that angel skin, like the skin of other mythical creatures, is odorless. As far as I know, it’s not like “dragon’s blood”, which is an actual plant-derived resin, or “baby’s breath”, which is a flower, or “angel hair”, which is a type of pasta, or even “angel food”, which is a type of cake. Googling “angel skin” doesn’t turn up any such alternative meaning, although I did see one comment on a perfume forum asking “how many angel skins can fit into a bottle of “Sharp?" This question immediately conjured up visions of a witch stirring a bubbling pot filled with the foreskins of newly-circumcised baby angels. I know white styrofoam packing peanuts are sometimes referred to as “angel turds”, so maybe “angel skin” is bubble wrap. And “soothing softness”? Come on, can’t you be more specific? Is this a euphemism for “fabric softener scent”? Am I missing some intended clever irony in calling a perfume full of “soothing softness” “Sharp”? Is the Andrea Maack perfume called “Smart” going to turn out to be stupid or dowdy, and the one called “Craft”, a bungled mess? I really hope not.

Maybe there’s a whole untapped realm of perfume notes - angel feathers, unicorn sweat, alien spaceship deodorizer, hell-fire and brimstone, ghost’s aura, Santa Claus beard, the river Styx, Pandora’s box … the list could go on and on. It’s one thing to use these sorts of names for a perfume, but it’s quite another to use them as descriptions of the materials that went into making the perfume, which I always thought were intended to give potential buyers an idea of what the fragrance would actually smell like in real-world terms with which they are familiar. On the other hand, we have “amber”, “aquatic”, and “musk” commonly used to describe perfume notes even though they have nothing to do with the scent of real amber, water, or musk, so maybe it’s OK for odd names to be used to describe synthetic fantasy notes. If used often enough, eventually everyone will come to recognize them for what they are.

Of course, one advantage of using silly names for perfume notes is that people will discuss what they might be. As we all know, bad publicity or dubious publicity is better than no publicity, so maybe there's a rationale behind it all.

What do you think about the use of fantasy names for perfume notes? What about contradictions between the name and the fragrance?

[Angel painting by Franz Von Stuck, 1889; Unicorn painting by Domenico Zampieri, 1602]

THE NEW FRAGRANCES: ROSE CHYPRE

2011-10-06T10:07:00.000-07:00

WARNING: This is a very long post!

Most of the testers of the four new fragrances have sent comments back to me, so I’m going to start the series on evaluating them. If I've mislaid anyone's comments, please let me know! It looks like two of the fragrances will go into production with minimal tweaking, and two others will go back to the “lab” for further work. I’ll discuss the two that seem more or less ready for release first. As a thank-you for reviewing this fragrance, each of you will who responded will receive a 5-ml spray vial of the rose chypre once it’s officially named and the formula and packaging are finalized.

The rose chypre seems to have been fairly well received by everyone who’s responded so far. It’s fascinating to read the different comments and be reminded of just how much variety there is in the way different people perceive the same scent, and even the different ways in which the same person perceives it at different times. First, I’ll present the comments in their raw form, and then try to pull some common threads out of them.

GAIL writes:
“Initial: Sweet herbs and rose
5 minutes: Citrus begins to predominate over the rose. Bergamot? Citrus leaves?
6 minutes: I expected some waxy aldehyde and here it is.
10 minutes: Musk warms up the rose. Citrus fades a bit.
30 minutes: Labdanum, spicy green rose, soap (wax)
40 minutes: Oakmoss is taking over the rose and herbs. Not much citrus
1 hour: Oakmoss predominates
2 hours: Oakmoss, rose and herbs
6 hours: Faint rose/oakmoss
General comments: This is a lovely Rose/Chypre. Very classic as you say and well balanced. On my skin it was a cool, green rendition of a rose, more leafy than spicy. I wouldn’t change it at all. I liked it, but would probably not wear it often. I prefer tropicals.”

CELINA writes:
“A clean cousin of L'Arte de Gucci, with some skanky, naughty musk.
The floral - woody balance is quite well proportioned. I like the top note and the first few minutes, after that the musk seems to be little bit overpowering for me and distracts from the beauty of the construction. The musks come down after a while. Because I am not a big fan of the musky notes I still find them overwhelming for the first 2 hours. The rose is pretty nice without being overwhelming. It is more green with a sharp fine edge, not the lush sensuous kind. And that comes most probably from the woody notes. I like the overall feeling.

The best part is the dry down where the rose is like a glow for the whole composition. The woody- musky notes are balancing each other perfectly. I would say there is also a subtle tone of earthy pepperiness, and that makes the musks more attractive.

It feels more of an intellectual fragrance in dry down. If the top is skanky and at some point gives you a frivolous feeling, the dry down is part sophisticated and part intellectual with a subdued femininity. Pretty well done. I wish the musks were less liberal in the top note but that is just me. I am sure lots would love it exactly like this. (I am not the best judge when talking about musk.) After 4 hours it is perfect and beautiful. The musks are more quiet, everything is in perfect harmony. Well put together.”

LAURIE BROWN writes:
“I tried this one first because I love chypres. I’d kill to get another bottle of the Coty original, which I had years ago. Right off the top, I get a hay-like note (which is odd, since I don’t see any coumarin in your notes!) There is a breeze of something powdery. About five minutes in, roses start to bloom. Tea rose and the oakmoss start coming on. Then something golden arrives- I’m going to guess it’s the labdanum. After about 20 minutes, the roses come back, but deeper, red roses this time, like an old Hybrid Perpetual like General Jacqueminot. After awhile, the rose fades again, and the oakmoss takes center stage for several hours, actually. But there is a sweetish edge to the oakmoss – the labdanum again? The musks? Or perhaps the patchouli, although at no point could I have pinpointed patchouli in the blend. I like it a lot, although I think I’d like it even better with something green in it, perhaps a tiny touch of galbanum. But that’s just me; I love green.”

ROBERT writes:
“Another beauty... Your Rose Chypre fragrance reminds me of the wonderful scents that were available from a myriad of sources during the Fifties and Sixties. A bright and lush rose is surrounded by a veil of forest. It is a little like Cabochard (but not as spicy) or Knowing (but not as dark). I have worn Aramis 900 so I am not that unfamiliar with this type of fragrance and I will be wearing this on more formal occasions; the chypre ingredients seem to make the rose fragrance less overtly floral. This is a beautiful scent, Elly, and I hope you add it to your regular line. I would also be interested to see this fragrance with just a smidgen of leather added. Again, it is a pleasure to use a scent that seems to contain a lot of high quality naturals. Incidentally, the sillage and longevity are excellent.”

JOAN ELAINE writes:
First impressions on skin: Top is berry-like, slightly medicinal fruity scent, like red licorice. There seems to be a note in this I have smelled in another Olympic Orchids perfume; an icy note- Osafume.
One week later, 2nd testing: The medicinal tone doesn't seem to be there any longer, nor the icy note. Rose smells brighter, tea-rose like. Reminds me of Etat Libre d'Orange Rossy de Palma.
3rd testing, the next day: There is a lightly-powdered muskiness I quite like. Better than the Rossy de Palma. I swear I can smell something like mango, or pineapple - perhaps lending its natural muskiness?
This fragrance has good sillage and longevity. Lasts for hours! I changed my mind about this scent in one week - why sampling is important! On paper, it smells like it does on my skin, but I detect a "violet" note - like face powder.”

EdC writes:
I was very impressed by your rose chypre. I like that it starts as a dry rose, becomes a leathery rose, and goes to almost complete leather domination, then works back to rose, all in about 3 hours. Then it stays a clear rose for another 6 or 8 hours. I have no idea how you can alternate which note dominates but I enjoy it.

DIANA writes:
I love the opening because it is aggressive, bold and sexy. I get a lot of clove with the rose. I feel like this would have a middling to large sillage wake. Not overly sweet. Feels very modern to me. I get rose petals, stem, and leaf, as though someone put two dozen roses through a wood chipper and sent it to you in one giant box. I love it! *And* iI don't think it smells like anything else because you managed to avoid an overly sweet or flowery rose.

INES writes:
The last time I tried it, it literally blew me off my feet. :-) It's really incredible. :-)
Dewy, slightly clean/watery in the beginning, rich and full of blossoms, and lighty tinged green. What's not to love?! Honestly, I find it incredible. It also smells purple to me. :-)
It has a deep and rich rose feel, and it reminds me a bit of Paestum Rose by Eau d'Italie but improved. But it also made me think if there are some spices in there, as I know there are in Paestum Rose but compared to Rose Chypre, PR sort of lacks depth and richness. Warm and dry and rosy and absolutely enchanting.
And I can't help but feel it matured into this since the first time I smelled it.

-----------------
Taking all of these comments together, it seems that everyone smelled some sort of rose, although it varied from very green to not nearly green enough, “spicy and green” to “deep and red”. I think the rose can stay pretty much as is, since it is different types of roses to different people, but still rose. A rose is a rose, even when it’s green, red, spicy, or reduced to mangled petals, thorns, and stems straight from the wood chipper. A tiny bit of galbanum in the opening probably wouldn’t hurt, since I like galbanum and it would enhance the initial green impression.

Most everyone seems to have smelled at least some musk, which may be what was perceived as “powdery” or “leathery” by some, although the labdanum could also have been what one tester perceived as “leathery”. One tester thought there was too much musk, which may be quite valid for those of us who can smell every musk ever invented. For others, it’s just fine, so I don’t think I’ll mess with the musks much. I might reduce them a tiny bit, though, since the musk opening seems strong to me, too.

Most testers seem to have gotten at least some hint of the typical chypre structure (bergamot-aldehydes-floral-oakmoss-musk), so I’m satisfied in that respect. I found it interesting that one tester found it to be a very “leathery” scent, while another called for adding a dollop of leather. I’ll think about adding just a touch of leather accord or bumping up the labdanum resin a tiny bit.

I’m pleased that the scent seems to evolve in an interesting way and have good longevity. My goal was to use high quality natural materials to make a classic chypre of the type that is no longer produced by the mainstream, and it seems to have worked out fairly well. I guess in the end, it’s a classic chypre that uses enough modern materials along with the traditional ones so that it doesn’t smell dated. On to final formulation and production!

BLACKBERRRIES: A LOVE-HATE RELATIONSHIP

2011-10-02T10:13:00.000-07:00

It’s blackberry season in the Pacific Northwest. Come to think of it, it’s pretty much blackberry season all year round. The incident in Tom Robbins’ Still Life with Woodpecker, where the house in the Seattle suburbs becomes completely engulfed by blackberry vines was not really an exaggeration. It could happen. It has happened to abandoned buildings in the Seattle suburb where I live.

The blackberries that are the plague of the Seattle area are Rubus armeniacus, the Himalayan blackberry, not the native blackberries, which are puny wimps that don’t stand a chance when their Asian cousins move into the neighborhood. According to one of the local government invasive weed sites, the canes can easily grow 6-12 meters long (20-40 feet), and root at the tips wherever they touch the ground. They can grow from chopped-up bits and pieces. They can produce up to 525 canes per square meter! The mature canes can grow almost as thick as my wrist. I know because I’ve chopped down thousands of them.

The Himalayan blackberry was originally introduced to the US East Coast in 1885 by Luther Burbank, because of its large, sweet, delicious fruit. On the East Coast, from what I’ve seen, it stays fairly well-behaved. However, in 1945 it was brought to the Pacific Northwest, where it apparently found ideal conditions and quickly became a Hydra-like monster that has swallowed up nearly every inch of untended land and invaded even the most cared-for and well-groomed yards, gardens, and open spaces.

Like the deposed king in Still Life, I wage an ongoing battle with the blackberry vines. However, these blackberries are so devious in their evil ways that they lure us into not ever wanting to destroy ALL of them, so they just continue to proliferate. This year, from mid-July through October, they have been producing masses of juicy, aromatic, luscious fruit. Even though I hate blackberries with a passion, I can't help loving it when I walk along a summer roadside and smell blackberries stewing in the sun before I even see them. Once spotted, I can’t resist hunting for the largest, fattest, juiciest, sweetest ones to eat on the spot.

There are different blackberry smells according to the season. In the winter the evergreen vines have a characteristic moldy, musty smell that comes partly from old dried up fruit and partly from the plants themselves. Anyone who has ever chopped blackberry vines knows the sickly green smell of the vegetative parts of the plant. In spring, the moldy smell mostly dissipates and the plants smell wetter and greener, as the new growth explodes. The flowers in spring and early summer don’t have much fragrance, which is probably a good thing because if they did, I would have even more sympathy for them. As it is, I’m so fond of the scent of ripe blackberries that I can’t bring myself to slaughter them all.

Ripe blackberries in the sun have a dense, dark, jammy-sweet, almost floral and musky fragrance that is like nothing else in the fruity realm. Being in the Pacific Northwest, blackberry capital of the world, I’ll have to eventually use the scent of blackberry fruit in a perfume. I’ve got some ideas, but so far haven’t found a good starting formula for making a blackberry accord, and I haven’t smelled anything very realistic in the world of blackberry-themed perfumery. I suppose I could take a raspberry formula and modify it, but just haven’t tried yet. Oh well, yet another adventure that’s on my list of things to do!

NEW LOWS IN SAMPLE DESIGN

2011-09-29T21:17:00.000-07:00

It seems like I’m always complaining about something. I’ve written about bad sample designs before, but recently I’ve encountered some new lows in sample packaging that I feel compelled to write about.

When I got a carded sample of Versace’s Versense, I thought the vial was cute with the little tab sticking up from the light green stopper. Little did I suspect that it would be the stimulus that prompted me to write about new lows when it comes to vial design. It turns out that the “stopper” is actually a cap that is permanently fused to the vial, and the dabber stick is fused to it by a thin layer of plastic. To get at the contents of the vial the dabber stick has to be carefully wiggled back and forth by the tab and broken away from its attachment to the cap. Once the thin plastic seal is broken, the dabber stick lifts out through a tiny hole in the cap. I needed to use a pair of pliers to remove the dabber without breaking it off from the tab, and I suspect that many people would break it off entirely, leaving the dabber stick stuck in the vial, with no way to retrieve it and no way to reseal the vial. Even though I successfully opened the sample, I suspect the liquid that remains in the vial after taking out a test drop will evaporate rapidly once the seal is broken, since the dabber just sits there on the cap without forming a seal. Does the manufacturer really think that people are going to pour the whole vial on themselves at one go? What a waste, assuming I ever wanted to try the stuff again. Fortunately, I do not.

Glass vials that can’t be resealed are not the worst things out there, though. Some manufacturers now use cardboard sheets with a little plastic bubble containing the sample. The Carven Homme pictured here has about 1 or 2 ml of liquid in a clear plastic bubble with a pull-tab on the back to open it up. Once open, that’s it. Single-use, throw away the rest. Again, what are testers to do? Dip their fingers in and dab it on? Pour the whole thing on themselves? Decant it into a real vial with a hypodermic syringe? Did it ever occur to Carven that people might want to try their fragrance more than once before deciding whether to buy it, and don’t want to have to provide their own container in order to do so? I’m not even going to try it once. Things like this deserve to go in the trash.

Right on a par with the plastic bubbles are the moist towelettes sealed up in a plastic or foil packet like the lemon-scented ones given out by eating establishments to clean your hands after eating greasy finger food. I can’t decide whether they are better or worse than the bubble packs. At least they blatantly acknowledge the fact that they are single-use, but I find the whole concept of wiping myself with perfume from a moist towelette off-putting. These go straight to the trash, too. Maybe my snobbishness causes me to miss some of the world’s most wonderful scents, but somehow I doubt it.

Maybe there are other sample packaging lows even lower than the three that I’ve mentioned, but it’s hard to imagine.