CATCHING UP

It’s been one of those months when time seems to flash by faster than the speed of light. I woke up one morning at the beginning of February, blinked my eyes, and now it’s getting well into March. It’s felt like running up on the down escalator. I’ve only dealt with immediate and pressing deadlines, so haven’t done any of those things that languish on the second tier – things that can be put off until tomorrow without causing a major disaster. Posting here is one of those things that always seems like it can be put off until tomorrow, but at some point the tomorrows pile up to a critical mass and I feel like I either have to post something or forget about the blog entirely. 

It seems like that time has come, even though March is undoubtedly going to be just as problematic time-wise as February was. On Tuesday morning I leave for an extended trip on university-job business, first to Germany for a consulting gig in Oldenburg, then to visit friends and colleagues in Bonn, then to the Toronto area to give two talks. When traveling, I never know what sort of access I’ll have to the internet, or even how much time I have for anything besides activities planned by others. However, if there are any readers in Oldenburg, Bonn, or Hamilton, Ontario, let me know. I’d love to get together and maybe even sniff some perfume with you!

The big news on the perfume front is that I’ve finally released a fragrance that I’ve been working on for some time, Café V. There’s a first-rate review of it here. Some of you may remember testing earlier versions of it about a year ago. I took your suggestions to heart, and have tweaked it accordingly. Thanks to all who commented on it! The process of tweaking can go on indefinitely, so it really feels good to get closure on a fragrance.

I’m currently working on two chocolate-themed fragrances, a special edition for the San Francisco Fragrance Salon later this month and one for the Seattle Fragrance Salon in May. The chocolate theme is in honor of the fact that both salons are held in conjunction with chocolate shows. I’m proud and excited to have a major perfume event happening on my home turf, and plan to go all-out on the Seattle show given that I don’t have to travel to it. Seattle is really becoming a hotbed of innovative perfumery!

I don’t know whether I’ll have time to get samples ready for my testers before I leave. Let’s assume that I won’t, so they will be coming in late March or early April. If I only post sporadically during March, it’s because of the constraints imposed by travel. 

[Photos of escalator and Schloss Oldenburg (which I'll probably not have time to see) are from Wikimedia] 

THE HOLIDAY GIFT BOX AND RANDOM MONDAY OBSERVATIONS

Saturday morning I worked a shift as a volunteer at one of our local science museums that sponsored a “Meet the Mammals” day. Standing with a few other volunteers at the “flying mammals” table, I had the distinct feeling that I was at a trade show, selling bats, sugar gliders, and flying foxes, and their marvelous adaptations for flight to crowds of little kids and their parents. I felt sad that the small local holiday bazaar in which I participated last year has been canceled this year. 

To make up for this void, I have decided to put together the first ever Olympic Orchids holiday gift box, with a selection of limited edition fragrances for Winter 2012. I’ve modified Café V a bit, and it will be the featured perfume item, in the form of a 5 ml parfum concentration spray. I’ve written about the Café V experiment before, and the fact that it was abandoned because it contains a significant amount of cardamom, a spice that some people seem to dislike. Knowing this, I'm giving customers the option of trying Café V or substituting any of the other 5 ml spray parfums in current production.

Along with the perfume, there will be a bottle of Amber-Labdanum bath oil, the offspring of the popular bath salts I sold at last year’s holiday bazaar, laced with Olympic Amber and a perfect dose of labdanum. There will also be a bar of all-natural patchouli-scented soap, formulated at the request of a friend. As a bonus, thanks to Michael, there will be a CD by the jazz group that he plays with.

The red boxes are here, a batch of Café V is ready to go, and the gift box is listed on the website. I've just set up a Black Friday promotion of free shipping anywhere in the US (code = HOLIDAY) or $5 off international shipping (code = INTERNATIONAL). The codes will be good from midnight on November 22 through midnight on Saturday, November 24, Pacific standard time.

The last time I tried to do a promotion, the discount code function on my shopping cart didn’t work reliably and I had to issue a lot of refunds manually. I’ll talk to the people who host my website (they are actually real people!) and try to make sure the codes are functional this time. Speaking of websites, I’m in the process of switching over my orchid plant website from the dysfunctional company that currently hosts it to the same company that hosts my perfume website. When I tested the link to the orchid plant website, I found that even that doesn't work, and I get a warning from Sophos that a virus has been detected, so I removed the link! It seems that 1&1 is going from bad to worse every day. The switch to the new platform should happen within the next week or two. As soon as the new plant website is up and running there will be free shipping on all orders until I get the new shipping-by-weight algorithms set up. Unfortunately, plants can’t be shipped internationally.

Here’s wishing everyone in the US a happy Thanksgiving and safe travels if you’re going somewhere for the holiday. 

CARDAMOM: LOVE IT OR HATE IT

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]

THE NEW FRAGRANCES: CAFÉ V

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.
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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]