THE PLP PROJECT

In case you’re not familiar with the Peace-Love-Perfume Facebook group, it is a very active community of over 600 perfume lovers, presided over by Goodsmella Carlos Powell. If you want to join PLP, you must be sponsored by a current member. This month they’re celebrating their third anniversary by sponsoring a huge one-a-day giveaway, including a bottle of one of my perfumes, and have sent out a challenge to perfumers to create a 3^rd anniversary celebration trio of fragrances based on the peace-love-perfume theme. 

I don't know how many will respond, but how could I not accept the challenge? I’ve just finished formulating the initial drafts of each fragrance, and have reached the stage of tweaking proportions and adding little bits of modifiers as I test them. The general theme is a 70s peace-love-and-flower-child feeling, which is probably the most obvious and conventional approach possible, but that’s not a bad thing given the limited time I’ve had to work on the project.

What I’ve done is create three complementary perfumes that can be worn alone or together.

Peace represents the base, the serious oldest child, with emphasis on incense, vetiver, benzoin, and patchouli. It’s not a heavy, head-shop mix, and it’s not oud, in case anyone was afraid of that. Instead, it’s a thin wisp of incense smoke scented with transparent patchouli and a bit of real sandalwood. It’s light, something to quietly meditate on.

Love is the middle flower child, earthy and colorful. Sandalwood echoes the base of Peace, but with added vanilla, musk, and a blue lotus accord. The first draft uses a synthetic sandalwood material, but I find that it doesn’t harmonize well with the natural sandalwood in Peace, so the final version will use New Caledonian sandalwood absolute. That’s going to increase the cost, but oh well. It’s a limited edition anyway. I may end up adding some more floral notes, but it remains to be seen what happens when the new mix settles down.

Perfume is, as Carlos suggested, a cologne-type fragrance, the flighty and free-spirited youngest child, representing the top notes. It contains vetiver, atlas cedar, benzoin, a fractional distillation of pine wood, incense, Oregon lavender, myrtle, and grapefruit. So far it’s my favorite of the three. I will definitely be wearing this one during our unusually warm August!

I think the official launch date is supposed to be the first of September, so the trio should be ready by then.

[Images are modified from free clip art ones]

THE TWO FACES OF LILITH

This is the final chapter in the reviews of the fragrances made for Sheila Eggenberger's Devil Scent project, based on the characters in her novel Quantum Demonology. 

Neil Morris’s Lilith

starts out as a heady mix of flowers, citrusy roses and powdery violets, along with some newly cut grass. It is flowers at their most piercing and insistent, flowers that will simply not be ignored. It’s extremely sweet, keeping just below the threshold of cloying, pushing sweetness to the maximum level at which it’s still pleasant. The sillage has an almost candy-like edge to it, like candied violets.

There’s nothing at all funky about Neil’s Lilith, which came a bit of a surprise. It’s a straight-up floral fragrance that you could wear in any company. No one would raise their eyebrows, except maybe to ask what that divine-smelling floral scent is. This Lilith kills you with love, and you don’t even know it. It reminds me of the old Grateful Dead song lyrics from Push Comes to Shove …

“Shakin’ in the garden, the fear within you grows,

Here there may be roses, to punch you in the nose,

Wrap their arms around you, squeeze you till you cry,

Wrap you in their sweet perfume, and love you till you die.”

That’s exactly what Lilith does. I’m not a big fan of florals, but Neil’s Lilith is an amazingly gorgeous specimen of the floral genre. I would wear it proudly when I want to invoke the soft, super-feminine, seductive side of Lilith. Lilith reclining on a Barbie-bed in her pink lingerie smiling demurely and beckoning to her victim, or Lilith tripping through the sunshine in her flowered sundress, appearing oh so sweet and innocent, never looking at her admirers, but knowing that all eyes are on her and that her victim will inevitably be drawn to her for the kill. Lilith, who pushes her sweet and innocent appearance to the very border of credibility, stopping just milliseconds short of revealing her underlying evil intentions.

Eventually the no-holds-barred florals dry down, leaving a beautiful, soft, powdery comfort scent that makes you want to snuggle up next to it. At this stage it reminds me of a vintage Patou, only better. I could see Lilith becoming my go-to floral fragrance. Kudos, Neil! I’m probably going to "need" a bottle.

Olympic Orchids Lilith

is quite a different creature. LIL is as sharp as Neil’s Lilith is rounded, the floral notes pumped full of piercing kewda, aldehydes, and lime leaf announcing her heartless and evil intentions from the get-go. She’s an immaculately groomed schemer and dominatrix in stiletto heels, her leather underwear camouflaged by a lime-green designer business suit and persuasive smile, her whip at the ready in her designer briefcase. She intimidates her victims with absolute confidence and ruthlessness, using her irresistible will rather than her powers of sweet seduction to force them to their knees. Wealth, confidence, and power can be as seductive in their own way as breathtaking beauty and vulnerability are in theirs.

I’m blown away by how Neil and I managed to invoke these two opposing sides of Lilith so completely, Neil depicting her feminine side, I depicting her masculine side. Put them together, and you have an unstoppable force of nature. I have to go out in public all day today, but next time I’m home alone I’m going to try combining the two and see what happens. One Lilith on the right wrist, one on the left … the yin and the yang ... it should be interesting!

Many thanks to Neil Morris and Amanda Feeley for providing samples of their wonderful creations and to Sheila for inspiring it all. 

[All images taken from the Wikimedia collections]