BULBOPHYLLUM ORCHIDS AND LUZONICA FRAGRANCE

It’s Bulbophyllum season in my greenhouse right now, so a description of some of these bizarre orchids seems in order, especially since I have made a Bulbophyllum-inspired fragrance, Luzonica. Bulbos grow like weeds in Southeast Asia where they live as epiphytes on tree trunks and tree branches. The flowers are often pollinated by flies. If you think about what flies are attracted to, you can begin to imagine the typical scents of Bulbos - feces, dead meat, rotten fruit, mostly. A few have pleasant scents, although they’re not your standard florals.

One of the species that I have blooming now is B frostii, with flowers that are usually described as being shaped like wooden clogs. They’re light green with maroon spots, and have a mobile lip that looks just like a maroon tongue. The purpose of the lip is to jiggle in the breeze and attract the fly, then act like a springboard and smash it up against the pollen, which sticks to its back. This pollination system is characteristic of the genus. The “fragrance” of B frostii orchid is like - you guessed it - rotten meat.

Another species that’s blooming right now is B biflorum, shown in the photo at the left. Actually it’s almost always blooming. The flowers look like long dark pink streamers and smell like - you guessed it again - rotten meat.

The third species that’s in bloom right now is B patens. It has shiny, dark maroon flowers that smell like - surprise - cinnamon! It's the one shown in the photo at the very top of this post.

B macranthum is one of the Bulbos that smell like fruit. The first time it bloomed I walked into my greenhouse to find that the whole space smelled like tropical fruit salad, but fruit salad with a dark side. It took me a while to identify the source because this orchid has such tremendous sillage. To make a perfume based on this species, I used a mix of tropical fruit scents, a few tropical florals, and a pinch of funky spice and put it all on a base that’s not anything like your usual girly fruity-floral scent. The base includes “oriental” things like resins, labdanum, and amber, with some animalic notes thrown in by green spikenard and (synthetic) castoreum. It’s interesting that Luzonica seems to be well-liked by all of the men who have tried it so far. I suppose it could be described as a masculine fruity-floral. The effect of Luzonica in soap is interesting because it seems lighter and fruiter and “cleaner” than the fragrance itself. We are testing it in the shower now, and have been enjoying it very much. I think the light, clean fruitiness works well as a bath product, so I lucked out.

THE WEBSITE WORKS!

Many thanks to everyone who looked at my e-commerce website, tried out the various functions, and provided feedback. Some of the suggestions were easy fixes - the typos, slight changes in wording, modifying the shopping cart so that customers don’t have to sign up for an account to make a purchase, and learning what I need to do to have shipping cost calculated automatically. I still haven’t implemented the shipping cost calculation, but I know how to do it and will probably tackle it tomorrow.

I received more than 5 test orders, so have taken the test item off of the website. This weekend I’ll start putting together the goodie boxes for those who submitted test orders, and hope to get them shipped off sometime next week.

This has been a lot of work, but overall I’m happy with the way the website turned out. I really appreciate all of the comments, which are helping make it better.

By the way, the orchid in the photo is Phragmipedium bessae, a species of New World tropical slipper orchid. It's blooming right now, and its color roughly matches that of yesterday's rose, but is much more intense. It looks like it's glowing. Unfortunately, it doesn't have any fragrance.

MY WEBSITE IS ONLINE!

This morning I managed to identify and fix all of the known bugs in the catalog. By afternoon I put the first trial website online. The url is http://www.orchidscents.com. I think it’s functional in all of the basic respects, but it does need to be tested to find whatever bugs remain.

If you would be willing to help me test the e-commerce system by placing an “order” for the test item that I have embedded in the catalog, you will pay one cent and I will send you a big package of items and samples as a thank-you for your testing and whatever feedback you provide. I will do this for the first 5 people who place a test “order”. After that, I’ll see what further testing is needed.

To find the test item, go to the website and click on “Fragrance” in the menu on the left of the home page. The test item is the last one on the list, and is identified by the same orange rose icon shown in the photo. If you “buy” it, you will be taken through the whole shopping cart procedure (I hope), and I will be notified of your “order”. I will then have your shipping information and can send you your goodie box. Any and all comments regarding the website will be appreciated.

I am excited to move on to this next stage of sharing my creations with the public.

THE LAST OF THE XERJOFFS

Yesterday I completed my testing of all 12 Xerjoff samples. Overall, I’m quite favorably impressed. There are several fragrances that I would actually buy if the prices were in line with those of other niche lines and if I were a person who buys full bottles of perfume. Neither being the case, I’ll probably just enjoy the samples while they last.

Here are the final reviews:

Xerjoff Dhajala
Unfortunately the little sample sprayer that Dhajala came in was broken or malfunctioning, so instead of a spray, what came out was a few dribbles that I spread around as best I could. This is probably not the optimal way to apply perfume, but at least I was able to smell it. Dhajala starts out a little bit citrusy, and a little bit sharp and aromatic from the galbanum and whatever herbal things are in it. As it develops, it takes on a unique, bittersweet scent with hints of rose and some other unidentifiable flowers and woody resins. It is supposed to have “Tonkiphora and Myroswellia balsam” at the base. I have never smelled either of these resins, so cannot judge whether they are present in the mix. Like the other Xerjoff creations, it’s a good perfume, but not worth buying the expensive packaging to get the stuff inside.

Xerjoff Shingl
This was another vial with a malfunctioning sprayer! Curses!!! However, the crammed spray top on this one was actually loose and falling off so that it was possible to get to what was left of the perfume after leakage. Luckyscent, you might want to rethink those spray vials. The first thing that I smell is an incredibly strong, dry, peppery iris note, so strong that nothing else could possibly make its way through. If there’s bergamot or anise in there, it’s completely stomped on by the bloated elephant of an iris. It’s wonderful if you like iris, but if you don’t, then watch out! After an hour or so, the iris becomes creamy as well as powdery and a little boozy - custard and rum flavored, to be exact, and it’s at this point that the scent really comes into its own. With time, Shingl mellows into a sensual, comfortable, leathery-ambery-fruity-musky scent that reminds me a little bit of the original Rochas Femme. Once this transformation happens, I can enjoy it for hours. It’s not really the same set of notes as Femme, but it’s the same genre, if that makes sense. At that point it’s one of those perfumes that provides an example of how I wish my skin smelled, but it was quite a journey to get there.

Xerjoff Lua
Starts off with a sweet and sparkly citrus note that persists as the flowers appear, primarily a light rose with slight hints of violet or iris and something unidentifiable as a specific flower but floral and very sweet. The vanilla-tonka base is there almost from the beginning. After a couple of hours I start smelling some sandalwood in the base. This is a nice, comfortable feeling perfume that is enjoyable from beginning to end.


Xerjoff Nio
Citrus, citrus, citrus! That’s what Nio shouts as soon as it comes out of the vial. It’s mostly natural-smelling fresh lemon peel, with a little orange peel, grapefruit peel, citrus flower and, of course, the compulsory bergamot thrown in for good measure. There may be a little sprig of lavender in it, to stir it around. After a few minutes some strong green notes appear, probably cedar or cypress leaves, and there’s vetiver supporting it all. I’m not usually fond of citrus + green scents, but this one is an exception. It’s strong and assertive, with plenty of character. The spices aren’t really evident individually, but I think they help round out the overall impression. For a scent in the “men’s cologne” genre, this one is exceptionally nice.


Xerjoff Dhofarr
Starts out like a citrusy, herbal-lavender, slightly sweet and soapy men’s cologne. It’s possible that what smells like citrus is actually the listed pine needle note mixed with other citrus-like things. It seems to have a pinch of cumin and/ or coriander in it and my initial assessment was that there is some vetiver at the base. However, on reading the notes and seeing that it contains “jatamansi”, it’s very likely that what gives it the cumin-vetiver combination is spikenard, which on its own provides an earthy-rooty-sweaty-cumin-like note. After a half hour or so the actual pine scent starts coming through, so there probably was citrus initially. Bergamot is so much of a given that they probably don’t even bother listing it in the notes. As the scent dries down, it becomes more and more of a typical “men’s cologne”, heavy on the lavender and cedar. The spikenard goes away, which is too bad since it provided an earthy note. At no time do I smell any labdanum or amber. Dhofar is well-made, but it’s not my style, since I’m not a big fan of lavender-heavy fougere-type fragrances.

PEONIES AND DESIGNING A WEB SITE

PEONIES. The two topics in today’s post don’t go together at all except that it’s the season for both of them. The peonies are in full bloom right now, with all of their different colors, shapes, and fragrances. Peonies are one of the first flowers that I remember from the garden where we lived when I was a preschooler. They were taller than I was, and the fragrance was intoxicating. That’s why, when we moved into the house where we live now, I planted peonies all around the yard. Single ones, double ones, red, pink, and white ones. The flowers are spectacular, especially now that the plants are well established, but the fragrance of most of them is a little disappointing. The only ones that smell the way I remember peonies smelling are the white ones. The others smell good, but not in the strong, sharp, achingly beautiful way that the white ones do. I know there are perfumes that are supposed to have a peony note, but I don’t think I’ve ever smelled one that’s like white peony (or the other colors for that matter). Peony scents are something that I need to explore more.


DESIGNING A WEB SITE. One of the necessary evils of doing business online is designing a website, entering all of the products, and putting it online. So far, I think the gestation of my website is fairly close to being on schedule, with a due date sometime around the end of June or beginning of July. I worked on it a lot today. For the initial version I opted for a no-frills template-based e-commerce site that I can put together myself. According to one well-known personality test, I am type ENFP, which means that I an extroverted, intuitive, feeling and perceiving, in other words lazy and sloppy with little or no tolerance for geeky activities, especially ones that require writing code in HTML, sending files by FTP, or worse.

For my website I chose the least evil-looking of the templates that the host company had to offer, a bland lavender and white thing that seems excessively stark and businesslike, but better than the brown and hospital green alternatives. The only artsy thing about the design is the photos that I put in as illustrations, so maybe I should try to generate a lot of purple prose to match the website’s color scheme. As soon as I can phone the host company on Monday and find out why some of the prices I’m putting in are being rejected, I think I can have the site up and running within hours, or days anyway. At least the tech support people for this company aren’t in the Philippines as they are for the company that hosts my orchid plant website, and they haven’t been trained to give customers one of three irrelevant answers that they randomly read off a card. I’m looking forward to the grand opening of my perfume website within the next few weeks.

LEADING THE NOSE

Since I’ve been giving out samples of my perfumes for testing, I’ve come to the fascinating, almost frightening, realization of how easy it is to lead people’s noses to smell whatever you want them to smell. In the beginning I started out with four orchid scents, but over time have added more than twice that many other scents that had nothing to do with orchids, or even with flowers. However, the original calls for testers had the word “orchid” in the heading, and I think people expected all of my perfumes to be orchid fragrances.

When I have people test my perfumes I like for them to do it blind, so I never provide any description or indication of notes. The variability in what people smell without any context is nothing short of amazing. The only thing I can conclude is that there is so much individual variability in people’s sense of smell that no matter what notes are actually in a scent there will always be some people who perceive it as floral, others as woody, others as citrus, others as animalic, others as gourmand, and so on, and so on. Some people will think it’s a light and cheerful scent, others will think that it’s heavy and depressing. Some people will love it, some will be neutral, and others will hate it. I thought the testing process would identify some clear favorites, but that hasn’t happened.

What has become very clear to me is that people will smell whatever they expect to smell, or some variation of it. When orchids are the context, people will smell orchids even in a scent that contains nothing but cedar, juniper, pine, and aromatic herbs. They will smell orchids in a labdanum-heavy oriental amber scent, a traditional eau de cologne, or in any other scent that you could concoct. Admittedly, part of the problem is that almost no one knows what orchids smell like, and those of us who do know realize that orchids can smell like just about anything, including cedar wood, anise, ylang-ylang, vanilla (after all, real vanilla comes from an orchid plant), artificial cherry, baby powder, chocolate, dead meat, or feces. The “orchid” note in perfumery is a fantasy name for a class of smells that have little or nothing to do with real orchids.

However, I suspect that even for notes like vanilla that are fairly standardized and universally familiar, people will be able to “find” them in a scent with a name or description that suggests that they are present, even if the perfume contains nothing of the sort. I would be willing to bet that many people will be convinced that they smell vanilla in a scent composed of nothing but cedar, black pepper, and cloves if it is named Sexy Vanilla Cream Puff.

I don’t think the suggestibility of our olfactory system is comparable to the phenomenon described by Solomon Asch in the 1950s on visually judging the length of lines. Those experiments showed that when asked to compare test lines with a reference line and choose the two that were equal in length, a sizeable percentage of people would choose the wrong answer if their peers had done so. People are extremely accurate at estimating the length of a line, so in that case, they would all have given the correct answer if asked individually without any peer pressure. The situation in olfaction seems to be much more complicated. The peer pressure phenomenon is there, of course, and is probably quite powerful, but my guess is that the tester sets up a search image that somehow organizes the complex pattern of olfactory-evoked activity in the brain to conform to that image. This probably works because a complex olfactory stimulus can have multiple interpretations, much like a mathematical problem that can have multiple solutions. Perfumers take advantage of this ambiguity by providing one solution out of many, a solution that then becomes the default.

PERFUME BUYING MORATORIUM

As the spring comes to an end, I have made a vow not buy any more perfumes or perfume samples until the middle of August, at the very earliest. It’s not only the need for economy during the lean summer season of the academic year, it’s also that I have such a huge stash of unsampled things that it would be absurd to add to it at this time.

As a perfume maker, I can always rationalize buying samples so that I can make sure I’m not duplicating anything that’s already on the market, but the lure of “needing” to try everything is much too seductive. Every time one of those special offers from Lucky Scent or the Perfumed Court shows up in my e-mail box, I fall for it, hook, line and sinker. Every time I read about a new and interesting release I go looking for a sample of it. At least it’s not full bottles.

I’ve also tried to buy everything I could conceivably need for perfume-making before summer starts, but perfume materials are every bit as seductive as ready-made perfumes, maybe more so because they have so many more possibilities. However, the buying moratorium on raw materials is only a partial one, trying not to buy things that aren’t absolutely “necessary”, whatever that means.

The good thing is that I’ve probably forgotten what I have in all those boxes of samples that I have stashed in my closet (the photo only shows one of several stacks), so pulling them out will be almost good as receiving one of those exciting padded envelopes in the mail. I may even review some of them here.