BACK TO BLOGGING!

I haven’t posted for a week because I just returned from St. Louis, where I was at a meeting related to my “day job”. Oh, the joys of flying, having my flip-flops x-rayed, staying in an upscale hotel that has the chutzpah to charge $10 a day for internet access (I refuse to enable that egregious manifestation of greed even if someone else is paying, hence no blog activity), and going to meetings that start at 8:00 AM, which is 6AM home time. To make matters worse, the whole topic of the meeting was deeply disturbing and depressing because it dealt with an ecological problem to which there may be no solution. At least, it appears that there is no easy solution as long as humans continue to have their way with nature. The meeting took place at the St Louis Zoo, where we were given a tour of several captive breeding colonies of animal and invertebrate species that have gone extinct or are about to become extinct in the wild. I know everyone who tries to save endangered species means well, but I can’t help wondering if the efforts are like trying to bail out the Titanic with a teaspoon. The efforts to prevent extinctions create a daunting Pandora’s box of ethical considerations that I think I’ll save for another post since they apply to orchids and other plants as much as animals.

The whole impact of humans on nature was brought home to me like a punch in the gut the evening I went running in the upscale neighborhood near the hotel where I was staying. No one was on the streets because the temperature was 90 degrees F (32 degrees C), and the humidity was high. People were hiding in their cave-like air-conditioned cars and houses, where the temperature probably averaged 65F (18C) or less, using huge amounts of energy unnecessarily. OK, I know it’s hot, but why do people feel the need to cool their environment so much in the summer that winter clothing is needed inside? What’s wrong with having the indoor temperature at, say, 80F (27C) in the summer, wearing a short-sleeved shirt and sandals, and maybe sweating a little bit? Why not open the windows and let the breeze in? The other thing that struck me while running was the huge expanses of obsessively groomed, green grass surrounding every house, completely uniform in color and height, 100% weed-free, and reeking of the fertilizer, pesticides, and herbicides that had been applied to achieve that boring green look. I thought I was going to choke on the fumes rising up out of the lawns. What do people use all that grass for if they don’t go outside? Are they not aware that their neighborhood stinks due to all the chemicals they put on their grass? Maybe not, if they stay in their climate-controlled shells all the time. These are probably some of the same people who on occasion make a tax-deductible contribution to campaigns to save charismatic mammals, all the while killing the lower-profile members of the ecosystems that support their poster children.

My photo today is of some of the beautiful “weeds” that grow on our property instead of green grass. Tomorrow I’ll probably turn my thoughts back to perfume, but for today I have to express some of the pessimism that I’m feeling about whether human awareness of our role in the environment will ever evolve beyond the drive to kill anything colorful that appears in a perfect green lawn.

CHOYA LOBAN - SMOKE OF MY DREAMS

One of the high priorities on my to-make list is a scent that in some way re-creates the odors that I experienced years ago in India. It’s an intimidating task because there are an uncountable number of them, and there’s a serious risk of combining so many incompatible things that the mixture becomes a complete mess. One of the key notes that I have envisioned for this scent is a smoky one, something reminiscent of the burning cow-dung that is (or at least used to be) hanging in the air everywhere, all the time. I know this sounds awful and disgusting, but burning cow dung is actually a pleasant, campfire-like scent. After all, it’s just semi-digested grass briquettes and it smells a lot better than American barbecue charcoal. I considered a lot of different things including cade and birch tar, but when I got a bottle of choya loban I knew I had found the holy grail of smoke scents, at least for the purpose of this formulation. It may prove to be useful in making “burning incense” notes, too.

Choya loban is a thick, almost black liquid distilled from the Indian species of frankincense, Boswellia serrata, which has a lighter and more citrus-like scent than any of the African species. From what I’ve read, the distillation of B serrata resin “tears” (the dried sap exuded by the trees) is done in clay jars, so that the result smells smoky, earthy, and just a little resinous. Perfect. Today I mixed up an experimental base using choya loban, sandalwood, and a few other things. It wasn’t perfect (what is, the first time around?) but it turned out better than I expected, and I almost like it too much to combine it with other things. I’m sure I’ll change my mind after I get used to smelling it, though.

I can see that the Indian scent is going to be an ongoing project for a while, along with the orchid scent, Osafume.

ON NATURAL AROMAS

I started thinking about the topic of natural scents and flavors while sampling a particularly insipid all-natural perfume yesterday and eating a mango today. I am all in favor of natural foods, scents, clothing, and anything else that can be made from natural materials, but I wonder why so many people who embrace the “natural” lifestyle equate it with excruciatingly bland. Certain of my friends and in-laws are into natural foods, and eating at their house is always torture. Try to imagine tasteless tofu lasagne made with whole-wheat noodles and waxy soy cheese. No spices, no flavoring of any kind. Even if there is flavoring, tofu sucks it all out, so the unflavored lasagne is like swallowing a gustatory black hole. Along with the lasagne there’s probably a salad - fine as far as it goes, but instead of good olive oil and balsamic vinegar, the poor organic greens are smothered in some sort of viscous, tasteless, no-fat "healthy" dressing. For dessert there’s a pumpkin pie made with pumpkin from the backyard garden of the party in question. It sounds good until you taste it. It’s unflavored mashed pumpkin on a lumpy, 2-inch thick crust of whole-wheat flour and flax seed, probably held together with tofu.

In North American culture, I think there is some sort of Puritan idea that whatever is good for you cannot, by definition, be enjoyable. It’s the only reason I can think of for the plethora of inedible “health food” and “natural food” that exists. For heaven’s sake, traditional Indian vegetarian food is all-natural and is some of the spiciest and most delicious in the world. Traditional Italian cuisine is all-natural and delicious. So is traditional Mexican food and Thai food - the list could go on and on. All it takes is good ingredients, a little imagination and the desire to actually enjoy eating.

I think the same principle of “bland equals virtuous” is sometimes applied to the making of natural perfumes, judging by the ones that I’ve tested. There are plenty of natural oils, resins and absolutes that are every bit as strong and long-lasting as most synthetics. Think about traditional Indian attars and Arabian perfumes. These (at least the good ones) are all-natural, but stronger and more pungent than many “western” perfumes, even the synthetic ones.

In my own perfume formulation, I try not to use a synthetic material when a natural one will do, not because I consider natural materials somehow virtuous, but because the natural material almost always has a deeper and richer scent than the synthetic one and is therefore more enjoyable. It’s like the difference between eating a real ripe mango and something containing artificial “mango” flavor. There’s no comparison. It’s the difference between real wood and laminate, blown glass and plastic, leather and vinyl, real gold and “gold-toned” metal.

Having said all this, sometimes the ethical choice is the synthetic one. People have no business using real ivory, tortoise shell, oils made from plants that are on the brink of extinction, or anything else that’s not completely renewable. I don’t think mangoes or lavender are going extinct any time soon, at least not as long as people cultivate them, so I’ll continue to enjoy the natural versions.

THE MAKING OF A “SUMMER” FRAGRANCE: DENDROBIUM MONILIFORME

In the Pacific Northwest, the 5th of July is officially the start of the dry season, generally a period of unbroken warm and sunny weather that lasts until sometime in September. The clouds broke up yesterday afternoon and the sun arrived right on schedule. Today the sky is bright blue and it actually looks like summer. Our tomatoes will finally grow!

As I remarked in another post, I don’t subscribe to the idea of “men’s” and “women’s” fragrances, and I don’t really believe in “summer” and “winter” fragrances, either. Having said that, I’ve recently embarked on a fragrance that would probably fit the traditional image of “summer” scents. Could it be that I chose to work on that one rather than a heavier one because of the season? Or was it because my Dendrobium moniliforme had just been blooming?

Whatever the reason, I decided it was time to create a fragrance in honor of this little gem of an orchid. Dendrobium moniliforme is a miniature orchid species native to Japan, where it is grown for its attractive plant form, often with variegated foliage. The flowers are a bonus, usually appearing in spring after a dry, cool period in the winter. They are generally somewhere in the white to pink range, and are fragrant, with a distinct anise-like note.

To honor my collection of Den moniliforme plants with their own fragrance, I started with top notes of anise and star anise, adding some heliotrope, light vanilla, and airy, greenish floral notes. I think I’ve pretty much nailed the flower scent itself. For a base, I chose to make a white musk accord, something that I can use as a base in other scents, too. So far it seems to go well with the anise and floral notes. Right now I’m sitting here with the various accords on tester strips, waving them around occasionally, and liking what I smell. I’m sure some more tweaking will go on, but so far this has been one of the easier scents to make.

Now I’m trying to decide which moniliforme variety to name the scent after. Some of the candidates are Bayoumaru, Genetsu, Osafume, Siroaya, Kitoumaru … and others. I have about 20 different types. I just noticed that Siroaya is covered with buds, so it’s blooming a second time this year. Any comments about which name sounds best for a perfume?

BRASSAVOLA ORCHIDS AND LITTLE STARS

It seems like time to write about another one of my creations, so what better place to begin than with the orchid that started it all, Brassavola Little Stars? Brassavola orchids are native to Central and South America, where they grow as epiphytes on tree trunks and branches. They have cylindrical, spiky leaves and masses of thick, exposed roots that most people would consider ugly, but when they bloom, what a show! Little Stars is a hybrid between two different species, B nodosa and B cordata, and it was the first Brassavola that I grew, back before I knew much about orchid growing. The first time it ever flowered, I walked into the house one night and smelled the most amazing and unexpected fragrance, something like ylang-ylang spiced with cloves. I had no idea what it was or where it was coming from, but it didn’t take long to trace it to my blooming orchid plant with its sprays of green and white flowers.

To make a long story short, the plant bloomed repeatedly over the years, each time producing the same exquisite fragrance, but only at night. Since then I’ve grown other white, night-fragrant orchids, native to both the Old World and New World, and found that most of them have a similar fragrance, a stunning example of parallel evolution.

Every time I smelled my night-fragrant orchids I thought how wonderful it would be to create a perfume that was like their scent. Eventually I had to try, starting with the ylang-ylang and cloves that seemed to be the basis of the Little Stars fragrance. It was then that I quickly discovered the principle of top notes! Both ylang-ylang and clove are fairly short-lived fragrances, so the mix would be gone within an hour. I then had to experiment with base notes, trying to come up with something that would hold the scent on the skin for a reasonable amount of time. I won’t bore you, dear reader, with all of my trials and errors up and down the learning curve, but in the end I settled upon a base that contained several different resins, spikenard, cedarwood, and a little synthetic agarwood (oud). The rest of the mix includes some citrus, green tea, and a few other floral notes. I would say that in the end, the blend is about 80% natural and 20% synthetic.

In the end, because of the constraints of perfumery, the fragrance isn’t exactly Brassavola Little Stars, but rather its dark and brooding cousin. It has the delicate, sweet and spicy top notes of my Little Stars’ flowers, but they’re riding on the strong shoulders of a woody, earthy base. Several people who have tried it describe it as a “goth” fragrance. Maybe that’s fitting for a flower that only comes out at night.

PHALAENOPSIS PARISHII

My first orchid child is blooming this week! A few years ago I pollinated the flowers of my mature Phalaenopsis parishii plant, grew the resulting seedlings from flask, and now the first one is all grown up and blooming itself. I’m happy to report that it has a strong and beautiful fragrance.

Phal parishii is a miniature species, much more graceful and cute than the ungainly mass-produced hybrids that are sold in places like garden centers, box stores, and Trader Joe’s, virtually none of which have any fragrance. The flowers of parishii are mostly white, and huge for the size of the plant. One of the unusual features of Phal parishii is its wide, heart-shaped, purplish lip, which is somewhat mobile so that it jiggles around in the breeze. It has a strong fragrance that’s very much like lily-of-the-valley. I don’t think it’s original enough to merit a perfume, but it certainly is nice to smell when the plant’s in bloom. It’s fragrant throughout most of the day, but shuts down at night.

This plant is definitely a keeper, the pick of the litter. Next year I’ll probably find it a suitable mate and pollinate it, but for now I'll just let it live a carefree life, have fun, and grow some more.

GROWING PAINS

Things are growing outside, not least of which is the black bamboo. The canes this year are thicker than I’ve ever seen them, which means the new ones are going to be even taller than old ones, which are already taller than the mature alder trees that grow next to them. Today there’s a huge one pushing its way through the asphalt of the driveway despite the supposedly bamboo-proof barrier that is buried 18 inches into the ground. The canes grow a foot a day, more on the rare days when there’s some sun.

Right now getting my business up and running is not progressing at as fast a rate as the bamboo. The response to my offer of a free goodie box was immediate and a little overwhelming. I got way more than 5 requests within the first day, and intend to fill them all. Of course, as luck would have it, last week was the time when everyone in the world ordered orchids, too, so I spent most of the weekend packing plants. In between the orchids and the work that I have to do for the “day job”, I’ve been putting together perfume sample packs and other items, but it’s going at a slow rate, partly because I’ve been waiting for some supplies that were very slow to arrive after I ordered them. To complicate matters even more, my brother-in-law is visiting for the Independence Day weekend, and he’s staying in the room that provides the only access to my perfume “lab”. He goes to bed early, so that cuts into my prime working time. The boxes will arrive, but later than I had hoped. The benefit of this exercise is that I’m finding out things I need to know before I start shipping real orders. Today I learned that the labels I had planned to use on the 2-ml vials don’t work well, so I’m going to have to redo those. Slowly it’s all coming together, and I look forward to the day when shipping fragrance products becomes as routine as shipping orchid plants.