SIMPLICITY AND REALITY

The juxtaposition of several events this past weekend made me start thinking about the concept of simplicity and how it applies to fashion, art, perfume, and life in general. From Friday through Sunday I participated in a holiday pop-up shop where vendors were selling everything from taxidermied animals, high-end hipster clothing, chandeliers, crude wooden shelves and knick-knacks, handmade chocolates, antique china and cactus plants to various forms of jewelry and, of course, perfumes.

As I passed in and out of my area, I kept going by a display by jewelry maker and metal artist Faris DuGraf, where one necklace particularly caught my eye. On the morning of the second day I ended up buying it. It’s a good thing I did because it turned out to be one-of-a-kind. I was particularly impressed by Faris’s creations because they fall into the category of “deceptively simple” – things that have clean and simple lines without being bland, boring or consciously contrived to make an obvious statement.

After I’d bought the necklace and was wearing it, I recommended Faris to a customer who was looking for a gift for her sister. The customer seemed indignant that I would suggest anything from the pop-up shop, saying “my sister only wears diamonds. She only wears REAL jewelry”. Of course this immediately conjured up images of ugly, ornate, traditional, outrageously expensive diamond jewelry, the sole purpose of which is to flaunt the wealth of a woman’s male caretaker. This, of course, opened the worm-box question of what “real” anything is. Is it real only if it costs someone’s life savings? Is it real only if it conforms to the exact image of what one has been taught to expect? Is it real only if it consists entirely of natural materials? Is it real only if it is manufactured by a large corporation and sold in a large retail store? Is anything real if you make it yourself, or does the fact that it is made by someone else lend a stamp of authenticity to it even if you could make something better? This question is just as valid for perfume as jewelry, so it made me wonder what this woman would consider “real perfume” – what would her sister wear?

The second phase of considering the whole concept of simplicity came when I read a review of my new fragrance, Woodcut”, in which the reviewer wrote, “Radical in its seeming simplicity ...”. I found these words to be some of the most flattering that he could possibly have written, because “seeming simplicity” is one of the hardest tricks of any trade. Doing simplicity well is much harder than doing ornate. Playing a simple Mozart piece well is much harder to do than playing a fast piece with big, crashing chords. There’s some sort of sweet spot where things are so simple that they’re boring - a solid white canvas posing as art simply because of its price tag, or the “solichem” fragrances like ambroxan and Iso E that have been exploited for a while in the name of trendiness. At the other end of the spectrum are the overly complex creations that end up being just plain ugly. This is especially a danger in making natural perfumes, because mixed materials can quickly create a “muddy” result.

Then there’s the other dimension of crude versus polished. Sometimes crude can be beautiful, as in the case of natural, found objects that are displayed as is. Other times, it simply looks (or smells) like an inexpert or bungled job. At the polished end of the spectrum are creations that are so contrived from the outset as to be embarrassingly obvious in their cleverness. We all walk a fine line between the extremes, and everyone’s sweet spot at the intersection of all these dimensions is in a slightly different place.

What’s particularly interesting is the observation of how often we as artists unconsciously make a statement and don’t realize it until afterwards. I didn’t create Woodcut with the idea of making an environmental statement, but when I finally ended up writing a description of it, I realized that it did make a strong statement. Einsof, in writing about it in his review, amplified the statement and made me realize some things that I hadn’t thought of myself. 

Here are my questions for you: What "real" perfume would you equate to “only wearing diamonds”? What is your take on the issue of simplicity vs complexity and “real” vs “not real”?

Leave a comment and be entered in a drawing for a travel spray of Woodcut. 

[Necklace and madrone photos are mine; diamond ring and plastic cuckoo clock photos are from Wikimedia] 

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.

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.

PONDEROSA PINE AND ARIZONA

I first encountered ponderosa pines many years ago when hiking in northern Arizona, in the hills around Prescott. Ponderosa pines are not only beautiful, majestic, awe-inspiring beings, but the mature trees have a special feature. If you put your nose up close to the trunk on a warm, sunny day they give off a fragrance that’s sort of like a mixture of vanilla and tarragon, but has its own special ponderosa pine quality.

Last year I was fortunate enough to find ponderosa pine essential oil for sale. It’s made from the needles, not the trunks of trees in South America, so supposedly “no trees are killed” to make it, although I do have to wonder if it’s a by-product of the lumber industry. The scent is absolutely wonderful, so I was immediately compelled to use it in a perfume, which I have christened Arizona. Ponderosa pine essential oil is fairly volatile, so it acts as a top to mid note in perfumery. I combined it with a base of juniper and resins, added a bouquet of desert plant scents including chaparral and sage, and sweetened it up a tiny bit with mimosa absolute, reminiscent of blooming acacia trees. The result is a wonderfully aromatic blend that is all natural, but strong and long-lasting. I think most people would characterize it as a quintessentially “masculine” scent.

This is going to be one of the initial selection of fragrances that I offer on my website, the beginning of a series that I call “Scents of Place”. After I did a quick and dirty, 5-minutes-in-Photoshop label design for Arizona, I saw that Andy Tauer’s label for L’Air du Desert Marocain is alarmingly similar, so I’ll probably have to modify the Arizona label.

It was a wonderful surprise to find that this all-natural scent’s sillage and longevity are comparable to those of many synthetic fragrances, and that the perfume essence works beautifully to scent soap. Many natural oils have a way of evaporating out of soap even before it’s used, so have to be supplemented with synthetics. The ponderosa pine oil, combined with the other oils that are in Arizona, seems very stable. At my house we’re currently using Arizona soap made months ago, and it not only scents the air while showering, it leaves a light scent on the skin afterwards.

[The ponderosa pine photo is from Wikimedia and shows an oddly shaped specimen]

CATTLEYA ACLANDIAE

I bought as seedling of this cute little species about four years ago because I fell in love with a photo of it, and this week it’s blooming for the first time! It’s even more dramatic in person than it is in the photo, with its leopard-print petals and wide neon-fuschia lip. The big bonus is that it’s fragrant!

The fragrance gradually builds up over the first few days, and today it’s strongly citrusy with an undercurrent of indolic flowers, more like narcissus than jasmine, gardenia, or orange blossom. It also has a spicy edge that’s like ginger and some sort of pepper. I’m already thinking about how to translate this gorgeous flower into a perfume, but am curious to see how the fragrance develops over the life of the flowers.

RED CATTLEYA

I thought it would be good to start today's post with a little bit of information about the orchid whose photo is shown in yesterday's post. One of my favorite hybrid orchids is Laeliocattleya Netrasiri. This plant is not much to look at in the summer, just a bunch of big, sprawling, succulent stems and leaves, but it miraculously bursts into bloom every year around the winter solstice with a profusion of velvety dark red flowers that are intensely fragrant. There is nothing better than these flowers to brighten up the dark, cold, rainy days of a Pacific Northwest winter. Goodbye, seasonal affective disorder! Hello tropical jungle!

Cattleya orchids are the kind that used to be used for the orchid corsages that were popular in the early to mid 20th century. Most of the orchids grown for corsage flowers were lavender or white, but cattleyas come in every imaginable color. Because they are pollinated by day-flying bees and butterflies, they are not only colorful, but emit wonderful fragrances that are strongest in the early part of the day. A few will switch to a totally different scent at night, but that’s a story for another time.

Red Cattleya was the second orchid fragrance that I attempted to formulate. The first orchid fragrance that I made was fairly simple, so I thought the scent of Red Cattleya would be just as easy to duplicate. Nothing could have been further from the truth. Most cattleyas have a characteristic soft, moist, floral, slightly fruity fragrance, but it is extremely elusive. It took many attempts to produce something that resembled the actual flower and was also wearable as a perfume. When I finally had a formula that seemed close, I considered it a major triumph. An especially nice feature of the formula that I finally came up with is that it works equally well in perfume or soap.

In terms of the scent, Red Cattleya has been described by those who have tried it as like walking into a hothouse packed with the most exotic orchid species, originally brought back by explorers from jungles all over the world. The blooming cattleyas envelop you with a cloud of soft, sumptuous fruity-floral fragrance that is incredibly sexy. The perfume notes include citrus, spices, peach, apricot, hyacinth, gardenia, violets and lilac. At the base is a dark current of musk, exotic woods and vanilla. This perfume was released for local sale in December 2009, and will be one of the signature Orchid Scents available on the website.

Watch for the upcoming orchid fragrance contest and post a comment for a chance to win a Red Cattleya gift set!