CAPE MAY ESSENTIAL OIL

I recently got on a kick of trying South African botanicals, and have just discovered one that I’m definitely going to use in a perfume. Its common names are cape may and white confetti bush, and its scientific name is listed as Coleonema album everywhere I looked. I have no explanation for the grammatical mismatch of a feminine Latin noun with a neuter adjective, but maybe someone who’s up on botanical grammar can enlighten me.

Grammar aside, Cape May is a large shrub with needle-like leaves that is native to coastal regions of South Africa. Pictures of the bush look a lot like a large rosemary plant. When they bloom, they are covered with a proliferation of white flowers that look very much like strawberry blossoms. Apparently it’s a favorite shrub for bonsai and topiary, lending itself to pot culture as well as trimming and shaping. Writing this has made me want one.

But the oil! As soon as I put it on a strip to test, the whole room filled with the most wonderful sweet, fruity sillage. It’s like nothing else I’ve ever smelled. Close up it has a bit of a camphorous, herbal, foody note, but even when my nose is right up next to it, it’s accompanied by the fruity smell, almost like taffy, but better. If I had to characterize the fruit notes, I’d say they’re like a fair amount of fresh blueberry, a little fresh guava, and something else fruity but unique. Of course I immediately got all excited about basing an all-natural perfume on cape may, but my enthusiasm was dampened a little when I discovered that the fruity sillage is a top note that doesn’t last all that long, drying down to an herbal, camphorous base that is also fairly short-lived. In the end, I don’t think I can build a fragrance around cape may, but, it will still be an interesting top-note addition to one of my all-natural fragrances

As usual, I’m offering a sample of this oil to one reader who leaves a comment saying what your favorite fruity perfume notes are. The random drawing will be on Sunday, June 3.

[Plant photos from Wilimedia]

PEACH ARTEMISIA

After ranting in my last post, here’s my rave of the week. A while back I wrote about several different species of Artemisia, a genus that I’ve been exploring recently as a source of essential oils for natural perfumes. I just got a new one to add to the list, Artemisia ludoviciana, also known as peach Artemisia, silver wormwood, owyhee, prairie sage, or white sagebrush, and I’m loving it. It’s native to the western US, growing in all the usual places where sagebrush grows. The USDA map shows it growing throughout most of the USA and Canada. As its name implies, the leaves are sliver-white, on a small to medium sized perennial shrub.

My first impression of the essential oil, sniffing it from the bottle, is that it’s bitter, herbal, camphorous, and medicinal, with foody-chamomile like nuances, the overall character being almost industrial-smelling. On paper, it maintains this medicinal-industrial character for a few hours, but once the most bitter and camphorous of the green notes burn off, there’s a distinct, oily-fruity canned peach scent along with the woody notes. By the next day, the peach note is all that remains - a sweet, light impression of fresh peaches along with a sprinkling of sage.

Applied to my skin, the progression is the same, just faster. The oily peach note appears within a half hour, producing a lovely camphorous-herbal woody, sweet-fruity scent. I can see using this oil in all-natural compositions where I’m looking for a true-to-life fruit note in the heart. The oil will also provide strong aromatic, herbal notes in the top. I’m looking forward to some experiments using Artemisia ludoviciana in a perfume.

[Peach Artemisia photo from Wikimedia]