WHITE CATTLEYA: THE CHALLENGE OF USING LEMON IN PERFUME

Cattleya orchids with flowers in the white-to-green range often have a citrusy scent that’s heavy on lemon notes, so one of my latest challenges has been trying to recreate the scent of a white hybrid cattleya orchid. I’m getting there, but on the way I’ve struggled with the difficulties of using lemon as a perfume note. Unfortunately lemon has been ruined by its gross overuse in functional fragrances for cleaning supplies, almost to the extent that it evokes a conditioned knee-jerk response of “cleaning product” even if it’s in a context that has nothing to do with cleaning, like lemonade, lemon desserts, lemon candies, or lemony colognes. In fact, there are commercial “lemonade” drinks that taste like they’re flavored with the same aroma chemicals that are used in cleaning supplies, further blurring the lines between fruit, food, beverages, detergents, and perfume.

Instead of the standard lemon rind essential oil, I started with an essential oil made from the whole fruit, which has a gentler and sweeter scent, along with a little citron. Natural lemon on its own is a top note, so I added some other materials like lemonile that enhance it and make it last well into the middle section of the scent, if not the end. The goal is for it so smell something like an orchid, so there’s plenty of vanilla in the base. After looking at published analyses of orchid flower fragrances, which are all over the place even for cattleyas, I chose a few materials that are in a lot of flowers’ fragrances, like citronellol, linalool, nerolidol and others. Citronellol and phenylethyl alcohol in particular helped “floralize” the lemon, so the heart of the perfume is not all that lemony, but includes other fruity-floral orchid-type notes. The base also contains some light, high-end musks. Combining lemon with common “laundry musk” would automatically evoke the image of detergent, so the musk component  had to be done some other way, using materials like cosmone, velvione, muscenone, and others of their type.

In analyses of orchid flower headspaces, one commonly encountered substance is beta-ocimene, a simple terpene-type molecule that until now hasn’t been commercially available, at least not to small-scale perfumers. I finally managed to get some, and added it to the white cattleya. It gives the whole composition a very natural, fresh feeling, adding the same kind of sparkle that aldehydes are known for. I’m still working on the formula, but when I return to Seattle on August 20, I’ll send out samples to my testers so that I can get feedback. It’s not quite finished, but it’s getting there. 

[Lemons and Rhyncholaelia digbyana photos from Wikimedia; white hybrid cattleya photo is mine.]

AFRICAN ORCHID

A couple of days ago I wrote about reformulating Little Stars, but as I’ve been working on it, it’s quickly morphed into a different genus of white-flowered, night-fragrant orchid, an angraecoid of some sort. Angraecoid orchids are native to East Africa and Madagascar, where they grow in dry forest areas, but smell strangely similar to the South American Brassavola species after which Little Stars was named. I think I'll call the new formula African Orchid - dibs on the name, people! You saw it here first. 

Little Stars has its fans, so I decided not to pull it entirely, just supplement it with a new white night-fragrant orchid scent. Angraecum orchids have a fragrance reminiscent of jasmine, ylang-ylang, carnation, and sometimes root beer. Those main heart notes are combined with my special orchid 17 accord, which gives it a moist, soft, dark, brooding touch, along with a base of high-end musks and light vanilla. 

I’ve tried several iterations of the first mod and am liking it quite a bit. It takes a while for the materials to blend, so there’s a waiting period to see exactly how it will turn out, then more waiting periods as it goes through the initial series of tweaks to get the proportions of everything right and add whatever modifying notes it needs. I already like it better than the original Little Stars, though. It’s lighter and more juicy, less in-your-face woody, less heavy on the ylang-ylang, which can be overpowering, and smoother, with a tiny bit of a fruity accent. It’s actually more like a real, natural orchid fragrance.

I’m going to work on African Orchid over the holidays, as well as a few other new formulas. Testers should finally be getting a package of things to smell in January! With luck, I'll be able to launch it at the San Francisco Fragrance Salon in March. 

[Angraecum sesquipedale photo is mine; East African baobab tree photo adapted from Wikimedia]

THE LILITH EFFECT (AND A DRAWING)

This morning I filtered the first production batch of Lilith (aka LIL) and, as usual, made sure I got some on myself while doing it. It wasn’t a lot, just the equivalent of a medium-sized spray dose. About an hour later I went out for a run.

The first inkling I had of the “Lilith Phenomenon” or “Lilith Effect”, first described by Tarleisio in this blog post, was when I was doing my warm-up walk down our little street to the main road and passed a group of three 7- or 8-year old boys playing in a puddle. As I got close, they all looked up, eyes wide as saucers, promptly stood at attention facing me, and politely said “hello”. They seemed in awe. I was flabbergasted. As I continued on with my run I thought of Tarleisio’s post, and started to connect the dots.


As I made my way around the neighborhood, everyone I passed on my side of the road looked at me, smiled in a friendly way, and made it a point to politely say “hello”. Except for the postal delivery woman, I knew none of these people. Even though I stared intently at people on the other side of the road, they did not react. Now this might not seem worthy of note except for the fact that in the Pacific Northwest, people tend to act uncomfortable and look the other way when they pass another human being on the street or road. It’s very unusual for even one person to acknowledge my presence when I’m out walking or running, let alone everyone I pass. Maybe there’s something in LIL that makes people shape up and be polite.

Have you ever experienced unusual reactions from random people when wearing a specific perfume? If so, leave a comment about the perfume and your experience. You will be entered in a random drawing, the winner of which will receive a 3 ml spray sample of LIL to try for yourself and see whether there’s anything to the Lilith Effect besides our overactive imaginations. Moreover, you’ll have a chance to try this fragrance before it’s officially released at the San Francisco Artisan Fragrance Salon on July 8. The drawing will take place on Wednesday, June 20.