CATCHING UP

It’s been so long since I posted that I can’t even remember when the last time was. In any case, a lot has happened since then, so I’ll just do a quick summary to bring readers back up to speed, assuming there are any readers left!

I was in LA this past weekend, to attend the Institute for Art and Olfaction Awards event. I’d be lying if I said that I wasn’t disappointed that Blackbird wasn’t the ultimate winner, but realize that beyond the point of a perfume being competently made, all judgments are completely arbitrary and determined by many factors including personal taste. It was great to be a finalist, and I enjoyed meeting Saskia Wilson-Brown (green dress in photo at left) and others associated with the Institute, seeing fellow perfumers and getting to know them better, and enjoying sunny LA for a couple of days.

The Seattle Artisan Fragrance Salon is coming up this weekend, on May 4. If you’re in the Seattle area, please consider stopping by and checking it out. As last year, it’s in tandem with the Artisan Chocolate Salon, so you not only get to smell perfumes, you get to sample all kinds of chocolate. My plan is to do random drawings for 5-ml size perfumes and the blooming orchid plants that I use as props at my table, just as I did last year (photo at right).

At the Seattle salon I will be officially launching my two new fragrances, African Orchid and Sakura. They’re listed for pre-order on my old website orchidscents.com, but for some reason I can’t log on to my Shopify site to do anything. There’s an excellent review of them here, so no need to go into details myself. John Reasinger has said it better than I could have.  

The boxes for the 30 ml size of the new fragrances arrived on Thursday of last week, and the 30 ml bottles should be ready in time for the Seattle show. It will be down to the wire, but I’m still optimistic that it will happen.

My supplier of 100 ml bottles has not had them in stock for months now, and they tell me that it will be “several months” until they have them again. In the meantime, I only have 6 fragrances in the 100 ml size, but boxes for many more of them, and am frustrated that I can’t move forward with introducing this size to the whole line.

Salamanca is coming back by popular demand. I finally found a supplier of the mitti-vetiver co-distillation that I use in it. The material is fairly close in scent to the original one that I had, and the supplier is easy to deal with, especially for a company in India. A half-kilo of the stuff arrived on Thursday, so within a month or two, Salamanca will reappear in my online store.

I am planning to go to the second annual FRAGments show in LA on June 7, so if you’re in the LA area, you should definitely come check it out. It’s in a designer’s studio, entry is free, and there will be some sort of multi-media art installations and refreshments. It sounds like a fabulous time! Many thanks to Maggie Mahaboubian of Parfums Lalun for organizing it. Perfumery on the US West Coast is exploding with new growth as perfumers make their mark on the scene and events like this become more common.

As my (non-perfumery) book project nears completion, I hope I will have more time to write posts for the blog. My goal is to have at least one or two a week, more if I can. We’ll see. 

[All photos are mine] 

BLACKBIRD FOR JULY

The Northwest Indie Perfumers Circuit will continue after a hiatus of two months with a big bash at the Blackbird Apothecary in Seattle to launch my Blackbird fragrance, made especially for them. It’s going to be a celebration of summer in the Pacific Northwest, the dry season when days last almost until midnight and a walk along the country paths and roadsides brings a flood of tangy, sun-warmed evergreen leaves and cedar wood, sun-dried fields, and the unmistakable smell of ripe blackberries.

I envision a sleek blackbird, feathers iridescent in the sun, white eyes popping out greedily as he gorges himself on the big, juicy, sweet fruit, singing his heart out between messy bites. It’s not going to be a sweet gourmand, but rather a fruit-tinged woody scent.The materials that I’m using start with a suite of woody base notes along with a little compatible musk. The dominant material is fir balsam absolute, which is a real pain to work with but worth every curse bestowed on it as I try to weigh it, get it solubilized to the point where I can actually use it, and then clean up its sticky residue. It’s one of the warmest and most delicious of the natural wood materials, giving exactly the sunny atmosphere I’m looking for in Blackbird. Dry, sun-warmed soil and baked grass will be added on top of the woods, and then come the blackberries, created through a tincture of freeze-dried fruit, fruit extract, and some other fruity notes to enhance the whole thing and make it pop.

The Blackbird fragrance will launch the new look of my bottles, too, with sleek printed-on labels and a new bottle cap design. I’m really excited to finish this fragrance, work on packaging, and plan the event itself. Stay tuned for more information about the July event if you’re in the Seattle area, and special Blackbird-related promotions if you’re elsewhere in the universe.

The actual event will take place on Saturday, July 13, from 6:00-9:00 (or whenever they decide to kick us out!) at Blackbird in Ballard, 5410 22^nd Avenue NW, Seattle, WA, 98107. It’s free, there will be good things to eat and drink, and a chance to check out this hip shop. 

THE DEVIL SCENTS ARE OUT!

The DevilScents have finally come out of the lab and their lurking in the perfume underground, and emerged on the website. Last night I spent some time putting at least the minimal information on there, which was not an easy task given the rather cumbersome system for uploading photos and other items. They are listed under a new fragrance category, “Special Editions”, since they really don’t fit in any of the others, and at least some of them may be limited editions.

All of them are available in the usual formats, including a 5-ml spray parfum, 15-ml screw-top parfum, 30-ml spray EdP, and a sample pack consisting of 5 x 3-ml spray vials. I had to price them a little higher than the regular line because I used some very expensive natural materials in significant amounts.

For those who missed them before, these are are the full descriptions that I published on the website (more or less):

LIL

This is the fragrance of Lilith, the original Eve and wife of the Devil. It is floral and fruity in a green, slightly sinister way, more sharp-edged and intimidating than soft, sweet, or cuddly. It is the enthralling scent of a woman with perfect confidence in her powers, a swirling, almost chameleon-like veil of fragrance that is ethereal and nearly transparent, but still vividly and unquestionably present and compelling. The base includes woody notes, cashmeran, musk, and patchouli; the heart features passion-fruit, angel’s trumpet, lily-of-the-valley, geranium, cyclamen, and a tiny hint of rose.  To provide the special Lilith touch, the top notes are anchored by davana and kewda, topped off with a generous helping of kaffir lime leaf. This is the fragrance of a female warrior who not only fights and wins, but seduces everyone in her path.

THE DEV VARIATIONS

The DEV series is a mandala of 4 fragrances, each a variation on labdanum, which, according to Quantum Demonology, is the characteristic scent of the Devil, affectionately known as Dev. Each variation represents a different phase in the narrative of seduction, passion, destruction, and ultimate circling back to the beginning as recounted in Quantum Demonology, and functions in much the same way as a movement in a musical composition. These four fragrances will be issued as a limited edition series, with the second one, DEV #2 eventually slated to go into permanent production along with LIL. DEV #4 has turned out to be very popular, so it may go into the permanent collection as well.

DEV #1: FOREPLAY

The lightest and happiest of the series, it represents the early phase of the story when the female protagonist is being tempted and seduced into a neo-Faustian deal with the devil. It’s the scent of falling in love despite misgivings and against one’s better judgment, a scenario in which bright top notes play against a dark and foreboding base. It contains three kinds of synthetic oud and other woody base notes, black vanilla, tolu balsam, clear labdanum absolute, synthetic musk deer accord, Africa stone tincture, ambergris tincture, synthetic civet, beeswax absolute, frankincense, African bluegrass, giant arborvitae wood from the Pacific Northwest, and cinnamon leaf.

DEV #2: THE MAIN ACT

This smoky, dense, and rich composition is a big, insistent fragrance that represents the romantic phase when the tempestuous love affair between the protagonist and Dev is proceeding in all of its ups and downs. It’s the fundamental seductive scent of Dev, without the darkest and most sinister of the base notes, a spicy, woody, animalic scent that stuns the senses and renders the lover oblivious to any of the horrors and dangers that might lie in wait. It contains three different kinds of labdanum, tolu balsam, black agar, woody base notes, musks, castoreum, civet, cistus oil, incense, immortelle absolute, cade, davana, and the scent of a worn black leather jacket. It’s spiced up with a tiny dab of rose, clove, cardamom, cinnamon, and cinnamon leaf. It combines the spiritual with the carnal in a rising plume of incense accompanied by the riff of a heavy metal bass played by an entity in a black leather jacket.

DEV #3: THE INEVITABLE

This muted, dark, melancholy fragrance is made using 100% natural materials. It represents the stage at which all secrets have been revealed, after the inevitable destruction of people, things, and relationships has occurred, when the two lovers recognize that they have to part ways forever. It contains New Caledonian sandalwood absolute, dark labdanum, clear labdanum, red spikenard, a generous dose of ancient fossilized amber, ambergris tincture, black truffle tincture (the fungus, not the chocolate), cistus oil, cassie absolute, frankincense, davana, African bluegrass, myrrh tincture, motia attar, and cinnamon leaf. It is a meditative scent of loneliness and resignation to fate, but one that promotes meditation and strange dreams.

DEV #4: REPRISE

This is the bare-bones version of all the incarnations of Dev, paring them down to their unifying essence and clearing the way for the labdanum to shine through. It’s the scent of coming back full circle to where one started, but with new eyes, as if the world had been tumbled smooth and worn down by events to reveal the clear, shining gemstone at its center. It is the scent of transcendence and triumph after great loss, the calm vision that comes after having weathered a disaster. It contains clear labdanum absolute, tolu balsam, dark labdanum, a pinch of woody base notes, a little bit of frankincense, and the tiniest bit of giant arborvitae as a top note. It is a simple reprise of the original theme, stripped down to its soul, with no more illusions. It is the aura of readiness to move on to a new and higher level in the infinite spiral of life. 

[Satan sculpture by Jean-Jacques Fouchere, 1836]