CALLING ALL TESTERS

It’s getting to be spring, the birds are singing, the crocuses, hyacinths, and tulips are sticking their heads up, and there are several projects, perfume salons and other events on the horizon, each of which is going to be honored with a special edition perfume if things go as planned. In the works are a 100% natural white floral tropical perfume for Lyn Ayre’s Tropical Challenge Project at the end of this month, two different chocolate-themed ones for the San Francisco and Seattle chocolate + fragrance salons in March and May respectively, and an offbeat one for my Blackbird event in July.  In the meantime, I hope to finish a few others that I’ve been working on (or not working on!) for way too long.

Some of you have volunteered as testers in the past, so this is a call for about a dozen noses willing to sniff my latest experiments and provide written feedback. If you’re still reading this blog and are up for the task, please leave a comment to that effect. I already have addresses for those who participated in the testing exercise in the past, but I’m sure there’s going to be considerable turnover from year to year. Even if you’re on my list (or think you are), please confirm that you’re interested. For those who volunteer and provide feedback, there will be some sort of fragrant reward at the end of the process.

I’m looking forward to finishing up a whole list of projects before summer comes, including a start on upgrading my packaging and website. More about that project soon. 

Update on February 13: I still have room for 4-5 more testers, so there's still a chance to sign up. 

[The top flower is Adenium obesum - not an orchid, but one of the cool plants that I grow for fun. The lower one is Clerodendron trichrotomium, aka Harlequin Glory Bower, a tropical-looking tree that grows at the Ballard Locks in Seattle] 

THE NEW FRAGRANCES: CAFÉ V

The last of the new fragrances was Café V, presented in two different versions. I learned something very interesting from the testing of these two, and will take the fragrance back to the drawing board for adjustments. This is the last super-long post for a while, I promise!

GAIL
Café V#1
Initial: Sweet tobacco smoke and something like carnauba wax
5 minutes: Vanilla, tea and cocoa. The carnauba wax is still strong.
15 minutes: The waxy edge is blending with the vanilla and cocoa. The smoke is still evident.
30 minutes: The carnauba wax is still around but becoming less prominent. Some warm woody smells.
50 minutes: Cinnamon and some other spices appearing as wax dissipates.
2 hours: Wood, spices, vanilla. The wax is just about gone.
6 hours: Dries down to a familiar combination of nutmeg, vanilla, and spices.
General comments: The most memorable impression I had of Café V #1 was the odor of carnauba wax. After 2 hours this scent shifted from specifically carnauba wax to just a general “waxy” smell which lasted until about 4 hours into the test. At 6 hours there was still a hint of wax mixed with a distinctive Olympic Orchids blend of nutmeg, vanilla, etc. While I like the smell of carnauba wax I wouldn’t want to wear it as a personal fragrance. I like this scent from about 50 minutes to the end.

Café V #2
Initial: Sweet tobacco smoke, some spices and carnauba wax (less penetrating than in #1)
5 minutes: More spice, even less carnauba wax
15 minutes: Vanilla, cocoa, spice, generic wax
30 minutes: Less of an edge all around than #1. Vanilla, wax, pice, cocoa
1 hour: More vanilla. Some leather.
2 hours: Light vanilla, leather, very light cinnamon and spice.
6 hours: Light vanilla and leather. Very light combination spice. Familiar Olympic Orchid drydown like #1.
General comments: When I read your notes I couldn’t believe that I had totally missed the coffee element in both of the versions. #2 is creamier, less edgy than #1. I also don’t get as much of the carnauba wax in the opening of #2. #2 is easier for me to wear but it has less personality than #1.

CELINA
Cafe 1 seems to be little bit more woody and the cocoa is toned down compared to version 2. I don't know if that reflects the concentrations or version 2 has different notes that are enhancing the cocoa. Maybe that could be explained by the presence of the creamy note. In version 2 the cocoa is more rounded and sweeter.

Cafe 1 feels more quiet , woody and leathery and the cocoa is showing more its dark and earthy side. It feels the other notes are surrounding the leather.
Version 2 somehow feels more friendly and rounded. After reading the composition I can definitely see that even if "the creamy note" is hard to define, still helps that first impression of friendliness; the cocoa is more chocolate-y but still dark, the leather is still there, but the coffee note comes out more defined. However, all notes blend together, they feel like being part of the same fragrance. They play the same melody.

In version 1 the coffee is more roasted and less smoky, it blends in the leathery tone, in Vesion 2 the coffee is smoky but little bit more defined and rounded with a gourmand feeling. Foody gourmand and not sweet gourmand.

If I have to choose that would be difficult. Ver 2 is little bit more accessible and also more loud, couple of notes more accentuated. Ver 1 feels more toned down, without that gourmandisime tone, feels more dry and distant, but distant in an inviting way. It makes you want to go back to get a bit more, like you are not satisfied enough. It makes you wonder.

Ver 2 is more about the coffee. Everything blends into it. After a sniff it my brain is able to remember the fragrance.

Somehow ver1 is hard to catch and describe. It feels like a fragrance with a multitude of faces. Coffee and leather and woody and smoky.

I have a hard time deciding what I like more.

LAURIE BROWN
Café V version 1- It opens with cinnamon, and leather, and sweetness. Too much leather for my taste. I have a problem with leather scents- even though I know darn well they have other things in them, leather tends to be all I can smell. Mike sent me a sample of one he made (the Paris Metro one) that had leather and flowers, and all I could smell was leather. I’ve tried to use leather myself, and finally gave up when I had it diluted to 1% (using leather accord from TGSC) and it was still overpowering. But, at least, with yours, after about a half hour the leather fades a bit and it gets sweeter. But I’m afraid I don’t smell it as very complex, even though I can see from your notes it is.

Café V version 2- okay, I love this one! It opens with a cinnamon bun hot out of the oven, warm and spicy. Five minutes in the leather steps forward, but the scent is still spicy, not skanky. The cinnamon fades a bit and lets the other spices out. The creamy note is defiantly noticeable- it kept making me think of ice cream. I love creamy. Never did smell the coffee. This one lasts a good amount of time on me; the balsam and myrrh and leather really hang in there- I can still faintly smell it after over six hours. AND the leather, though very apparent, never dominates. I was able to enjoy it rather than cringing from it! It would have never occurred to me to put leather and gourmand together, but it WORKS. Wonderfully.

EdC
Cafe V [1 and 2] both seem like fougeres with different top notes - something green in the #1 and incense in the #2. The fougere part of each has something that smells industrial to me, sort of like 3 in 1 Oil. I like it! I think I may have suggested using it in someone's discussion of what a steam punk perfume would be. It's not dominant.

I’ve tried going from one sample to the next (keeping them in different rooms). I found the Café V #1 to be slightly sweeter and the Café V #2 to be slightly more woody. I hope this helps with your planning, but it’s probably better if not too many people share my association of machine oil with myrrh. Or you could call it steam punk and put some sort of gothic Dickensian label on the bottle.

ROBERT
Café V: Unfortunately, both these variants are not my cup of tea (or should I say, coffee). There is a note in both these scents - also very dominant in Kyphi and somewhat less noticeable in Bay Rum - that I don't care for. And I can't put my finger on what it is! Mind you, while I LOVE coffee, I have yet to find a fragrance that contains coffee that I like - with the exception of Jean Laporte's L'Eau de Navigateur where the very heavy spices seem to enhance the coffee note. I am sure that you will get positive responses from your other testers on both these scents, but I would have felt like a hypocrite if I didn't give my honest opinion. Incidentally I have been wearing and enjoying your three other samples that you sent to me. I even tried mixing a very small amount of the Salamanca with some Rose Chypre and the result was very beautiful - at least to me.

JOAN ELAINE
Cafe V 1
First impression: creamy mocha w/ a touch of bitter coffee
Vetiver and patchouli? violet leaf?
2nd testing, one week later: a nutty, oily note, walnut-like. Citrus - peel, not juice. 5 min. in, there seems to be a note that's hovering above, all-spice or nutmeg, mace? Feels discordant to me.
20 min in: notes smell more harmonious at this point, but something still seems to be hovering.
35 min. in: I think I have identified the hovering smell - it's not "discordant", it smells like a spice I don't like: cardamom. I think that's the nutty, oily smell too.
I like the creamy/bitter contrast.
On paper, it smells delicious, like chai without the black tea. Unfortunately for me, it smells flat and oily on my skin!
cafe V 2
Orange mocha!
This doesn't smell creamy, it smells citrusy - more orange, bitter coffee and cardamom. I prefer this blend to no.1.
On paper, it's quite juicy and vibrant, chocolate-y, rosy, a little spicy. Patchouli, rose, nutmeg? It smells wonderful.
For some reason, it smells flat on my skin- again, that nutty, oily smell. However, 10 minutes in, it starts to pop up - spicy coffee.
Pleasant and cozy, it would make a beautiful scent for Autumn.

DIANA
Cafe V #1 - No medicinal opening here, dry and less sweet or creamy so not really gourmand, though still foodie in a way. Like the smell of fresh roasted coffee beans instead of a coffee drink or flavored food. It's less chocolate-y and more like a good shot of espresso from beans with a touch of coffee to them. It's less aggressive than two, and the sillage is smaller, but I like it very much. I probably prefer #1 to #2, which surprised me because I normally love sweet foodie, but this really spoke to me.

Cafe V #2 - I get an almost medicinal sweetness in the immediate opening here, like a combination of dry bitter chocolate and moss. Almost liqueur-like, like one made of coconut and chocolate liqueur. I definitely get the leather, like new fresh leather, newly treated for commercial use. Veeery foodie, particularly next to #1. The whole thing in my mind is like an exhibit in a modern art exhibit: a coffee cream filled dark chocolate petit four made, not from food, but made entirely of different colors, textures, and ages of leathers.

INES
I really am sorry to say that something in those two samples doesn't work well with my stomach. I'm guessing the leather-cardamom combination. That doesn't happen often, but recently it also happened with DSH Cuir et champignon.
Of the two, I think version 1 is lighter on my stomach. It smells to me rocky, sweetly, lightly coffe-ish and smoky.

Number two has a lightly meaty quality I couldn't place where I was getting it from the notes and seemed to me a bit stronger version of 1. I don't understand the idea of meaty smokiness but it just doesn't suit me, so if I were you, I'd take my thoughts on these 2 out of the equation.
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All of the comments were insightful and fun to read, and there were two comments that I was particularly struck by - the characterization of Café V as “steampunk” and the one that described it as a modern art rendition of a petit four made entirely of leather. Now that I think about it, a big industrial espresso machine does have a steampunk look, so it's right in keeping with the theme. And I love the idea of the leather sculpture.

Poetic descriptions aside, the first and most important thing that I discovered from these reviews is that a lot of people intensely dislike cardamom. This comes as a little bit of a surprise to me, since it’s one of my favorite spices. The first adjustment will probably be to either back off a lot with the cardamom or omit it entirely. The second thing - not a surprise - was that the coffee needs to be bumped up. The addition of the creamy note seems to be a toss-up. Some like it, others prefer the version without it.

Some impressions are all over the map - carnauba wax, 3-in-1 oil, meat, orange, etc. I don’t worry too much about these outliers, since everybody comes up with their own odd take on things. What I do worry about is several people mentioning that the cardamom was overpowering and the coffee hardly noticeable. I think the chocolate needs bumping up, too.

The bottom line seems to be that this is worth pursuing, but will require some more work to make it appealing to the majority of people.

[All images, including the anonymous painting, are from Wikimedia]

THE NEW PERFUMES: EMERGENCE

I’ve presented the two perfumes that I’ll add to my line, and now it’s time for the two that I’m going to rethink a little before deciding what to do with them. The first of these is Emergence, meant to represent the first few indolic days of an orchid’s bloom, before it goes into full production of its main theme.

GAIL
Initial: Immediate blast of sweet and funky fruit and flowers
1 minute: Some sandalwood? Camphor is here but more like an aura than a distinct fragrance note.
2 minutes: Some sweet citrus appears
5 minutes: The fruity funk still predominates, but the citrus and camphor push through
6 minutes: Here comes some honey. Also can detect some amber (?) and labdanum (?). The fragrance is losing its sweet edge and is blending into the familiar Golden Cattleya.
15 minutes: The initial funk has still not faded. I think I would like some cedar and more camphor at this point
30 minutes: “Golden Cattleya” is here with a sweet, camphor halo.
1 hour: Similar to 30 minutes but weaker.
2 hours: Lingering orange, honey and a little spice (?)
6 hours: A trace of what I smelled at 2 hours. All but gone.
General comments: The initial sweet blast was almost too much for me but it didn’t take long for the first impression to resolve into a modified “Golden Cattleya” with a lovely aura of camphor. The sweet introduction, including indole and civet and some fruit or other seemed to be stronger in “Emergence” than in the prototype “Cattleya #1”. While I find these quite strong my husband really likes them. There is something very sexy and brazen about the first impression of this fragrance.

CELINA
This is my old love. I can feel the top note are changed. Indolic and slightly camphorous. Beautiful. The base is less sweet and I like that. If the old version was more opulent and rich this one comes with a little bit of introduction. I love indoles so even a higher ratio would have been fine. I find this fragrance unique and lovable. No attributes will make justice. No description can be satisfying. This is a fragrance you have to smell and enjoy.

LAURIE BROWN
After the dryness of the first two scents, this one really startled me. So sweet! And not just sweet, but effervescent! It was like Sweet Tarts (those sour/sweet candies we had as kids, er, 50 years ago) and it *fizzed* in my nose! I’d love to know how you managed that. I’d mix it with something winey and try for champagne in a scent! Anyway, after about 10 minutes the fizzy goes away for the most part and the scent deepened, and it smells like musk and feels like mink. After 30 minutes, it is powdery, warm and golden, but still sweet. I LOVE it, and was sorry that it faded so fast on me- an hour? But like I said above, that’s not unusual for me. I don’t know what notes a standard Golden Cattleya has but I think I’d like it. Aha! Reading your notes again I see there is civet- that’s where the mink came from.

EdC
Emergence seems like it stays "the same" (something like orange) but changes character from a fruit to a floral to a spice to a wood. I have to check "the same" by comparing samples put on paper at different times but it's something I haven't heard of any perfumer doing before. Love it!

[After trying them all] Emergence remains my favorite. To my nose it started as a sweet fruity orange, then morphed into a semi-floral orange, a citrusy orange, a spicy orange, a woody orange, and finally a dusty orange, all over about 15 hours (on paper). Surround was good but I wouldn’t worry about intruding on others.


ROBERT
My first thought was that this was a copy of Golden Cattleya. However, when comparing them side-by-side, there are distinct differences: the Emergence is fresher and lighter with some sort of medicinal note while the older version is very heavy, sweet and sultry. I believe that the older version is a better fragrance; it seems more rounded and more distinctive. Golden Cattleya reminds me of Guerlain's L'Heure Bleue. While the fragrances have distinctively different notes, they both have the glow of sunset and an enduringly heady projection. Golden Cattleya seems to come from a different era - one where opulence and indolence were common among the extremely wealthy. Narcisse Noir also belongs in this category.

With that being said, I would probably wear the Emergence on special occasions; the Golden Cattleya is just too floral and sweet. Basically I see Emergence as a good fragrance but Golden Cattleya as being better and perfect on the right woman. I am just very thankful that someone is making fragrance that is neither "fresh", "clean" nor "on-trend" and does not smell as if it comes from a chemical factory!

JOAN ELAINE
First impression on skin: citrus leather, a little creamy. Sweet but not sugary -honeyed!
Signature - this perfume was created by Ellen Covey, no doubt!
Second testing a week later - Reminds me of Golden Cattleya. Do not smell anything leathery. I tested it the same night I tested Salamanca - maybe that's why I thought I could smell leather?
Very well blended at top. Neroli? Orange blossom? About 5+ minutes in, seems more floral - narcissus and jasmine? Smells fantastic!
Seems to be getting sweeter now, 15+ minutes in, candied.
30 min: muskiness seems to be emererging. I like this- like a honeyed-skin, ripe peaches.
Sunny, sweet and sexy! 


DIANA
Oh so pink! But also something bitter and dry at the front. I get a lot of civet, so the scent gets earthier throughout the drydown. It reminded me of candied roasted pecans rolled in fertilizer. After looking at brief: the dryness must be the camphor. Personally I get a lot of civet, almost too much. That can be good, under the right circumstances. For me, though, this might be just a touch too much.

INES
Well, it really reminds me of your other orchid scents. Unfortunately I didn't try those side by side with this one, I can just tell it has your orchid signature. And before you take me wrong, I really like that. It's uniquely yours and very enjoyable.

Starts sweet and lightly fruity and reminds me a lot of a type of bubblegum we had here when I was little. Afterward, sometimes I get an ambery feel I enjoy a lot, and sometimes I don't, but it doesn't seem to change a lot.
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The comments overall seem positive, but the take-home message that I got is that it’s still a little too close to the original Golden Cattleya. After sending out samples, I found that the indole, civet and camphorous notes progressively decline as the concentrate sits. These notes were super-strong at first, but are now quite subtle. The differences in the extent to which people smelled indole, civet, and camphor may have had to do, in part, with the time that the blend sat before testing. I have learned that this particular formula requires a very long time to stabilize. I’m trying to decide whether to tweak it some more or just move on to another indolic, civet-drenched orchid scent, that of Encyclia radiata. I think I may go for the Encyclia.

After all of this testing, I will probably end up with a list of fragrances that will never be listed on the main pages of my website, but that can be special-ordered through the wild card option if anyone wants them.

THE NEW FRAGRANCES: ROSE CHYPRE

WARNING: This is a very long post!

Most of the testers of the four new fragrances have sent comments back to me, so I’m going to start the series on evaluating them. If I've mislaid anyone's comments, please let me know! It looks like two of the fragrances will go into production with minimal tweaking, and two others will go back to the “lab” for further work. I’ll discuss the two that seem more or less ready for release first. As a thank-you for reviewing this fragrance, each of you will who responded will receive a 5-ml spray vial of the rose chypre once it’s officially named and the formula and packaging are finalized.

The rose chypre seems to have been fairly well received by everyone who’s responded so far. It’s fascinating to read the different comments and be reminded of just how much variety there is in the way different people perceive the same scent, and even the different ways in which the same person perceives it at different times. First, I’ll present the comments in their raw form, and then try to pull some common threads out of them.

GAIL writes:
“Initial: Sweet herbs and rose
5 minutes: Citrus begins to predominate over the rose. Bergamot? Citrus leaves?
6 minutes: I expected some waxy aldehyde and here it is.
10 minutes: Musk warms up the rose. Citrus fades a bit.
30 minutes: Labdanum, spicy green rose, soap (wax)
40 minutes: Oakmoss is taking over the rose and herbs. Not much citrus
1 hour: Oakmoss predominates
2 hours: Oakmoss, rose and herbs
6 hours: Faint rose/oakmoss
General comments: This is a lovely Rose/Chypre. Very classic as you say and well balanced. On my skin it was a cool, green rendition of a rose, more leafy than spicy. I wouldn’t change it at all. I liked it, but would probably not wear it often. I prefer tropicals.”

CELINA writes:
“A clean cousin of L'Arte de Gucci, with some skanky, naughty musk.
The floral - woody balance is quite well proportioned. I like the top note and the first few minutes, after that the musk seems to be little bit overpowering for me and distracts from the beauty of the construction. The musks come down after a while. Because I am not a big fan of the musky notes I still find them overwhelming for the first 2 hours. The rose is pretty nice without being overwhelming. It is more green with a sharp fine edge, not the lush sensuous kind. And that comes most probably from the woody notes. I like the overall feeling.

The best part is the dry down where the rose is like a glow for the whole composition. The woody- musky notes are balancing each other perfectly. I would say there is also a subtle tone of earthy pepperiness, and that makes the musks more attractive.

It feels more of an intellectual fragrance in dry down. If the top is skanky and at some point gives you a frivolous feeling, the dry down is part sophisticated and part intellectual with a subdued femininity. Pretty well done. I wish the musks were less liberal in the top note but that is just me. I am sure lots would love it exactly like this. (I am not the best judge when talking about musk.) After 4 hours it is perfect and beautiful. The musks are more quiet, everything is in perfect harmony. Well put together.”

LAURIE BROWN writes:
“I tried this one first because I love chypres. I’d kill to get another bottle of the Coty original, which I had years ago. Right off the top, I get a hay-like note (which is odd, since I don’t see any coumarin in your notes!) There is a breeze of something powdery. About five minutes in, roses start to bloom. Tea rose and the oakmoss start coming on. Then something golden arrives- I’m going to guess it’s the labdanum. After about 20 minutes, the roses come back, but deeper, red roses this time, like an old Hybrid Perpetual like General Jacqueminot. After awhile, the rose fades again, and the oakmoss takes center stage for several hours, actually. But there is a sweetish edge to the oakmoss – the labdanum again? The musks? Or perhaps the patchouli, although at no point could I have pinpointed patchouli in the blend. I like it a lot, although I think I’d like it even better with something green in it, perhaps a tiny touch of galbanum. But that’s just me; I love green.”

ROBERT writes:
“Another beauty... Your Rose Chypre fragrance reminds me of the wonderful scents that were available from a myriad of sources during the Fifties and Sixties. A bright and lush rose is surrounded by a veil of forest. It is a little like Cabochard (but not as spicy) or Knowing (but not as dark). I have worn Aramis 900 so I am not that unfamiliar with this type of fragrance and I will be wearing this on more formal occasions; the chypre ingredients seem to make the rose fragrance less overtly floral. This is a beautiful scent, Elly, and I hope you add it to your regular line. I would also be interested to see this fragrance with just a smidgen of leather added. Again, it is a pleasure to use a scent that seems to contain a lot of high quality naturals. Incidentally, the sillage and longevity are excellent.”

JOAN ELAINE writes:
First impressions on skin: Top is berry-like, slightly medicinal fruity scent, like red licorice. There seems to be a note in this I have smelled in another Olympic Orchids perfume; an icy note- Osafume.
One week later, 2nd testing: The medicinal tone doesn't seem to be there any longer, nor the icy note. Rose smells brighter, tea-rose like. Reminds me of Etat Libre d'Orange Rossy de Palma.
3rd testing, the next day: There is a lightly-powdered muskiness I quite like. Better than the Rossy de Palma. I swear I can smell something like mango, or pineapple - perhaps lending its natural muskiness?
This fragrance has good sillage and longevity. Lasts for hours! I changed my mind about this scent in one week - why sampling is important! On paper, it smells like it does on my skin, but I detect a "violet" note - like face powder.”

EdC writes:
I was very impressed by your rose chypre. I like that it starts as a dry rose, becomes a leathery rose, and goes to almost complete leather domination, then works back to rose, all in about 3 hours. Then it stays a clear rose for another 6 or 8 hours. I have no idea how you can alternate which note dominates but I enjoy it.

DIANA writes:
I love the opening because it is aggressive, bold and sexy. I get a lot of clove with the rose. I feel like this would have a middling to large sillage wake. Not overly sweet. Feels very modern to me. I get rose petals, stem, and leaf, as though someone put two dozen roses through a wood chipper and sent it to you in one giant box. I love it! *And* iI don't think it smells like anything else because you managed to avoid an overly sweet or flowery rose.

INES writes:
The last time I tried it, it literally blew me off my feet. :-) It's really incredible. :-)
Dewy, slightly clean/watery in the beginning, rich and full of blossoms, and lighty tinged green. What's not to love?! Honestly, I find it incredible. It also smells purple to me. :-)
It has a deep and rich rose feel, and it reminds me a bit of Paestum Rose by Eau d'Italie but improved. But it also made me think if there are some spices in there, as I know there are in Paestum Rose but compared to Rose Chypre, PR sort of lacks depth and richness. Warm and dry and rosy and absolutely enchanting.
And I can't help but feel it matured into this since the first time I smelled it.

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Taking all of these comments together, it seems that everyone smelled some sort of rose, although it varied from very green to not nearly green enough, “spicy and green” to “deep and red”. I think the rose can stay pretty much as is, since it is different types of roses to different people, but still rose. A rose is a rose, even when it’s green, red, spicy, or reduced to mangled petals, thorns, and stems straight from the wood chipper. A tiny bit of galbanum in the opening probably wouldn’t hurt, since I like galbanum and it would enhance the initial green impression.

Most everyone seems to have smelled at least some musk, which may be what was perceived as “powdery” or “leathery” by some, although the labdanum could also have been what one tester perceived as “leathery”. One tester thought there was too much musk, which may be quite valid for those of us who can smell every musk ever invented. For others, it’s just fine, so I don’t think I’ll mess with the musks much. I might reduce them a tiny bit, though, since the musk opening seems strong to me, too.

Most testers seem to have gotten at least some hint of the typical chypre structure (bergamot-aldehydes-floral-oakmoss-musk), so I’m satisfied in that respect. I found it interesting that one tester found it to be a very “leathery” scent, while another called for adding a dollop of leather. I’ll think about adding just a touch of leather accord or bumping up the labdanum resin a tiny bit.

I’m pleased that the scent seems to evolve in an interesting way and have good longevity. My goal was to use high quality natural materials to make a classic chypre of the type that is no longer produced by the mainstream, and it seems to have worked out fairly well. I guess in the end, it’s a classic chypre that uses enough modern materials along with the traditional ones so that it doesn’t smell dated. On to final formulation and production!

ONE MORE SET OF SAMPLES AND A CONTEST

I miscounted the number of people who signed up for sample sets of the new fragrances, so there's one more set available if you'd like to be a tester. The first person to leave a comment or e-mail me will receive a set of the 4 fragrances under development: the as yet unnamed rose chypre, Salamanca, Café V, and Emergence.

I have not yet named the rose chypre. Regardless of whether or not you're sampling it, you are invited to suggest names that would fit a classic chypre scent based on a heart note of rose. If you are the winner and the name you proposed is chosen, you will be eligible to select a 5-ml perfume spray of your choice.

TEST SETS COMING!

I'm just about ready to prepare and send out sets of the new fragrances that are under development and I think I have a mailing address or e-mail for everyone who signed up except Celina. So Celina, please contact me with your complete address. I'm looking forward to your comments and critiques!

Now that this batch is at a testing point, I'm going to concentrate on finishing up Alyssum and the other perfume for the special customer.

THE ROSE CHYPRE

Like any other kind of art, perfume isn’t something that I deliberately and consciously create on an intellectual level, it’s something that comes to me from an unknown place. Like music, I take a theme, forget about it for a while and simply score it out once it’s ready, then work on an arrangement. I always have multiple perfume projects going on in parallel, and never know which one of them will mature first. However, when something does mature, it’s very clear, sort of like labor pains. Some projects have ridiculously long gestation periods, others just pop right out.

This past week, the rose chypre that I mentioned some time ago was begging for attention, and I’ve mixed up a first draft using a traditional base of oakmoss, clear labdanum absolute, lots of musks, and dabs of two different kinds of patchouli. The heart is my new rose accord and some rose de mai absolute with just a touch of cyclamen and ylang-ylang. Of course the top notes include the obligatory bergamot and, along with it, some aldehydes, petitgrain, red mandarin and red thyme. I’m trying it out on my wrist as I write, and it’s not bad for a first attempt. At first I thought I went a little too heavy on the top notes, but now that it’s been sitting for a week, it’s fine. I added a little more labdanum to produce an obvious resinous note in the base. At first I worried that the mix wasn't strong enough, but after a half hour on my skin it really took off, and it looks as if it will last well. I think it’s ready for testing. It's not the pink cattleya, but that's eventually coming, too.

The as yet unnamed rose chypre will be in the set of new samples that I send out for their preliminary test, along with Salamanca, Café V, and Emergence. This is the last call for anyone who would like to test a trial version of these new fragrances, since I’ll be mailing them out soon. If you have not already volunteered and would like to try them, please leave a comment here or send an e-mail.

LEATHER

Leather seems to always be a problematic note in perfumery. One step too far in the “raw” direction and it’s too close to the dead animal that it came from. One step too far in the “smoky” direction and it smells like a campfire. One step too far in the quinoline direction and it smells like celery. One step too far in the “finished” direction and it smells like powder, violets, iris, or all of those things.

After smelling an uncountable number of “leather” perfumes, I’ve concluded that leather in perfume is an elusive concept that each individual has to construct for him- or herself from an ambiguous olfactory “figure” that could be perceived in more than one way. The easiest way to think about it is by considering an ambiguous drawing. Look at the picture one way and you see the young wife. Look at it another way and you see the old mother-in-law. Sniff the accord one way and it’s violet. Sniff the same accord another way and it’s leather. It’s an interesting cognitive process that crosses over from one modality to another. Like an ambiguous or hidden visual figure, leather is a lot easier to find if you’re told it’s in the mix so that you have a search image to fit it to. Without a suggestive name or a list of notes as a guide, there’s no telling how you’re going to connect the dots.

In general, I like leather scents regardless of which direction they take, and a couple of perfumes with a leather note are on the drawing board. This means that I have to create something that, to me, truly smells like leather. The leather I have in mind is my husband’s relatively new black leather jacket. My own leather jackets (yes, I have more than one, all bought second-hand) have long ago lost that fresh, finished leather smell, which is the one I think I’m going for.

On my first attempt at making a leather accord, I thought I overdosed it with isobutyl quinoline, and planned to start over from scratch. However, after the elements blended together, it doesn’t seem too far from the mark. It needs to be just a little drier, a little less quinoline-heavy (easy to fix), with just a touch more of the leather-finishing chemicals that give new leather its characteristic odor.

As soon as I have the definitive leather accord, my plan is to combine it with the dry grass accord that I made a long time ago to create a perfume celebrating Salamanca, the Spanish college town where I’ve spent a good bit of time. I already combined the first leather accord with the dry grass accord, and know that they go well together. The second plan for the leather accord is to use it in a fragrance inspired by a Seattle café where a lot of actors hang out. I’ll probably call it Café V, with notes of coffee (of course), chocolate, cinnamon, cardamom, cream and vanilla on a base of leather and woods. The initial tests with that basic combination have worked out well, too. I’ll have prototypes of both leather-containing scents soon, so if you’d like to sign up to be a tester for Salamanca, Café V, (and/or a skanky orchid fragrance, Emergence), please let me know by leaving a comment here or sending me an e-mail.

ALYSSUM'S FIRST REPORT

A while back I gave Alyssum several samples to test. These were the three key components of her perfume (smoke, cedar, and sweet alyssum flowers) plus one possible supplemental note (ambroxan). She’s been wearing them and making notes. Here’s the log that she kept.
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ALYSSUM'S PERFUME LOG

As a brief note, I’d just like to make it clear that while I was experimenting with the scents, I was careful not to put on any other scented products (moisturizer, etc.) to keep the scents pure. I placed an ample amount on my left wrist and never rubbed it, knowing that scents fade faster if I were to do so.

2/18 - Smoke
• At 10:20, I put a whole “wand’s” worth (wiped the dropper entirely on my wrist)
• The scent was pungent at first (bitter, almost) and very strong (I could smell it through my clothes.
• After ½ an hour, the smell became much more gentle, warm. More like incense. I really like how it meshes with my skin.
• At 12:30 the smell has faded to how I always remember my house smelling mid-winter with the wood-burning stove blazing. The “wood” notes of the wood-smoke scent are now more pronounced.
• Scent lasted, albeit faded, until that evening.
• The next day, the cuff of the sleeve on my jacket still smelled very strongly of the smoke scent.

2/20 – Cedar
• At 2pm, put a whole wand on my left wrist.
• At first it smelled very sharp, not even like wood, but within even five minutes it softens, like very fragrant wood chips.
• At 3:20 the scent was much more wood-like, and softer than woodchips. This is the perfect scent, especially when combined with the smoke (I think).
• I realize that cedar is a very dry smell, which is why I think it will blend best with the smoke, but without the alyssum, the two would be too much. Perhaps the alyssum is softer, flowery and “moist” enough to balance them out.
• By the end of the day, the cedar was a perfect, subtle, woody fragrance.

2/21 – Ambroxan
• Put on at 12pm
• Sweeter than the other two, not as musky as I imagined, but perhaps a good middle tone between the smoky wood and the alyssum.
• There’s something very natural about the scent, almost animal. Smells more like someone’s skin than, say, the cedar.
• By the end of the day, the scent was even lighter, sweet, feminine. The essence of that “lingering perfume” smell.

2/23- Alyssum
• Put on at 12:15
• Interesting because those sharp, pungent-yet-sweet (like cut grass) notes that usually follow the light and airy top notes of an alyssum flower are dominant at first.
• At 2pm, the scent smelled sweet, light, and clean. I have another perfume called “Warm Cotton” from the Clean line, and their bottom notes are very similar. A little worried that this lovely aspect will be overtaken by the grittiness of the smoke.
• At 11pm a sweet, light feminine scent remains.

2/23 – Smoke + Alyssum
• Two parts alyssum, one part smoke.
• Because I put the smoke on second, it immediately dominated over the alyssum scent.
• Twenty minutes later, the alyssum softens the pungent smoke so that it smells like sweet incense.
• Surprisingly maintains that “clean” smell thoughout the day.
• Before bed, I can hardly smell the smoke at all. The alyssum has totally won out over the initial heavy smoke scents.

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This all seems promising, especially the part about the alyssum winning out over the smoke. The main thing I was worried about was the possibility that the smoke would completely overpower the alyssum.

It sounds like the next step will be to work on adjusting relative concentrations of the base components to make a cedar-smoke base, possibly with a tinge of ambroxan. Alyssum is quite right that it could provide a link from the wood smoke base to the floral heart. From Alyssum’s report, I think the strategy will be to go easy on the cedar, using just enough to color the smoke, without the woody notes ever becoming really apparent.

It also sounds like we’ll need to add some light and airy top notes to the alyssum, so that’s the next accord that I’ll be making up. I’ll need to go smell the neighbor’s alyssum flowers again soon, after the current unseasonal bout of snow and cold is finished and the poor plants are back in bloom again.

Full speed ahead!

ALYSSUM: THE FIRST TEST

On Thursday I plan to meet with Alyssum for the first test of several components of her bespoke perfume. What I have prepared for her is a set of sample vials with the three featured notes and two suggested accessory notes, one for the base and one for the top, all diluted to perfume strength, along with a pack of scent testing strips. The featured notes are the cedar accord, the wood smoke, and the sweet alyssum floral accord. These are the notes that she will test first.

What I plan to have her do is test each material by itself on her skin and on paper, making notes about how long it lasts, whether it changes as it dries down, how well she likes it, and any ways in which she would like to modify it. Her first report will be her general impressions of the individual notes, their longevity and evolution on her skin, whether they come close to her vision of what she would like, and how she would change them to better approximate that vision. I will be doing similar testing myself, so we can compare notes.

The next step will be combining notes, trying to get the proper proportions. The first combination will be the smoke and cedar, to produce the right burning cedarwood note. What comes next will depend on Alyssum’s reactions - full speed ahead or back to the drawing board.

LEADING THE NOSE

Since I’ve been giving out samples of my perfumes for testing, I’ve come to the fascinating, almost frightening, realization of how easy it is to lead people’s noses to smell whatever you want them to smell. In the beginning I started out with four orchid scents, but over time have added more than twice that many other scents that had nothing to do with orchids, or even with flowers. However, the original calls for testers had the word “orchid” in the heading, and I think people expected all of my perfumes to be orchid fragrances.

When I have people test my perfumes I like for them to do it blind, so I never provide any description or indication of notes. The variability in what people smell without any context is nothing short of amazing. The only thing I can conclude is that there is so much individual variability in people’s sense of smell that no matter what notes are actually in a scent there will always be some people who perceive it as floral, others as woody, others as citrus, others as animalic, others as gourmand, and so on, and so on. Some people will think it’s a light and cheerful scent, others will think that it’s heavy and depressing. Some people will love it, some will be neutral, and others will hate it. I thought the testing process would identify some clear favorites, but that hasn’t happened.

What has become very clear to me is that people will smell whatever they expect to smell, or some variation of it. When orchids are the context, people will smell orchids even in a scent that contains nothing but cedar, juniper, pine, and aromatic herbs. They will smell orchids in a labdanum-heavy oriental amber scent, a traditional eau de cologne, or in any other scent that you could concoct. Admittedly, part of the problem is that almost no one knows what orchids smell like, and those of us who do know realize that orchids can smell like just about anything, including cedar wood, anise, ylang-ylang, vanilla (after all, real vanilla comes from an orchid plant), artificial cherry, baby powder, chocolate, dead meat, or feces. The “orchid” note in perfumery is a fantasy name for a class of smells that have little or nothing to do with real orchids.

However, I suspect that even for notes like vanilla that are fairly standardized and universally familiar, people will be able to “find” them in a scent with a name or description that suggests that they are present, even if the perfume contains nothing of the sort. I would be willing to bet that many people will be convinced that they smell vanilla in a scent composed of nothing but cedar, black pepper, and cloves if it is named Sexy Vanilla Cream Puff.

I don’t think the suggestibility of our olfactory system is comparable to the phenomenon described by Solomon Asch in the 1950s on visually judging the length of lines. Those experiments showed that when asked to compare test lines with a reference line and choose the two that were equal in length, a sizeable percentage of people would choose the wrong answer if their peers had done so. People are extremely accurate at estimating the length of a line, so in that case, they would all have given the correct answer if asked individually without any peer pressure. The situation in olfaction seems to be much more complicated. The peer pressure phenomenon is there, of course, and is probably quite powerful, but my guess is that the tester sets up a search image that somehow organizes the complex pattern of olfactory-evoked activity in the brain to conform to that image. This probably works because a complex olfactory stimulus can have multiple interpretations, much like a mathematical problem that can have multiple solutions. Perfumers take advantage of this ambiguity by providing one solution out of many, a solution that then becomes the default.