MATERIALS ARE NOT EVERYTHING

The other day I was reading some posts on a perfume-making group that I follow, mostly as an observer, and was struck by a post advertising a new site that plans to sell perfume bases of various kinds. A base is a ready-made accord, for example, a synthetic rose, violet, oud, or leather scent, sort of a single-note perfume on its own. The post not only contains glowing descriptions of the bases that this company plans to sell, but makes it sound as if they’re miracle potions that will turn anyone and everyone into a master perfumer. Here’s a quote:

“This will help many people take the leap from consumer to producer. Also, in the upcoming years, there will be a huge increase in the quality of independent fragrances because of these exquisite bases which will be available to us  … Just imagine what we could accomplish with materials like these! This is the bridge which will eliminate the distinction between amateur and professional perfumes.”

Really? Everyone is going to be a professional perfumer? If everyone is a professional based on someone else’s work, then the only professional is the person who originally formulated the bases.

Now there’s nothing wrong with good-quality bases. I’ve formulated my share of them myself for use in my own creations, and am not averse to using a good commercial one if (and only if) it comes up to my standards and serves my intended purpose. However, the statement that having exceptionally good bases available for purchase will make everyone a great, or even competent, perfumer is kind of like saying that selling an electronic keyboard with synthesized sounds of a Steinway grand piano and Stradivarius violin to people with no musical training or talent will immediately enable them to make beautiful and original music with no study or practice.

Perfume, like music, is an art of composition. In skilled and imaginative hands, the simplest scales, rhythms, and chord progressions can be used to create an infinite number of beautiful, original, and evocative melodies and harmonies; in perfumery the simplest materials can be used to create beautiful, original, and evocative fragrances, but a certain amount of knowledge, skill, inspiration, and feeling for the art is required in ether case.

It may be that the ubiquity of useful and cost-effective commercial bases is one of the factors that already causes so many perfumes to smell so similar. If every musician used the same pre-programmed drum machine sequence and set of melodic samples, there would be a lot of similarity in the resulting compositions.

I suppose the idea expressed in the post is that even an unskilled person can take a beautiful ready-made mixture and use it as their own, but there are already many excellent materials available, including naturals, which are complex accords in their own right. Another implicit point is that having good quality raw materials to start with is essential to having a good finished product – a point in which I am in complete agreement. However, learning how to use raw materials to create something original and compelling is the real trick. That is why I find this post is so puzzling.

After writing this, I realize that it might be fun to start a Wednesday series on raw materials for perfumery, and will try to post on this topic as often as I can.

[Artistic images of "miracle potion" vendors by an anonymous 17th century artist, Rembrandt, and Giovanni Domenico Tiepolo; photographic images from Wikimedia]

A ROOM WITH A VIEW AND GIVE-AWAY

Today, instead of Mass-Market Monday, we have an unusual guest post by Azar. Thank you!
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The holidays are over.  It's time to sort through and maybe even use a few gift certificates!  I love to receive gift certificates, especially to favorite retailers.  I also appreciate vouchers that can be exchanged for cash. That brings up a question, dear readers.  What would you do with a truly hefty gift certificate for something you didn't want; a certificate that couldn't be refunded or exchanged?

A couple of years ago Brad and I received an embarrassingly large gift certificate to a hotel we didn't want to go to, in a small, pretentious town we didn't want to visit. The amount of the gift certificate would have bought one or two big power tools, 3 or 4 days stay on Kona, or a lot of perfume. I have my theories about why anyone would give this kind of a gift, but I'll save those for another time. It would have been extremely impolitic of us to return the certificate to the givers. The sensible thing to do would have been to re-gift or maybe donate the certificate to a fund raising auction, but we felt obligated (don't ask me why) to use it. So begins our story of A Room With a View.

We needed moral support to "enjoy" our gift and enlisted our friends Ellen and Michael to help us spend the entire gift certificate as quickly and painlessly as possible.  On a cold afternoon in late December the four of us pulled up to a hotel of sorts on Whidbey Island, WA. After the desk clerk added insult to injury by requesting an additional $70 (!) in tax, we headed to our accommodations.

The suite located above a shop in downtown Langley, has two bedrooms and a single bath.  It is tastefully furnished, except for the artwork, which appears to be rejected material from the shop below.  One window has a view of the street and parking lot.  The other looks out on a deck, rooftops, a tree and a sliver of the Saratoga Passage, complete with what appear to be smoking factories or nuclear power plants.  When we arrived, these limited vistas were partially obscured by fingerprints, dog slobber and smeared Windex.  Dust bunnies, hair, and crumbs had settled, undisturbed, under the tables. The wine glasses in the otherwise clean kitchen were smudged with lipstick. While the dust and the dirty windows made us feel right at home, we were expecting a lot more for the exorbitant price!

We stowed our gear and went out to explore the town only to discover that 75% of the shops were closed and the small, pebbly area between the water and the town (it couldn’t really be called a beach) was covered by high tide.  Fellow tourists were wandering around in the frozen air, looking like bored zombies trying to come up with something to do. After about thirty minutes we returned to a warm fire and settled into three movies, a picnic supper, wine, cheese and dessert.  At 11:39 pm there was a heavy thumping sound followed by rock and roll as a 4.8 earthquake rattled the smudged windows and dirty glassware.

The following morning we made our way to the dining room for a complimentary breakfast of lox, hard-boiled eggs, muffins, and underdone quiche.  The owner/proprietor stopped by our table on her way in to have breakfast and inquired about our stay.  I was about to suggest a capable cleaning service when Ellen, fortuitously, jumped in with a non sequitur comment about the sunny weather.  After breakfast we quickly packed and beat a hasty retreat to a local winery.

Our experience in Langley was an adventure, of sorts, in pretension, amplified by unrealized expectations. In 2015 Brad and I received yet another gift certificate to a different expensive hotel in the same town! This time we will ungratefully re-gift it!

- Azar xx 
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Ellen's note: Readers, what is the most unjustifiably overpriced and/or pretentious gift you have ever received? What did you do with it? Leave a comment and be entered in a drawing for an Olympic Orchids (perfumes or plants) gift certificate! The drawing will take lace on Tuesday, January 19.

[All photos are mine/Azar's]

SCENTS OF THE SEASON SAMPLE PACK WINNER

The names have been shaken up and the lucky one drawn. The winner of the Scents of the Seasons Winter Collection is IRIS.

Please contact me with your shipping information: olympicorchids at gmail dot com.

Thanks to everyone who commented and entered this drawing!

If not claimed by January 16, it will go back in the pool for another drawing.

[photo is from Wikimedia, for no particular reason.]

HAPPY NEW YEAR 2016!

It’s that time of year when all of the “best-of” lists have been compiled, “resolutions” lists for the coming year have been drawn up, and we can relax and hibernate for the rest of the winter.

In thinking about the past year, I could make a long list of “best-of” experiences, which makes more sense than a list of “best fragrances” because it’s completely personal. It was a good year overall, so there were many, many milestone markers. Here are five, not necessarily the “best” (whatever that is), but definitely very good. As I re-read them, it seems they all have to do with people, not things. 

1. In perfumery, the big thrill was winning the Art and Olfaction Award for Woodcut. I realize how arbitrary and lucky it was, but the recognition still feels good! Saskia Wilson-Brown has provided an amazing forum for recognition and support of artisan and indie perfumers. In two years she managed to single-handedly put together what has now become one of the premier perfume awards events worldwide. I have enormous respect and admiration for Saskia and for all of the hard work she has done. 

2. In life, I celebrated 15 years married to Michael C. I know from experience that very few men could not only put up with my multiple offbeat activities and crazy schedules, but also learn so much about orchids and perfumes and pitch in and help whenever I need it. Some of you know Michael from the Artisan Fragrance Salons in San Francisco, LA, and Seattle. 

3. In my day-job, I finally published the edited book on electrophysiology methods that I’d been working on for several years. At the same time I have scaled back my research program to make more time for other things. Readers of this blog can guess what they are!

4. In business, it was like hitting the mother lode when I found a superb apprentice to help me with some of the busy-work inherent in perfume production and shipping. Stacey G is a fantastic worker, and extremely fast learner. And she's a wonderful person in every way. My dream is that she will stick around and eventually grow into a larger role in the business. She has a good nose!

5. In general, I have loved getting to know so many wonderful people throughout the world of perfumery. I’ve made some beloved friends via the perfume community and this blog.

Regarding new years resolutions, I refuse to go there because I don’t want to disappoint myself or others if they’re not carried out. I’d rather leave things open to opportunity because that’s what has always seemed to work best for me.

Whatever happens, I’m looking forward to an exciting year in 2016, and wish the same and more for all who read this.

[Janus is modified from Wikimedia, Art and Olfaction Awards photo is from their website, the rest are mine]

SCENTS OF THE SEASON: WINTER 2015

It’s that time again when I have been putting together a seasonal collection for my Scents of the Season subscribers, and it’s always a challenge to pick a group of fragrances that I haven’t sent out before. At some point I suppose I’ll have to start recycling some of them, but so far I haven’t yet reached that point. My color printer stopped working when the internet went down after the last big rain- and windstorm, and I haven't gotten it back up and running so won't have the nice color box labels this time. Oh well, maybe by spring. 

This winter’s collection is mostly centered around resinous and balsamic scents, partly because of an experience I had the other day when I was mixing up a batch of concentrate that used some balsamic notes and was struck by what a subtly rich smell they had. As a limited edition extrait for the winter collection I mixed up a balsamic fragrance that I’ve been enjoying for the past few days, showcasing these types of materials. Some of the main ingredients are benzoin, tolu balsam, and liquidambar. These would typically be base notes, but they are beautiful alone.

Most people who are into perfume have probably at least heard of benzoin and tolu balsam, but Liquidambar styraciflua is the American sweetgum tree, an ancient species that has been around for at least 50 million years and is often planted as an ornamental. It grows fast, puts on a gorgeous show of orange, red, and purple leaves in the fall and drops those pesky, spiky “gumballs” that fall on the roads and sidewalk like a scattering of ball-bearings, creating a hazard for unsuspecting runners. Although not generally thought of as a source of perfume, the sweetgum tree exudes a sweet-smelling gummy resin when wounded. The resin has a unique balsamic smell and has been burned like frankincense and chewed like gum. On its own, I find that it contains an odd note that’s not entirely pleasant, but combined with other resins it enhances and deepens the richness and sweetness of the mix.

Tomorrow I’m going on a local “adventure” trip on Whidbey Island, and will be out of electronic contact for a couple of days. Before I go, I’d like to share the fact that two of my perfumes have made the 2015 “best-of” lists: White Cattleya on Cafleurebon, and Zoologist Bat on Now Smell This (NST). A big thank-you to Michelyn and Erin!

Leave a comment here on your favorite perfumes to wear in 2015 (they don’t need to have been released in 2015) and be entered to win a Scents of the Season Winter 2015 sample pack (including Bat), plus a sample of White Cattleya. The drawing will occur on Saturday, January 9. Please share info about the drawing with your perfume-loving friends and family.

[The top photo was grabbed from the local ski area webcam, the bat graphic is the one that's on the label of Zoologist Perfumes Bat, and the other two are adapted from Wikimedia. The lowest one shows Deception Pass, the gateway to Whidbey Island.]