SPRING DRAWING FOR SAMPLES OF NATURAL MATERIALS

I haven’t had a contest or drawing for a long time, so was thinking about what to do for the next one. An idea popped into my head when I received a shipment from Eden Botanicals the other day and saw that they had generously included 9 samples. Whenever I order bulk materials from them, they send a whole pack of small samples in 1 ml vials, so I have quite a collection. Some of these are materials I already have in large quantities, so it occurred to me that it would be nice to share these little sniffies with those who don’t usually buy essential oils, resins, absolutes, or extracts.

Some things, like agarwood SCO2 extract, I’m keeping for myself just because they’re so expensive and/or hard to come by that even a small quantity is a good thing to keep and use. The samples in the drawing will be some of the more ordinary things, but it’s still an opportunity to smell these natural notes by themselves rather than as components of a finished fragrance. The winner will receive a package of at least 6 samples. If enough people enter, I’ll send out 2 sets of samples.

If you would like to be entered in the drawing, leave a comment saying what one of your favorite natural perfume notes is. The winner will be randomly drawn on Saturday, April 7.

By the way, if you are testing davana and haven't sent me your comments yet, please do so soon, as I'm going to post about it this week or next.

[spice, hemlock resin, and chamomile photos from Wikimedia]

MAGNIFICENT MAGNOLIAS

Yesterday I discovered that the building where I teach my spring quarter class is surrounded on one side by a multitude of blooming magnolia trees. There are three different types of magnolia, all variations on the deciduous “Japanese” magnolia. The star magnolia, Magnolia stellata, has pure white, delicate-looking flowers and the most delicate scent. It smells sweet, clean, and moist, with only a hint of the spiciness that’s present in the larger magnolia flowers.

The saucer magnolia, Magnolia soulangeana, has the largest flowers of the deciduous magnolias, in colors that range from pure white to pink. The fragrance is also sweet, clean, and moist, but with a distinct spicy note. I think the other trees must be hybrids that are intermediate between the saucer and star magnolia, with flowers that are between the two in both appearance and fragrance.

Most of the magnolias that grow in the Pacific Northwest are the deciduous kind, but every so often I see a nice specimen of Magnolia grandiflora, the evergreen magnolia. I have vivid memories of a Magnolia grandiflora tree that grew in front of one place we lived when I was a child. The tree itself was intimidating with its blackish trunk and branches, its wide shiny leaves, and the fact that nothing else would grow under it. Despite the imposing bulk and sinister appearance of the tree, I loved the heady scent of the huge white flowers, a clean, sweet scent with camphorous and spicy notes. My brother and I, together with other kids in the neighborhood would throw the magnolia “cones” at each other, pretending they were hand grenades.

A subgenus of the magnolia family is Michelia. One of my favorite essential oils is Michelia alba, which has some of the same sweet, camphorous and spicy notes as magnolia grandiflora flowers. I’ve used it in several of my perfumes to add a light, spicy, green-floral note.

There’s also Michelia champaca, used to make a floral absolute with a sweet scent that’s a little like green tea with honey.

Magnolias are primitive plants, with fossils dating back to the days of the dinosaurs, and I think that gives them a special mystique. To smell a magnolia flower is to smell the ancient world that existed before we humans were in the picture.

[All flower photos from Wikimedia]

THE THIN LINE BETWEEN MYSTIQUE AND BS

I was reading a blog or forum post a while back (I don’t remember where it was) that posed the question of whether the availability of information on the internet, together with the increased availability of fragrance itself and the use of fragrance in so many mundane applications, has decreased the mystique surrounding perfume, and therefore its desirability. As a perfumer, I’ve thought about this a lot and, as with any other question, there are many ways to answer it, all partly right, and all partly wrong (can you tell I’m a Libra?).

A corollary of this question, I suppose, is whether the abundance of relatively accessible technical information, the revelation of scent-making secrets, and transparency in perfume formulation has led to an increased level of marketing hype and general BS to counteract the perception that perfume is just another ordinary product like car air fresheners, printer cartridges and ball-point pens, made in factories by machines tended by anonymous button pushers to briefly serve a function and then be disposed of so that the consumer can buy more, near-identical, items to replace them.

Personally, I think we all need a little romance and mystique in our lives. A lot of it comes from other people and from intangible, ephemeral experiences like watching snow fall, traveling, or listening to music, but we also instinctively need some tangible inanimate objects that we marvel at for their beauty, revel in through our senses, treasure, and wish to keep forever. Ancient and primitive cultures seem to understand that everyday objects should be well-made, meaningful, and beautiful. Some of my prized objects are a chunky bowl hand-crafted from beautifully patterned olive wood that I bought from a little hole-in-the wall shop in Spain, the Native American silver squash blossom earrings that I bought in Arizona, a beautifully designed and crafted black leather jacket that I bought like new at a second-hand store and wear constantly; the green Gibson guitar that I don’t have time to learn to play properly, and a few really gorgeous perfumes.

Taking this analogy a little further, I suppose I could put food in a cheap plastic bowl, wear a pair of tacky plastic earrings, wear a cheaply made, ugly but warm, synthetic cloth jacket, pick at a cheap particleboard guitar that’s constantly going out of tune, and spray on a cheap fragrance oil diluted in alcohol until I get sick of all of these things, but why? Just so I can go out and buy more inferior items that I’ll also get sick of before long and do my part to keep the economy growing?

I don’t think knowing how things are made demystifies them as long as they’re made with thought and care. If they’re not well made, the mystique will wear off anyway when they break, malfunction, or just get annoying because of their cheapness and ugliness. I probably know more about how a hand-turned wooden bowl or a blown glass one is made than I do about how a plastic bowl is mass-produced in a factory, but the hand-made objects don’t lose their allure simply because I can envision the process of making them. They still have their intrinsic beauty, and the fact that someone actually put some thought into choosing the materials, designing the objects, and crafting them with care is a mystique in itself. Even though I know how a wooden or blown glass bowl is made, that doesn’t mean that I could make one, and certainly not a beautiful one. I think the same goes for perfume.

In fact, if we indie perfumers are honest and forthcoming about how our perfume is made, it should give the user a heightened appreciation for the quality of the materials used, the huge amount of knowledge, skill, time, and experimentation that goes into designing a perfume, and the love and labor that goes into producing what is a work of olfactory art.

The factories can keep the BS and hyperbole. Ultimately, it’s up to the consumer to distinguish between real craftsmanship and fictional craftsmanship, and it’s up to the consumer to decide whether they want to experience their own authentic version of pleasure or a ready-made, spoon-fed, fictional version of pleasure.

[Pics of handmade objects (ancient Egyptian perfume bottle, Mayan bowl, and vintage kilim rug) all from Wikimedia]

REDUCING THE AVALANCHE OF PERFUME REVIEWS

No, this is not another post about “too many perfume blogs”, which I personally think is a non-issue like how many molecules can dance on the head of a pin. It’s a requiem for my own habitual posting of perfume reviews on one of the public fora.

I know this is not primarily a perfume review blog, but I have on occasion posted reviews of perfumes made by others on here, and for the past several years I’ve posted reviews almost every day on Fragrantica. As my perfume business has developed and grown, I’ve wondered from time to time about the issue of perceived conflict of interest, but have ignored that nagging little demon whispering in my ear because reviewing is so much fun. However, the issue of conflict of interest was brought home to me the other day by a colleague who characterized my reviews as “competitive”. That was never the spirit in which they were written, but I’m grateful that my nagging question has been answered loud and clear.

Yes, the whispering demon is right. I will no longer put my naked thoughts out there to be misconstrued. A perfumer has no business reviewing any perfumes other than his or her own. Any negative comment, or even faint praise, can be taken as hostility. Even glowing positive comments can be taken as an attempt to unfairly promote the work of a colleague for some selfish reason. Damned if you praise, and double-damned if you don’t.

Sampling perfumes, trying to analyze them, writing down my impressions, then reading the official notes and reviews that are out in public has long been one of my learning tools. It’s a way of finding out what works and what doesn’t, what people’s perceptions of specific notes are (always mind-boggling), what people can’t smell (also mind-boggling), and what’s already on the market so that I don’t inadvertently duplicate it. As it is, I’ve had a couple of near misses.

In a way, I’m sad to have to put this constraint on myself. I’ve enjoyed sharing my thoughts with the virtual community of perfumistas. But once I had made the decision, I quickly recovered from my grief over this loss of a morning ritual, and gained a new sense of freedom about what to sample(s) to wear, when to wear them, and what to write as notes for my eyes alone.

[Clip from watercolor painting by Carl Larsson, 1906]

WEEKEND RAVE: SKI NIGHT!

I haven’t been skiing at all this year and only once last year, but was lucky enough to get a couple of cheap lift tickets for night skiing, which starts at 3:00. This time of year, “night skiing” includes a lot of daytime skiing, too, since it doesn’t really get dark on the mountain until after 7:00. It was the right time to go.

Yesterday was a glorious, sunny day, so the drive up the mountain with my friends was spectacular. The lower slopes of the Cascades are covered with mossy, green rainforest-type vegetation, and with the sharp-toothed, snow-capped peaks in the background I was kicking myself for forgetting to bring my camera. I have always preferred to travel light and store the sights in my memory, but now I’m always thinking “photo opportunity for the blog”. One of these days I’ll learn to take my camera everywhere I go. Near the top, there are stratified walls of snow on either side of the highway.

The ski area is always like another world or another planet, but this weekend it outdid itself with 145+ inches (over 4 meters) of snow on the ground, bright blue sky, warm sun and – well, I might as well be honest – a layer of slush at the base and hard-packed snow and ice on top, full of potholes and gashes from the snowboarders, but who cares about snow conditions? It’s all good fun and I’d rather see the views and feel the first sun of the season than ski in the middle of a snowstorm with nice, fresh snow underfoot but no visibility.

It was both relaxing and awe-inspiring to watch the sun go lower, sink behind the mountain on the west while still shining on the peaks to the east, then watch as the sky darkened and a tiny sliver of crescent moon appeared in the west where the sunset was fading. The air was so clear that you could see the dark side of the moon, too.

Then it got cold. The slush at the bottom froze into ice. My teeth started chattering riding up the lift. We decided to go into the lodge for hot cocoa. Oh, what a treat it was to go inside where it was warm, drink the almost-too-hot, chocolate-flavored glop from the dispenser machine, and sit by the fireplace! It made me think of making a perfume based on chocolate and wood smoke. I think the two would go together perfectly.

Once we were warmed up and back outside again, the slopes were nearly deserted, so we practically had the mountain to ourselves. The sky was black, with Venus shining in the west above the moon, and the stars all out. This time it didn’t seem so cold. As I dropped gently down the mountain, I had the feeling that there’s nothing closer to the feeling of complete and utter freedom than to be on the mountain at night, swish-swishing down a deserted ski slope, feeling like I’m flying above the snow, my breath perfectly coordinated with the wide turns, the stars overhead, and the freezing wind in my face.

We skied almost until closing time at 10:00. This complete break from reality was exactly what I needed before the academic quarter starts again on Monday. And I have an idea for yet another perfume.

[Upper two photos, from Wikimedia show typical snow scenes in the Cascades; third photo, from Wikimedia, shows Stevens Pass, the area where I usually ski. The bottom photo is from the Stevens Pass webcam, showing the base area. It's overcast today, so the nice blue sky isn't visible.]

TO REFORMULATE OR NOT TO REFORMULATE?

I know there are many reasons for reformulation of perfumes, usually attributed to to lowering the manufacturing cost, but they could also be because a material has become banned, prohibitively expensive, hard to get, or no longer available. Lately, I’ve been facing a different dilemma.

It has to do with at least one of the orchid fragrances in my original line. Since I created them, quite a few new and better materials have either become available, or I’ve learned about and tested them. In particular, I think I could reformulate Red Cattleya to be lighter, brighter, and more watery (in the sense that orchid scents are “dewy and moist”, NOT aquatic), and more natural smelling. Additionally, I think reformulation would allow it to hold up better.

I generally go by the philosophy, “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”, but it’s really tempting to try and subtly improve on the existing scent. It wouldn’t be a cheaper formula. In fact, it might actually be more expensive, but that’s OK. I have mixed feelings about changing the formula of an existing perfume. I’m debating whether I should try that, or whether I should just create a new perfume altogether, “Pink Cattleya”, “Lavender Cattleya” or “White Cattleya”, for example?

Dear readers, what do you think about reformulations?
- Yes, they’re OK regardless of reason?
- Yes, but only if it improves the quality of the perfume?
- No way! Just make a new one?

[Painting of alchemist pondering whether to reformulate by Henri-Julien Dumont, 19th century]

FRIDAY RAVE: BEE WITH A SIGNATURE SCENT

I love weird scents, and am constantly on the lookout for something unusual. So on the way to looking up a source for some materials that I want to tincture (I’ll write about them in another post) I found this South African website which is a store and several blogs all in one. I was thrilled to see a fascinating post about how male African orchid bees create their own signature scents by collecting aromatic materials from flowers, rotten wood and fruit, feces, and tree resins, concentrating them in special lipid-containing pockets on their legs in a process similar to enfleurage. Each bee creates his own signature scent. Presumably the more materials a male bee collects and the more attractive the resulting perfume, the better he is at attracting females. The ultimate "chick magnet".

I never cease to marvel at the ingenuity of nature. If I were independently wealthy I would take a trip to South Africa just to smell a euglossine bee’s leg pockets. How wonderful and weird would that be?

[Photo of an insect that appears to be an orchid bee adapted from Wikimedia]