Colour therapy

The best remedy after the winter depression is a combination of aromatherapy with colour therapy. And the best remedy from our Mother Nature is... Hyacinth. Beautiful colours and wonderful smell giving new power, inspiration and cheerfulness.



And the yellow hyacinth is a best tabernacle to keep the concentrated spirit of the Sun.



Wake up from a winter sleep and enjoy your life !

Hyacinth: the way it's made

Russian version - click here

Image - a nice hyacinth close-up view from http://commons.wikimedia.org

A Grand Damme asked me if I knew a chemical formula of hyacinth. Her question made me curious and I looked into the wise perfumery books as I found it time to make acquaintance with hyacinth. Its freshly green floral scent is what everyone needs now when spring is on its way. I haven’t complete my jasmine series yet there is no harm to start something new in between.

First of all it was interesting to find out that there is a natural source of hyacinth smell – unlike the lily of the valley, it’s possible to yield a hyacinth absolute by solvent extraction from fresh flowers. Although the pure absolute seem to posses a sharp unpleasant smell that becomes reminiscent of hyacinth only when diluted up to 0.1% and lower. Of course it’s nice to have a bottle of this curiosity for some experiments, but it’s not really easy to get one. Wise books mention Netherlands as one of the important producers of hyacinth absolute (as well as the most important hyacinth bulbs supplier). But I couldn’t find any Dutch supplier by searching for “hyacinth absolute” in goole. I couldn’t find it in assortment of two another reliable foreign suppliers – Liberty and White Lotus. Of course I’ve got some links where I could buy the hyacinth absolute, but adulteration of this product is very common and that is why it’s important to get a reliable supplier. So, if you know one who sells hyacinth absolute for a reasonable price, please, let me know.

According to the wise perfumery books the synthetic hyacinth is one of the easiest formula in perfumery. Technically you get a reminiscent of hyacinth when you mix rose, jasmine, lilac and lily of the valley components with some green notes. That is why I got a hyacinth note in my previous experiment almost automatically. The formula I was working with contained Lyral (lily of the valley), benzyl acetate (jasmine), phenyl ethyl alcohol (rose) and terpineol (lilac) and I mixed it with green notes of leaf alcohol, galbanum and other components.

I’d like to make an important notice here. Although I juxtapose aromachemicals and the floral smells in a previous paragraph to simplify my story, but it doesn’t give a good image of how those aromachemicals really smell. Terpineol doesn’t really smell like lilac flowers, benzyl acetate has a sweet pungent smell reminding of a solvent and phenyl ethyl alcohol smells like a decaying rose petals you’d like to throw away. But still those aromachemicals are the main building blocks for the corresponding floral smells when surrounded properly.

And to make it more complicated and to intricate it all (in the best traditions of perfumery) I should add, that there are eight basic aromachemicals that you can mix together in different proportions to get a skeleton of several different floral formulae. So, by mixing of phenyl ethyl alcohol, hydroxycitronellal, benzyl acetate, hexyl cinnamic aldehyde, citronellol, terpineol and indole you can get either jasmine or rose or lilac or lily of the valley. I think you can even get a rose (especially white rose) if you don’t use too much of benzyl acetate and indole.

The very first main components of hyacinth were bromstyrol and phenylacetic acid. Nowadays the phenylacetic aldehyde is the most important one. Its other name is Hyacinthin for it’s a little sharp green and fresh smell reminding of hyacinth flower. It is used in combination with cinnamic alcohol, benzyl alcohol and terpineol. Styrax, heliotropin and galbanum are used as fixatives. As I already mentioned the synthetic components of jasmine, rose, lilac and lily of the valley also may be used in hyacinth formula as well as natural oils or absolutes of jasmine and rose. One of the favorite naturals used to enrich the hyacinth formula is a precious and expensive narcissus absolute.

In a perfumery book I found two simple formulae of a hyacinth bases suggested to be used in a hyacinth perfume. The bases are simple, but the perfume suggests using amber and musk tinctures together with jonquil (narcissus) absolute. I have ordered the last one together with cetalox – one of the nicest modern amber substitute. Let’s see what I finally get.

By the way – if you have a good picture of hyacinth to illustrate this entry, please, let me know – I’d like to use it instead of a random goolge image.

Nostalgy on vernal flowers

Russian version - click here

Image - hyacinths from http://hayefieldhouse.com/

February is a tricky month. You think the winter is almost over when you see the first snowdrops coming from the ground or buy the first hyacinth bulbs from the local florist. But February is still a cold winter month with its night frost and cold wind striking into the marrow. Warm and fresh florals is what we all need during those cold grey days.

I have to think of Mitsouko – a light, but deep fruity chypre created just after the war – a peak point when need for something light and beautiful was drawn to a head during the post-war devastation. Inspired by experiments of flacon007 I also decided to create this perfume following the formula presented on Linda Andrews’ website. I have got almost all the ingredients. It was interesting to start with mixing of two main contrasting components of almost any chypre – oak moss and bergamot. Only two components, but they make a recognizable core of a chypre fragrance. A couple of drops of peach aldehyde and the skeleton of Mitsouko is ready. Of course there is still a long way to make it a recognizable Mitsouko. I still can’t smell the “cookies” (it’s my personal olfactory association to recognize a chypre character). It was very interesting to discover a lot of herbs in this formula – tarragon, lavender, celery, coriander and chamomile. All together they brought a bit strange note to the fragrance that I recognize neither in a modern EdT nor in an old perfume. But there is a magic of maturation. Five days farther and this strange note is combined with a citrus freshness that is not that strong in any vintage perfume touched by time. I do recognize the “cookies”. Now the only thing I need is a suitable atomizer, dilution till EdP concentration and more maturation for another couple of weeks. And I am ready to meet the spring. There is still a strange note of plastic amber that I recognize in the base. Let’s see how it behaves on skin after the dilution and maturation.

There is one more thing I need to honour the spring – a smell of fresh verdure and hyacinths that are so popular in Balmain’s creations. On the website of a local supplier of ingredients for making of perfume, soaps, shampoo’s and other happy staff at home I found a simple formula of Des Fleurs Blanc:

8 ml alcohol
20 drops Lyral
18 drops fenylethylalcohol
12 drops benzylacetate
6 drops alfa terpineol
5 drops alfa ionone
5 drops benzyl salicylate
4 drops ylang ylang III oil

Des Fleurs Blanc are rich with benzyl acetate and gives a very concentrated sultry fragrance. To fixate the white florals I added some Peru balsem (it’s a perfect fixative for white florals next to Benzoin Siam), some vanilla and synthetic musk. The fragrance was reminding me a hot summer instead of soft fresh vernal breeze. Fortunately there are many green notes to bring freshness to a floral fragrance – I added some leaf alcohol together with it’s salicylic ether, a couple drops of galbanum and helional. Some calone and cyclamen aldehyde gave it some acquatic transparency. Modified Des Fleurs Blanc is a fresh fragrance with green notes of hyacinth that turns into sweet white florals with tender green nuances by the dry down. Well – all it’s need now is a suitable atomizer, dilution till 10-12% and some maturation.