Nostalgy on vernal flowers

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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.

Jasmime: the smell under the surgeon knife

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Image: Jasmine in a "Tropical paradise" on Texel (Dutch island) by AmromaX

At this moment I am in love with white florals again. But what are the white florals? Jasmine, Ylang, Gardenia, Tuberose, Muguet, Lily, but also white Rose petals, white Lilac together with Hyacinth, Cyclamen and so on… So many different flowers with completely different smells can be called white florals. To understand them better I decided to take them one by one. Let’s Jasmine to be the reference flower as it’s the most used fragrance in perfumery.

How someone can describe the smell of Jasmine? If I try to analyse it with my nose I can define the following basic constituents. The first one is the fine white euphoric note – this note I can smell almost in all white flowers and it’s the finest in the smell of lilies. And an octave higher I can smell it in Hyacinth. Of course, it’s a bit different in each flower, so, let’s call this one a jasmine type fine white petal note.

Another very strong note is a sweet fruitiness. It’s difficult to determine what fruit it could come from as it’s very specific to jasmine and some other flowers like lilac. It comes from benzyl acetate – the main constituent of jasmine absolute and the jasmine smell.

There is also another euphoric note, a dark one. Indole might be the closest smell to describe it. It’s a deep narcotic note with a slightly dirty animal undertone – very prominent in jasmine absolute. Let’s call it a dark narcotic note of indolic type. I think I can also smell a similar dark narcotic note in tuberose and gardenia, but than it’s not indolic, but rather heavy tropical fruitiness with a rotten undertone.

Those three notes are the most characteristic to jasmine as my nose smells it. But there are also some minor notes like a creamy one. This one is much more characteristic for Gardenia and Tuberose, but I can also recognize it as a part of jasmine fragrance. Green notes are difficult for me to find behind the overwhelming narcotic and fruity notes. Books say that green notes are distinguishing for Sambac type of Jasmine – one of the two main jasmine species used in perfumery. But so far I couldn’t compare those two types to smell the difference and catch those green notes.

So, what could be a reference jasmine? Of course the live flower is The One. But it’s not always available when you need it. And jasmine absolute smells different from the live blossom. So far I decided A la Nuit by Serge Lutens to be my reference jasmine and inspiration.

New still unnamed Vetiver fragrance from Tauer's perfumes

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Image: AromaX

Today I’ve got a still unnamed new Vetiver fragrance from Andy Tauer. It was a gift to all his blog readers because of his third year blogging anniversary. I’ve smelled it before this year during my visit to Andy. But a short sniff was not enough to explore the beauty of this fragrance. I was very glad with the opportunity to do it again.

The perfume opens with a bitter sweet citrus freshness of grapefruit supported by a spiciness of clary sage. And than from the depth of the fragrance comes vetiver. It spills like a pot of black ink filling everything with dark, slightly smokey, earthy and herbaceous aroma. The bitter sweetness of coumarin from Tonka beans supports and emphasizes the aromatic medicinal part of vetiver from one side and from another side it re-echoes with a bitter sweetness of a grapefruit note. White floral and slightly spicy accord of clary sage and lily of the valley jingles above dark vetiver-coumarine ravine. Although the vetiver note is very prominent and present at the background I am not sure if it’s a vetiver fragrance – a very beautiful clary sage accord of this perfume takes a lead on my skin at some moments making the vetiver just to follow and support at the background. At another moments it surrenders to vetiver becoming just a soft part of it. The play between the Clary sage-Lily of the Valley accord and Vetiver is like a dance.

This fragrance is a primeval song combining low booming vibrations of Vetiver and alto female duet of clary sage and lily of the valley. The colours are black (vetiver), all tints of green (from dark green of vetiver till bluish and greyish green of clary sage) and white (Lily of the valley). Grapefruit and coumarin give some bruin accents. Those are the colours of the Mother Earth. It reminds me of a quiet primeval forest after the rain when the air is saturated with water damps and the earth is fertile. The fragrance is heavy and slow – it’s like a mist that crawls on the ground inevitably feeling all open spaces and embracing everything.

At the end when everything is said and done, the dry down is coming revealing the signature of Andy – the warm woody ambery base reminding me of L’air du desert marocain.

The perfume will be available in October this year. To be ordered at Tauer Perfumes

The notes (as announced on the fyer):
Grapefruit, black pepper, green clary sage leaves, brilliant lily of the valley, dark vetiver of Java, crisp cedar wood and soft ambergris with a hint of cistus and Tonka beans.

UPDATE I: What I found to be a spicy note of clary sage was the pepper - a lot of it, nicely integrated with clary sage and lily of the valley (so I did miss it completely). At my second sniff I was amazed how strong the pepper note was there - it opens with a pepper explosion with grapefruit and clary sage behind... (July 9, 08 9:20 AM)

UPDATE II: The Vetiver seems not to be Unnamed anymore. After long discussions and thinking Andy has come back to his first suggestion last nice - Vetiver Dance. (July 9, 08 9:20 AM)

Tropical white flower, Gardenia as a gift and visualisation

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I do like a smell of tropical white flowers – Tuberose, Gardenia, Jasmine, Cananga (Ylang). It’s always heady, sweet, creamy, sultry and intoxicating. They also have a slightly “dirty” carnal component mostly avoided, but sometimes even supported (Carnal Flower, Tubereuse Criminelle) in perfumery. So, I decided to collect those flowers and give them a try in a cool rainy Dutch climate.

The Jasmine I bought in the gardener’s shop has almost died, but saved and I hope it’s not damaged that far that it decide not to give flowers anymore. The Tuberose bolls I bought at the Flower Market on the last days of the season is showing its first leaves above the ground. The Gardenia you see on the picture is a special gift from a friend of my (the one who wears Knowing I like to smeel from her, remember?). It was a Saturday a couple of weeks ago when we had our final exam on visualisation. We all got through with success and got a delphinium flower from our docent. Later we went to the gardener’s shop and I was just charmed by the nice Gardenia flower and its smell. It wasn’t unnoticed and I’ve got it as a gift for my success at the exam. Thank you, Marian.

The visualisation is a therapeutic technique that helps to understand the messages from subconscious level which are blocked by our mind. Once understood and accepted those “messages” has a healing power. Visualisation is a nice technique to use when you like to understand and find an essence of a symptom, a pattern, a conflict, emotion, to gain an insight. Practically it’s similar to a daydreaming or fantasy in a state of trance. Remarkable to notice that the Gardenia brought me in a state of trance (charmed ;-) and the same Gardenia I’ve got as a gift for my visualisation exam where the trance is a key…