A Natural Perfumers Journal

Having struggled hard over the last few evenings, making concoctions that smell nothing like I want them to, a penny dropped this morning. I had been reading the Secret of Scent by Luca Turin and, in the book Mr Turin goes into great detail about the different chemicals that make up the most famous synthetic perfumes. I also learned about orris butter with it's complex mix of irones and what Luca describes as "it's magnificent, melancholy smell". He says when orris notes are used properly they "exude a frosty luxury which everyone falls in love with sooner or later". I also learned how experienced perfumers and chemists have created rose smells which have none of the heavy oily counterparts found in natural rose extracts. He speaks about transparent florals in a way that makes me want to sample some of these synthesized chemical groups. Instead I get to thinking of new ways of taking the natural essences and brightening them and making them translucen...

"common everybody..." seriously though, I was delivered the most delicious red mandarin cold pressed oil the other day. I'm not a lover of citrus oils, they are too...flighty, but I fell in love with this one: citrus deliciosa tenore (C. reticulanta Blanco) Origin; Italy. It has the usual bite one's nose would expect from a citrus. Just a little nip, then after that it's sugar. There's a peaches blossom sweetness that reminds me of smelling my baby girls sun kissed hair. I began to ask myself; What will I blend it with first? I chose orris butter. Orris butter is the rich with the smooth. It's the sublime with the earthy. It's the delicate flowers that die before we get them home. The two together said "we love each other but we want to have a threesome, look there's Tuberose over there in her bikini". O God, I can hear their orgasmic cries from here... Actually when I blended them together. I was surprised. I didn't reall...