Honesty, Integrity, and a Willingness to Say, "I Am a Knob!"

Post Perfume Class Blues

I am not a teacher, nor am I a public speaker. But I put on a pretty good introductory natural & botanical perfume class ~ ha ha!

The first five minutes of the class were absolute, mind-boggling, brain-fogged hell. Then it was just slightly uncomfortable -- for the following 3 hours and 15 minutes. I stuck my foot in my mouth, um, at least twice -- once misquoting the bible, and then again when I was talking about ho wood essential oil. You don't even want to know what I said.

There were no real complaints from the students. I was asked to give more hand-outs in the future in relation to where an essence belongs -- top, heart or base note classification stuff.

But all in all, the class was a qualified success. Loads of fun. I can't wait to do the next one. I was invited back to teach the class again next year, so I'm doing it. I might even ask for an extra time slot to add an intermediate class following the beginner's class. Can't freakin' wait!

There are great lessons to be learned -- especially from a class that was borderline disastrous (or so I thought). I know where to fix things, where to add things, where to subtract. Streamline. Like I said, I can't wait for the next one!

Class is in Session

The Intermountain Nursery is hosting my next class this Saturday, August 25th, at their lovely grounds under the oaks. I'm so excited about this class -- this is one of my favorite places in the world. I went in last week to check with the owners/managers there to see how many students were attending and things are looking mahvelous, dahlings! It's shaping up to be quite a nice class. It's going to be fun.

Shiv'ahs!

Got mah order in from Eden Botanicals.

Ah must say, that lemon petitgrain gives me the shiv'ahs!

More on EB's stuff later.

Lookie, lookie, lookie!

Box.

What a dream, eh?

Ha! I Got Blogged!

Someone decided to turn the tables on me ~ right here!

In the Dark

Oh, I hate when this happens. I've managed to lose two notebooks -- about 18 months of work -- disappeared. They're not GONE gone, just AWOL. I hope. Oh Lordy.

A friend of mine recently sent me a link for an ebay item -- Victorian funeral cards. It's sort of a hobby of ours, looking at these old cards, the death poems and such. The link for the two cards she sent had the exact same poem on them except for one small part -- the poem for the man had 'mouldering in death', the one for the woman had 'slumbering in death'. Kind of makes me wonder why the lady gets to sleep peacefully through eternity while the man rots like a shriveling banana peel, covered with bugs and mustiness and fungus.

Speaking of rotted things, I was thinking of resurrecting the infamous Bella Cimitero perfume I made last year (or the year before?) for the dark holiday in October. Only, the formula is in one of those damned lost notebooks! It needed tweaking anyway. Oh Lordy.

A Review ~ Opus Oils by Veronica Z.

Veronica Z. was the lucky winner of the trio of perfumes from Opus Oils and she was kind enough to put together a review of what she received.

Thanks V!

Here's my take on the lush trio of Opus Oils perfumes consisting of Island, Starlet and Isis.
I'll start with the most easy to wear and very relaxing Island. The key notes here are Ginger Flower, Absolute of Pink Lotus, Plumeria, Orange Blossom, Tuberose, Champaca and Coconut Picture garlands of fresh and delicately sweet flowers hung around your neck...Ripening fruit, coconut drinks, tropical sun...Plumeria and Ginger Flower are really leading the way in the beginning, supported by the sweetness of Tuberose and grounded by Champaca and Pink Lotus. The initial blast of fruity brightness and lush floras slowly, like a retreating wave, reveals a heart of well balanced creamy smoothness and a bit of spice. At this point Tuberose and Coconut sound very nice together. It's a very warm and comforting aroma that in turn mellows out to a soft and slightly musky scent of sun warmed skin. By this time you're watching a sunset at the beach hand in hand with your lover...
The next one I tried was Starlet, and boy, what a different animal that is! There's nothing relaxing about this gal, she will take center stage and command all your attention. The notes in Starlet are Rose, Orange Blossom Water Absolute, Neroli and Nutmeg. The Rose and Neroli are impossible to ignore when they want to be heard, however, this is a scent that manages to be very confident and demand attention without being loud and overbearing. It is thick and velvety, very luxurious and almost narcotic in it's power. There's a satisfying musky undertone to it, it is definitely a dirty girl of a burlesque.
Isis plays a completely different drum. If the first two scents could be related to the realm of humans, Isis is a goddess, ancient and mysterious.This perfume has notes of Jasmin, Myrrh, Coconut, Frankincense and Sacred Blue Lotus. It is a river without bottom, dark and slow flowing. This perfume has a strange hold on me, it slows my heartbeat with it's meditative and somber power. It's not easy to wear, but on certain occasions this is the only thing that will do.
All of the Opus Oils perfumes I tried are 100% natural oil perfumes. They felt very nice going on and don't have a greasy after feel. The lasting power is about 3-4 hours on my skin.
I wanted to thank Opus Oils and Justine Crane for the chance to try these unique and beautiful scents.
Veronica

The Grass is Always Greener Anywhere but Here

I recently purchased my first 'antique' -- oil, that is.

I waited with bated breath for my little gift box to arrive.
Whoever coined the phrase, 'Great things come in small packages' wasn't kidding. They were probably talking about diamonds, but what I got, to me, is valued far higher than the price of diamonds. Fifty-plus year old sandalwood. I gave my 19-year-old son a sniff and he said, "Hmmm, smells weird. Makes me want to do something nasty in my pants." Gotta love that commentary. I also received three small decants of different antiques -- vetyver, geranium and Virginia cedarwood. It's kind of odd, but when I opened the V. cedar, I swear I'd smelled it somewhere else -- in another parcel from a previous buy. I dug around in my old apothecary bottles and found it. That smell invades the skin of old apothecary and perfume bottles. V. cedarwood was a very common component in 19th and early 20th century American perfumery, so it stands to reason the scent would saturate the corks and bottles in the apothecary.

No silver lining would be complete without its dark cloud. You know you're in trouble when you start buying lottery tickets when it's not something you ordinarily do. Or selling off your treasures on ebay, or wishing you could have won the two tickets to Italy on Top Chef. Fantasies, all fantasies. Like 'having enough time', and 'someday I will ****', and 'turning back the clock'.