Gathering the Green

I'm obsessed with green.

I want to run out and gather up leaves and grass to tincture. Chaparral -- manzanita in particular -- intrigues me. I'm inspired by Roxana Villa's 'Q' parfum built around an oak leaf tincture. She and I had brief email conversations last summer about tincturing chaparral and oak. If I'd known then how well her experiments would turn out, I'd have done what I had planned to do ~ tincture manzanita flowers.

Manzanita flowers are little pink-tinted Japanese lanterns blooming in clusters at the ends of the branches. Their scent is odd and alluring -- a strange blend of the manzanita's resinous bitter red bark and sweet honey/fruit.

A few years back, a green witch I knew made an extract of the flowers and leaves, inspired she said, by fairy dreams. Since then I've been interested in making a brew of my own, one for perfumery purposes rather than medicinal.