One Year, One Nose Days 11, 12, and 13

I figured this was the only way I was going to get caught up, posting one big post for the three days I've lagged on, and I'm a little bored with the time frame manipulations that blogger.com makes available to fool people into thinking I actually have posted these on time. I'd rather say, "Hey! I've been having fun with my grandbaby, taking her to the zoo and walking in the neighborhood and visiting Irene's for sweet potato fries, that I just haven't found the time to sit down and post olfactory notes this week," than back date the posts I post today to make them appear to have been posted on 'their' day. Did you get that?

Okay. Having said all that, here we go:

Day 11 ~ I decided to add a few more perfumey type posts for the 365 Days of Olfaction project, so I dug up some back-of-the-cabinet projects that either didn't work out the way I had hoped, or were simply put away to age and subsequently forgotten. I do that sometimes. Okay, a lot.

4-2008: Gourmand/Leather study -- a dark horse (this is from the code notes on the bottle to the code/formulation book). This is a very dense leather accord with lots of smokey coffee notes and a touch of the oudhy/valerian/stinky feet thing going on. There is also an oily, buttery quality to this accord, and not much in the way of 'gourmand'. With a little work this leather accord could be quite nice. (From code book -- list of materials used in the accord in no particular order) tobacco absolute 10%, patchouli organic 10%, choya loban .5%, valerian root tincture, nargarmotha 5%, Sri Lankan vetyver 10%, Haitian vetyver 10%, coffee tincture, butter CO2 10%, ambrette absolute 10%, linden blossom absolute 10%, saffron tincture, fig tincture. End notes (from code/formulation book) 'too much coffee, hack the valerian, add a floral component (rose?)'. I apparently ended the project here as there are still very strong coffee notes and way too much valerian, but alas, this is an appealing accord as some of the other notes have mellowed and married and made its rough edges smooth. But still not gourmand.



Day 12 ~ And yet another dug up from the perfume tombs, a formulation named simply 'mousse de chine'. I honestly don't know why I didn't do something more with this as it is lovely! Redolent of the warm, earthiness of oakmoss which gives the formulation a substantial tone, something solid and tangible, that is lovingly wrapped in notes of cedar; vibrant, tannic, bitter notes of Virginia and red cedars and the creamy loveliness of Himalayan cedar (which when combined this way has an almost fresh ground black pepper-like tonality). There are some spice notes in here, a hint of the musty, dusty patch, and what really seems to smooth it all together is a gorgeous, deep, sweet, warm, almost jam-like lavender absolute. This was 'born' in October of 2010, and I'm seriously going to revisit, tweak and put its training shoes on to toddle into the world. It smells very classic to me and I'm amazed it came from my hands.



Day 13 ~ Pink Popcorn from the Zoo. The Zoo always smells like elephants to me, no matter where I stand, how near or how far I am from the pachyderms, I smell 'em 'out there', like hay and warmth and hyraceum outhouses. I just love it! Couple that with the mandatory chomping on pink popcorn, and you've got memories that last a lifetime. Smelling the Zoo is a fantastical olfactory adventure, everything is so dirty. Walk past the grizzly bear exhibition and you catch a whiff of something musty and strongly fecal-animalic, that smell that spells danger and fear and run for your life! However, bars and pink popcorn keep those baser instincts at bay. Each animal at the Zoo has its own distinctive scent -- the herbivores smell warm, hay-like, sweetly furry and almost comforting (except for those goats -- ugh!), while the carnivores smell - well, scary. Darkly, deeply musty -- meaty, sweaty, urinic. It's at this point one waves the pink popcorn under the nose to snuffen the sweetness of it, to savor its powdery pinkness, warm cereal essence, and the flat smell of staleness.