Building Up Dreams...And Oudh
I've been thinking a lot about patchouli lately, and especially that soap I made a while back with the strip of solid patchouli powder running through the center, and how gorgeously intense and truly vibrational it was -- that soap. And tea. I've been thinking a lot about tea since embarking on another project -- me. I've gone raw again, for the second time in my life. Something about eating this way clears the cobwebs from the mind, makes one seem more creative, more in tune with what's going on around them. I desperately need that back. Tea is an approved raw food, not the traditional camellia type, but herbal teas. After a bit of research, I discovered that patchouli makes a fine tea (I know it's delicious in food ~ see my Perfumer's Cookbook for a lovely patchouli spice inspired bread), specific to the spiritual and shamanistic aspects of dreams, a topic in which I am wholeheartedly interested. Patchouli and what? Tulsi, of course. Holy basil. Maybe thinking about adding some tea to the store stock once I've perfected a few blends, get those dreams going everywhere, because sometimes in the confusion of those nonsensical dreams, a wisp of truth is found, a foundation upon which to grow a greater understanding of our situations.
It shouldn't come as a surprise that I'm going to make two types of soap today. The pretty one with lemongrass, nutmeg, vetyver, and Peru balsam, but also a patchouli and holy basil soap. I am inspired.
I've been unpacking more boxes from the old studio and have discovered some things that really sparked the inspiration. Oudh, for example, more fodder for the Chon perfume I'm working on. I found an old oudh tincture I made back in 2004 when I didn't really know quite how to make tinctures and overdid them -- this one is about 40% oudh to 60% alcohol, thick and nearly syrupy. Beautiful. There were also small samples of oudh from Cambodia, Vietnam, a few of undisclosed origins -- all fabulously oudhy in varying degrees of funk and sweetness. This Chon will definitely be a limited release perfume judging by what's going into it -- I could never find an aged tincture or some of these other oudhs that are in my collection anywhere else in the world, and if I could, the cost to procure them would be prohibitive.
So I'm working on the business plan again, this time micro planning each step. I am such a scatterbrain (ADD) most of the time that if I don't have a solid plan, I never reach the goal. Okay, maybe not a solid plan, perhaps a squishy plan, because nothing irks me as much as following rules, even my own, to the letter. I believe in variables. I believe that sometimes the easy way out is the only way out, and because it's the easy way out does not make it an easy decision to make. So there's this plan, subject to the whims of the Universe, that I will adhere to with all the gumption I can muster because this place I have imagined, this shop, this beautiful little store, an amusement park for the grown-ups, part museum, part apothecary, part gathering place, part academy -- a place you will never want to leave, is worth bringing into the world.
It shouldn't come as a surprise that I'm going to make two types of soap today. The pretty one with lemongrass, nutmeg, vetyver, and Peru balsam, but also a patchouli and holy basil soap. I am inspired.
I've been unpacking more boxes from the old studio and have discovered some things that really sparked the inspiration. Oudh, for example, more fodder for the Chon perfume I'm working on. I found an old oudh tincture I made back in 2004 when I didn't really know quite how to make tinctures and overdid them -- this one is about 40% oudh to 60% alcohol, thick and nearly syrupy. Beautiful. There were also small samples of oudh from Cambodia, Vietnam, a few of undisclosed origins -- all fabulously oudhy in varying degrees of funk and sweetness. This Chon will definitely be a limited release perfume judging by what's going into it -- I could never find an aged tincture or some of these other oudhs that are in my collection anywhere else in the world, and if I could, the cost to procure them would be prohibitive.
So I'm working on the business plan again, this time micro planning each step. I am such a scatterbrain (ADD) most of the time that if I don't have a solid plan, I never reach the goal. Okay, maybe not a solid plan, perhaps a squishy plan, because nothing irks me as much as following rules, even my own, to the letter. I believe in variables. I believe that sometimes the easy way out is the only way out, and because it's the easy way out does not make it an easy decision to make. So there's this plan, subject to the whims of the Universe, that I will adhere to with all the gumption I can muster because this place I have imagined, this shop, this beautiful little store, an amusement park for the grown-ups, part museum, part apothecary, part gathering place, part academy -- a place you will never want to leave, is worth bringing into the world.
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