Dreamcatcher

By a stroke of inspiration, a new perfume was created in the studio -- something that I had been working on for a while, adding one material at a time and allowing the work to age and mellow a bit before adding the next. Its inspiration came, in part, from a soap I used to make for my Tower shop, Delicia, back in 2004 that was fashioned after Neopolitan ice cream and was made with 100% essential oils. Understandably, the strawberry bit was the most difficult to mimic. I worked for weeks getting the strawberry just right, and the simplicity of it stunned me (still does), and it was as easy as the correct ratios of davana, clementine (or maybe it was tangerine . . .?), and vanilla. Color can also reinforce what our nose smells, and by coloring the strawberry bit with pink clay and adding poppy seeds, no one who smelled it or used it ever questioned the scent. For this newest perfume, I wanted some of that tart berry scent but I didn't want the perfume to be 'berry' in nature, just juicy and fruity and, well, different. What I ended up with was something that smells a bit like dessert, and though I'm not a gourmand lover, I'm really digging this one. The perfume is created in organic golden jojoba, so recreating it in alcohol won't give the same result, and if you try to make it in alcohol, you'll have to tweak it a bit to make it work. 

Bergamot (not clementine, or tangerine, but adds bright juiciness and a floral tone to the accord)

Davana

Vanilla ~ this is the sweet, tart, juicy, fruity, berry bit

Rosa bourbon

Tea CO2

Osmanthus ~ this deepens the fruit note and gives it a fig-plum 'feel' -- jammy

Agarwood

Sandalwood (santalum album)

Light patchouli ~ this creates a base that helps rather than buries the fruit notes, plus there's something going on in agarwood/oud that comes off as pruney

*Edit! Forgot the beeswax absolute here. So, yeah, add beeswax absolute too

Cardamom ~ just a pinch as this knits it all together (on a personal note, cardamom is not a favorite of mine, but I use it where it is necessary because it's like a magic wand -- too much and you've got a cardamom perfume, a pinch and it burrows in and does its fine work behind the scenes bringing warmth and touch of green)

If the tea CO2 just smells like dusty black tea and isn't somewhat floral, like jasmine green tea, add a bit of jasmine sambac (not grandiflorum) along with the rose/tea/osmanthus accord -- this will heighten the dark, jammy notes. 

Simple, but specific, and time (or the trusty zippy zapper) will only make this better.

I call it 'Figgy Puddin''.

Lately, I have been reading a lot of other perfumer's blogs and websites and realized that no one follows the same path to reach perfume. Some go on about how perfumes (and I'm talking strictly naturals here) don't need a long list of materials to reach the pinnacle, while others talk about more -- adding more, using rare finds more, chucking in the kitchen sink as well. The truth is, both ways can work, and everything in between can too. It takes a long, long time to sort all of this out, and teaching it, gah, it's like explaining dreams.