Creating & Recreating

I'm in the process of reviving yet another oldie but goodie from the archives of The Scented Djinn. It's been rolling around in my mind for a couple of years now and gets a kick in the pants whenever I clean and find another stash of the perfumes I made in abundance years ago when TSD was created. Rather than pull an old dusty bottle full of aged perfume from the repository, this one is being rebuilt and tweaked. As good as those older perfumes are/were, there is always room for improvement, and with the experience I've gained since these old perfumes were initially created comes the knowledge of what needs to be done to improve them. The revival *slash* reboot *slash* reformulation derives from Kush Bakhur, a beautifully sweet, powdery, floral perfume that was created to mimic Nag Champa incense. I thought I had it pretty close, but the person who I had initially formulated it for, a custom order, never offered feedback after I sent it to her, so I have no idea how it was received olfactorily by her. I tweaked the remaining formulation then and there and sold it as Kush Bakhur. It won't be called that anymore because it won't be that anymore exactly. The original formula is remade and sits in a bottle to age for a while before I begin the modifications. Even on day two, I can already see what needs tweaking, but I will wait until some time has passed to make the final determination. 

The notes in this perfume are a bit odd. There is spearmint in it, for one. And tonka, champaka, champaka leaf, jasmine, rose, tuberose, sandalwood, and a dab of dark green, lusciously decadent patchouli absolute. There are more materials than that, but these are the materials that I can remember right off of the top of my head. One thing that initially amazed me about this perfume was that spearmint -- I had never used spearmint in a perfume prior to this one, and there is quite a lot of it, however, it doesn't come through as in your face minty. It comes through as a feeling of coolness riding on a shimmer of sugar and licorice, and then it is completely swallowed by the powdery tonka and the slightly spicy and robust floral of champaka. In traditional Nag Champa incense making, the material halmaddi is used, derived from the Ailanthus tree, or Tree-of-Heaven. It isn't in this perfume because I don't think it will add anything beneficial scent-wise, but mostly because I don't know if it can even be used on the skin. I haven't done a whole lot of research on it yet, and what little I have done results in not a whole lot. As is, the perfume smells like Nag Champa incense. 

One of the lessons I teach my students is to experiment with ideas like this. Recreate classic perfumes using naturals -- they will never smell like those perfumes with all of their synthetic parts, but you get a hell of a lot of first-hand knowledge from the practice. Recreate your favorite incense, your favorite place, and your favorite memory with naturals.