+Scented Soap Opera

She is always late. Hyacinth is a distraction in herself and is also distracted by the smallest thing. Like a child, focusing on a serious issue is not something she is good at. Flitting from task to task, she is a butterfly woman. Say to Hyacinth "would you hold on a moment ma'am and I will see if we have that in your size" and then come back 2 minutes later to find her *gone*. Giddy beyond belief, at school she was constantly being told to sit still, which was an impossible task for the girl then and still is now.

Hyacinth always seems to be in a good mood, smiling and cheerful all the time. She wants to be your VERY best friend after only knowing you for 5 minutes and "best friends" comes with all the perks, like hand holding or arm linking, hugs for good bye and hugs for hello and hugs just for hugging sake. She's the type of girl that gives you a present on her birthday. When she calls to visit she never comes empty handed, on the contrary, she is certain to bring a large bunch of flowers, a cake and a book she thinks you will "just adore". The book needless to say is a romantic paperback novel with a pink or purple cover and a title something like "What Friends Are For". Never go near Hyacinth when you are feeling down in the dumps, she will drive you to tears with her constant "cheering up" tactics.

One thing is for sure you just have to love her, but she will drive your boyfriend crazy if you EVER bring her back to your place. Hyacinth just cannot talk to a man without giggling, it starts off as an endearing and attractive quality and to tell you the truth most men take it as a message that she fancies them. But after about 15 minutes of being in her company men start making their excuses to leave. Just remember, "My cat is sick and I have to go home and heat her hot water bottle", is not a good excuse to give Hyacinth when you want to get away from her because chances are she'll have her jacket on and be ready to go with you offering to perform 3rd degree reiki on your sick cat. Don't worry, you can tell it like it is to this woman, she is thick skinned and even if you say something like "Hyacinth I find your company a little hard to take today, I have to go", the next time you meet her she'll give you her best smile and her best hug and still be your VERY best friend.
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Labels: Auditions_Natural_Perfume, Ruth Ruane, white witch

Posted by Zita at 3:44 AM | Permalink | Comments | links to this post

Audition 1

Agarwood, is not a "love at first smell" sort of smell, although I am sure my dog would disagree. He liked it!
At first it smells like a cross between very very smelly cheese and ...well other stuff that's too gross to name. After a while, a couple of hours, that funky smells starts to fade and become more interesting. There is a still a mouldy thing going on but it is more mossy than cheesy. A bit of forest floor and musty greenhouses.
Let me find out a little more about where agarwood comes from on the world wide web : )
Ok apparently Agarwood or Eaglewood is the most expensive wood in the world! The fragrant wood is formed as a result of the trees' immune response to a fungal infection. As a response to the fungus the tree produces a resin which stops the growth of the fungus. This resin changes the color of the wood from light to dark brown or even black. The rest of the tree stays light colored. Wow, in natural forests only 7% of the trees are affected by the fungus! A method for artificial farming of agarwood is to inject all the trees with the fungus. (A bit like farming pearls, putting sand in the oyster shell!) Agarwood was used by the Egyptions for embalming dead bodies.
So of course, because of it's rarity, and because it is in high demand, agarwood fetches very high prices Ah! Now I see, because people chop down trees in the hope of finding agarwood, the trees are becoming extinct.
I am also learning here, that there is a difference between the smell of the cultivated agarwood and the "true" agarwood. Here is an odor profile from the free encylcopedia, "A natural perfume oil obtained by CO₂ extraction from agarwood retains the odour of "true" agarwood: a cepes (mushroom) and carrot seed accord, which can be roughly approximated by combining ambergris, jasmine, earth and wood notes. Lightly infected wood, sometimes cultivated, produces an inferior oil with a vertiver/ sandalwood/ patchouli character."

Ok so agarwood is a pearl of the forest, it's smell is indeed complex and now several hours later it has mellowed and sweetened and become lighter more musky.
So on the whole I am delighted to have met Agarwood, or shall we call her old Aunt Agarwood?

Labels: Auditions_Natural_Perfume

Posted by Zita at 2:56 AM | Permalink | Comments | links to this post