Clothes Pegs Required

Yesterday evening, I made three stinky blends! And, why am I telling you? So that you can learn from my mistakes of course and not waste one drop of franginpani absolute more than you have to.
Here are three blends not to make, ever!
Blend # 1
I called it sugar (should have called it pooh!)
(actually out of the three blends this one smelled like there was some hope for it this morning and I actually applied a little more to my wrists to experience it again, but not again, the dry down is nice but that's the linden blossom, and orris root butter)
1 drop of Frangipani absolute
1 drop of vanilla absolute
2 Drops of pink peppercorn*
2 drops of neroli EO
1 drop of linden blossom absolute*
2 drops basil EO
2 drops lime EO (I started to lose it here)
2 drops orange blossom water absolute
3 drops myrrh
2 drops orris butter
2 drops of turkish rose absolute

Blend # 2
I called "Berry" (Berry bad)
2 drops of osmanthus*
3 drops of auracaria*
2 drops of benzoin
1 drops imortelle absolute*
3 drops of blue chamomile EO
4 drops of lime EO
5 drops of bergamot EO

Blend # 3
I called "Trees" smells like bitter toffee smeared on freshly cut pine, yeach!
2 drops Fir balsam absolute*
1 drop immortelle absolute*
1 drops agarwood co2*
2 drops auracaria absolute*
3 drops lavender absolute
3 drops orange blossom absolute
1 drop tarragon EO*
3 drops black pepper
3 drops of rosewood

So what happened? Well, I have all these bottles of strange new ingredients, some of which I have sort of been a little afraid of meeting, well, I have *met* them, I was afraid of getting to know them. What's the best way to get to know a new essence? Mix it with some of the essences you already know and see what happens. It didn't work out too well, but I can be forgiven because they were new, all I wish now is that I had more of them. *the ones that I am still getting to know.

A Glimpse Inside My World

This is a detail from my perfumers organ, Gandalf is gatekeeper! I like painting miniature cast figures, I did the 9 companions from The Fellowship Of The Ring. Each figure takes about 4 hours to paint if one pays close attention to detail. When I am old and grey it shall be one of my hobbies. I have a good few bottles of "Atlantic Aromatics" patchouli, I don't know when I will use it all, and I have a nice bottle of dark patchouli which I bought from Butch Owen, it's the nicest patchouli I have ever smelled. You can also see over to the left a bottle of ambergris tincture and a bottle of canabis tincture, I got from Salaam in Italy. There are a few bottles from Mountain Rose Herbs, frankincense, helichrysum and vanilla absolute. There is a little collection of orris root extracts, co2, butter and my own orris root "jam". You can also see a couple of vials of tinctures in the making, one of tonka and one of myrrh. There is a silver thimble and a couple of Mandy Aftels miniatures, namely Blond Tobacco and Linden Blossom. There is also a little jar of tinctured opoponax resin peeking out from the back.


Beside my organ there is a lovely little chest of drawers. Here is a photo of my grandmother, Ellen Gillespie. On the left is a red glass perfume bottle my husband bought me from an antique shop in Galway. There is also a little brown paper package tied up with string (and the hills are alive with the sound of music) inside the package is a bar of White Witch Money Soap. Beside that is a bottle of White Witch l'Amour Scented Rose Petal Ink. Behind that there is a little bottle of a blend I made up, but didn't have the heart to throw away.


Here is what's on the other side of the little chest of drawers. A photo of my Mother, Josephine (Dodo) Rea and my Father Malachy Ruane, also in the photo is my sister Helen (Leah) Ruane, all 3 have passed on. You can see Aragorn (Strider) another one of the 9 companions from The Fellowship Of The Ring. Behind Strider, lying on it's side, is a work in progress, I am carving a wand from ash wood, I like to leave it lying around where I make perfume so it can absorb all the smells and wonderful creative energies. I don't know when I will be finished the wand. You see those amber coloured bowls, I use these as evaporating bowls mostly. I pour my tincures in to them and allow the alcohol to evaporate, making a thick jam like and very aromatic substance. There is also another perfume bottle.


When I was a child I loved little bottles and I still do. Here are the teeniest bottles I have ever seen. They are filled with little samples of essential oils and absolutes. Eden Botanicals, Samara, and Butch Owen are where they all came from. When I ordered supplies I got a lot of free samples, I can see why they give free samples. You see just one sniff of that Jasmine Sambac and I was back for more, that coco absolute Butch Owen sent me meant I just had to order 20 mls of the stuff.
The Frangipani sent me started off a new chapter in the story of romance and perfume MMIH. I will definitely be ordering more of that stuff.

Shout with us! We need your voice!

Remember my post "Shock and Disbelief"? Well at the end there was a plea for you to vote and support cropwatch, the last part of that post went like this: Support is needed here, I fear that upon finding my path in life (natural perfumery), it will be made impossible or even illegal for me to follow it.

Would you please go to the Perfumer & Flavourist
site, and vote for Cropwatch in the Cropwatch vs IFRA poll / (scroll down to bottom left hand
corner of page).
In the words of Tony Burfield:
"A good showing for Cropwatch would maybe allow us
natural product lovers, to gain more credence in these issues."

Remember That?
Well the poll was closed and the poll results were released.
They read as follows:
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: MIAMI SHORES, Fla./February 8, 2007.
On February 7, 2007, fragrance and flavor trade magazine Perfumer &
Flavorist released the results of an online poll showing 85.1% of
readers in favor of boycotting proposed fragrance industry guidelines
that will heavily limit the use of natural essential oils in perfumes
and cosmetics.
OK, so that was that, we were happy with the results...
Now fasten your intellectual seat belts please.

This news was released the day before yesterday: Cropwatch vs. IFRA: A Note from the Editor

[February 12, 2007]

Our mission at P&F magazine, the P&Fnow newsletter and www.perfumerflavorist.com is to provide a venue for the latest news, research and ideas in the flavor and fragrance industry. We seek neither to inflate the position of nor act as an advocate for any particular industry interests.
Few topics have more keenly required our forum or been more controversial than the recent Cropwatch boycott of IFRA’s 40th Amendment to its Code of Practice. We’ve reported each step of the story as it has it has unfolded and recently posted an unscientific online poll. While the results of that poll have skewed heavily toward the Cropwatch point of view, we’ve received many passionate e-mails in support of both positions.
We do not intend to misrepresent the attitude of the industry as a whole, but rather seek to take the temperature of our readers. With that in mind, we will keep the poll voting open until March 5, after which we will report the new results in P&Fnow (subscribe here). Vote now on our homepage! And we will continue to cover this story as it unfolds, reporting the various facts and divergent positions as accurately as is possible.
We thank all of our readers for making P&F a dynamic, if sometimes contentious, industry platform. As always, we welcome your feedback at jallured@allured.com.

So basically folks we need *more* votes in support of Cropwatch, the polls are re-opened as mentioned until the 5th of March, so please, if you haven't voted already please go ahead and vote now and please give us your support, if you have already voted then copy this page and send it to all your friends and family and ask them vote in favour of the cropwatch boycott.
Thanks for reading this serious stuff and Happy Valentines Day again!

One for the boys

Happy Valentines Day!
I took a break last night from my serious and complex work in progress 'Match Made in Heaven'. It gets rather emotional in my studio at 'Match Made in Heaven' peak blending times. Let me tell you, Rose was not happy a happy woman, and as for the new couple, Frangipani and Blond Tobacco, I think they have a few creases to iron out in their new relationship. Still, my heart broke for Rose and on Valentines day I just couldn't face the tears.
So, I composed two new blends yesterday evening. You see I have two teenaged sons, always asking me if I can make something that smells like Armani or CK. I always tell them I am not really interested in trying to copy a purely synthetic perfume. But last night I decided to make them something for them to take to school on Valentines day.
I had a look on Base Notes website, *the* place to look if you want to find out about any perfume ever created both natural and synthetic.
The first blend I made was based on Cool Water, which most people have heard of.
The variation I made has top notes of cedarwood, mint and corriander. Heart notes of rosemary, geranium and neroli and base notes of oakmoss, ambrette and africa stone. I think it works, even without tweaking, the boys liked it but they went crazy when I made the second blend.
The second blend was based on Hugo Boss One. It has top notes of Bergamot, lavender and clarysage. The heart notes are beeswax, jasmine and rosemary and the base notes are oakmoss, patchouli and sandalwood.
Now the two lads went crazy, I had to bottle and label it there and then for school the next day. They both commented on the lovely dryout notes, and sure enough they are lovely, I wore some myself as I thought it had a unisex feel to it, and I must say *Very Sexy*. And I could actually smell it on my skin this morning.
Now of course, only time will tell me what tweaking is needed but all in all I think that last nights blending adventures were a success.

I've been as sick as a dawg!

Where have I been all week? Struck down with the 'flu! Thats where. I think it must be 10 years since I was so ill. I won't bore you with the details but today is the first day I can say I feel almost like Me! And as for my nose, well the only thing my nose was doing for the last 9 days was sniffing and blowing.

So...what news? On the EU and IFRA regulations, there's a petition.. please sign it....for more about the petition and a link where you can sign it go to Anya's Garden Blog, a Blog that deserves a bookmark or a place in your favourites bar. Anya gives a shocking list of the essential oils under scrutinty, ie the ones which are in danger of being restricted. My own eyes widened to see oils like Lavender and Rose among them.

I have decided to plough onwards and upwards with my perfumery and then take any changes as they come. Not meaning to sound like I am putting my hands in my pockets and giving up, I am not, because I intend to contact some of the aromatherapy clinics in Galway tomorrow to ask them what kind of impact the new regulations will have on their business.
I don't like talking legal stuff, so I will try and spare myself unless absolutely necessary and I have something very important to share. Tomorrow I expect my nose will be 100% again and I'm going to blend Match made in Heaven no. 6.
No 5 doesn't have the dry out I would like, I have some ideas, I will go through them before I start blending.
The saga continues....