Most Beautiful Perfume Bottles..

Aren't these the most lovely perfume bottles you ever saw! Not only are they lovely but they are filled with gorgeous natural perfumes by Mandy Aftel! I am a big fan of her perfumes and her botanical perfumery materials. My favorite's are Tango, Shiso, Orchid and Cepes. Tango won the Best Avant-Garde Scent, by Beauty News and the Biggest Discovery of 2007, by Perfume Smelling Things. To buy these perfumes click HERE

Pulling the pieces together

Having struggled hard over the last few evenings, making concoctions that smell nothing like I want them to, a penny dropped this morning. I had been reading the Secret of Scent by Luca Turin and, in the book Mr Turin goes into great detail about the different chemicals that make up the most famous synthetic perfumes. I also learned about orris butter with it's complex mix of irones and what Luca describes as "it's magnificent, melancholy smell". He says when orris notes are used properly they "exude a frosty luxury which everyone falls in love with sooner or later". I also learned how experienced perfumers and chemists have created rose smells which have none of the heavy oily counterparts found in natural rose extracts. He speaks about transparent florals in a way that makes me want to sample some of these synthesized chemical groups. Instead I get to thinking of new ways of taking the natural essences and brightening them and making them translucent using other natural essences. There is a way, Mandy Aftel has proven that. I found myself thinking, why not use another natural essence to help to draw away the oily heaviness of the rose absolute, which is there, there's no arguing with that. There must be a way to mix naturals so that their shiny bright qualities are shown off and the smell left behind from the destruction of the living plant material is neutralized.

The whole thing had me totally redesigning the spring blend I am working on.
First thing I did when I came into my studio this morning was smell the last modification, the 'heavy duty juice', I had formulated last night, it was not any better, although something told me it wouldn't be. Then I sat there contemplating everything I had been reading in Luca Turin's book. I looked at the little vial of the 3rd modification for the top notes of the perfume I am working on. I smelled it. It was just beautiful, light but so short lived. What can I do with this that's not going to kill it.

I thought about the fixative, and the heart.

The theme and inspiration for the blend is spring so I want the delicate spring florals to shine through, miles above the base. I chose ambergris for the subtle yet tenacious watery, mossy, sweetness and ambrette for it's floral muskiness and orris butter hoping it would impart the "frosty luxury" effect mentioned in the book. I thought about spring florals, the primroses, the narcissus, the bluebells and the violets and hyacinth, it seems as though they are delicate primulas or heady lily types.
The delicate primulas show in the top of the perfume, I wanted the heady lilies for the middle, Tuberose and ylang ylang did something that I like a lot.

When it was all put together, it smelled nearly exactly as I wanted. The top notes reminded me of Mandy Aftel's Orchid, and there was no sign of the middle or base at the start, which is a hard enough affect to achieve in my opinion.
The middle came in then with a real blast, like somebody had just opened the window onto a bright field of full blooming bluebells and narcissus. The effect was heady but trailing into a soft bright yellow glow. The base creeps in slowly, like little spring animals sneaking out after dark. The ambergris is subtle but it's unmistakably shiny, it smells of cool rock pools reflecting the full moon. The ambrette is deep and warm, like the underneath of an animals fur, there is no sign of the fattiness of the ambrette seed, somehow it is gone before I get there, exactly as I had hoped. The orris root butter, has been melting slowly and invisibly through the whole thing, giving light and shimmer and sparkle.
You know something not only has another penny dropped, but a perfume has been created.
It deserves a name; Yellow? Avril? Frolic? Let me think about that one. What do you think would suit?

The Emperors New Perfumes

Remember that story of "The Emperors New Clothes" by Hans Christian Anderson? The two tailors said about their work, "we are two very good tailors and after many years of research we have invented an extraordinary method to weave a cloth so light and fine that it looks invisible. As a matter of fact it is invisible to anyone who is too stupid and incompetent to appreciate its quality."

When they were finished their work they said, "we're almost finished, but we need a lot more gold thread. Here, Excellency! Admire the colors, feel the softness!"

The Prime Minister was afraid to look stupid so he agreed that the cloth was everything the tailors said. But to himself he thought "I can't see anything, if I see nothing, that means I'm stupid! Or, worse, incompetent!" If the prime minister admitted that he didn't see anything, he would be discharged from his office.

As a novice natural perfumer I fell into that same trap that the Prime Minister fell into.

To cut a long story short, I have a nose, I smell a perfume, I either like it or I don't, but I know if it's a good perfume. Take Mandy Aftel's Perfumes for instance, most of them I adore, they are good perfumes. She is a brilliant perfumer and she is successful because she makes amazing perfumes.

But there is a "certain perfumers" natural blends which made me recoil the first time I smelled them. I let my friends and neighbors smell them, they too recoiled. I let my husband smell them and he warned me never to wear them. One of the perfumes got a unanimous "it smells like the toilet cleaner they use in our school" from a group of teenagers (interestingly they were each of them alone when they smelled it and each one said exactly the same thing- and they all attended the same school! ) They are familiar with what natural perfumes smell like and love most of the ones I have from the Aftelier range (I have over 12 of Mandy's perfumes in samples) and the gorgeous perfumes I have from Strange Invisible Perfumes. One woman I was creating a solid perfume for smelled a bunch of the samples I had. She adored Pink Lotus by Aftelier and Lyric Rain by SIP but she recoiled when she smelled this "certain perfumers" blends, all 4 of of them. She said "they smell as if something is gone off."

I had similar thoughts, but like the Prime Minister in the story I felt that I would look ignorant of real artisan natural perfumes if I said, "hey, these ARE pure shite" so I waffled on about them, ad nauseum. I said how they were SO this and SO that.

I could go back now and write something different about them, taking back what I had originally said (the waffle, the praise, the testimonials). But I think it is far more fitting to call a spade a spade and say, at least I only said they were good, I think I even said I found one of them healing because that's what the 'certain perfumer' told me it was supposed to be, but I never actually wore any out in public, God forbid. Somebody might think I worked as a janitor for a living or that I had been staying with crusty hippies for a few months helping to milk the goats.

So what's the point? Let's smell what we are actually smelling, the bottom line is perfumes are supposed to make you smell good. If they don't then they aren't perfumes.
As an old wizard once said "if in doubt follow your nose".