Welcome to a perfumer's blog on perfumery

Both entered the tramway at the same time and ended up sitting next to each other, shoulders touching, quenched like anyone else but at least sitting,  as tramways in Zurich at 7pm are somewhat narrow.

One was maybe 30 years, the other around 65, both had this southern look, black hair, brown eye. When Ms 30 passed by, I got a whiff of a what I thought fits perfectly. A spicy chypre, some cibet over a cistus patchouli accord, feminine with a stingy roughness that was just perfectly complementing her black hair, the perfect waist, the young skin. The fragrance stayed in my nose, it was a touch too much, but still on the pleasing side. I started thinking about how difficult it is to find the right perfume for oneself; how happy she can be to have found a fragrance that fits her perfectly, that is balanced and plays harmoniously with her skin and hair.

Thus, I thought on my way to Zurich’s Hyatt where I was about to meet Oxana and Patrick, coming from the eastern heart of Europe, from Moskwa. I thought about things and was looking forward to learn more about Russian perfume lovers, discussing Tauer Perfumes and more. Then Ms 30 left the tramway and Ms 65 remained seated.

Ms 65 looked out of the window, into the dark, and inside the tramway waves of her spicy chypre, with cibet and patchouli played with my nose, and made me think about age and perfumes.

A few boxes and filled bottles of Orris later… still love the fragrance, even after a heavy overdose of it while pouring and getting samples ready.

This week we will continue being busy and preparing samples of all four perfumes,boxing some more bottles and getting things ready for the season.
Which brings me right away to one of my preferred topics: The X-mas season with all its beauties like people doing lots of perfume shopping and its threats like last minute gift shopping for godfather children and trying to find the ultimate toys, running through town at 3°C, in gray december evenings, with pouring rain and a running nose. Well, you can be assured: More about X-mas will follow in the coming weeks. In the mean time: Fragrant wishes from boxing A.

Those readers who know my perfumes, such as Le Maroc pour elle with the cedarwood, or the upcoming Orris with the Agarwood and the best Frankincense on this planet, those readers know indirectly Will from Edenbotanicals.
Some of my perfumes would not exist without his selection, be it because I was inspired by some of Will’s oils, be it because they found their way into my creations. In this sense: Thank you Will.
Following my interview with Will Lapaz, owner of Edenbotanicals, that I wanted to do in order to learn more about Edenbotanicals.
o-o Dear Will, I have bought a lot of wonderful natural oils, absolutes and blends from your company. But I hardly know anything about your venture. Please tell us about yourself and your company.
We are a small company located in a very isolated part of Northwestern California in the states. We live adjacent to a wild running river, in a small valley surrounded by mountains. It is the perfect setting to disengage from the distractions of modern life. Before I got into essential oils my background was in helping to restore native plant communities in areas where the vegetation had been destroyed from one thing or another. So, I have a background in horticulture and botany. In college I studied the physical and biological sciences in a general way and graduated with a degree in Environmental Studies. I always loved plants and how they could be used for healing. I studied the natural health sciences – nutrition, herbology, ethnobotany, traditional Chinese herbal medicine, Ayurveda and the like.

I seem to have developed an intuitive and empirical method for doing things in this life rather than in a linear way. I appreciate both the art and the science behind the making of essential oils and their use. I think this is why we have been successful in the area of providing essential oils to natural perfumers.

The field of essential oils is a difficult field to be in because of the extraordinary amount of misinformation, disinformation, and outright cheating that goes on within it. This of course includes adulteration of oils, and also mislabeling and misrepresenting oils. Anyway, it seems that I had the right combination of experience, intuitiveness, and sense of smell to be able to cut through much of the misinformation and get connected with reputable distillers, suppliers and individuals who really care about natural aromatics from botanical sources.

I should say here that when I refer to oils or essential oils I am using the term in a general way to mean the wonderful array of natural aromatic oils and compounds available to us, including essential oils, absolutes, CO2 extracts, resinoids, concretes, etc…

o-o I see your business thriving. Maybe you could tell us how you started your business? And what it was like? What are your next plans?

Business is thriving! But along with that comes the difficulty of trying to live a balanced life in an out of balance world. I don’t enjoy being too busy and have to keep myself from overworking.

I started in 1999 by purchasing the Eden Botanicals business that was started by a good friend of mine. I put a lot of heart and soul into improving the business and into learning all that I could about essential oils, aromatherapy, perfumery, importing and exporting, etc. Of course much of my time is spent performing the business end of things but part of being good in business is having a solid working knowledge of the field of study that you are in.

I actually got into developing the essential oil side of Eden Botanicals by accident. We had purchased essential oils for the production of our own blends and when we started our first web site I decided to offer to our customers the dozen or so essential oils and absolutes that we were using.

My idea was to offer essential oils to Eden Botanicals’ regular customers at wholesale pricing as a service to them. But pretty soon people who where not our regular customers started buying only essential oils from us. I still thought that the market for essential oils was saturated, so I didn’t really want to go into it. But new customers kept finding us and purchasing only our essential oils. I remember the moment that I consciously decided to start seriously sourcing and selling bulk essential oils. It was when I purchased a Lavender essential oil that we were not using in any of our blends. We bought it to sell, and from then on we never stopped sourcing new oils and finding better oils and better suppliers. We now carry somewhere around 170 different essential oils, absolutes, etc (including 9 different lavenders). The essential oil side of Eden Botanicals accounts for 75% of our total sales.

Getting started in business was hard! It was a lot of work for very little pay, but gradually it became self-sustaining. When we started developing the essential oil business our goal was to offer very good quality oils at fair and reasonable pricing. We still have that goal and I think that is why we have been successful. We fulfilled a niche that not many companies were trying to fulfill. The other thing that we did was to come into the field from the direction of natural perfumery rather than from aromatherapy. And the field of natural perfumery has and is seeing dramatic growth and expansion.

Our future plans are to start selling all of our essential oils under a new brand name – The Perfect Essence. I want to separate the original line of Eden Botanicals products, which are primarily produced and sold for the retail market, from our line of bulk essential oils. The essential oil line is where my interest and focus is. Eventually I would like to sell the original Eden Botanicals’ line and focus solely on the pure oils. I also want to keep natural perfumery the focus of our essential oils, while still supplying high quality aromatherapy oils and oils used in cosmetic manufacturing. And, of course we want to keep adding unusual and high quality oils and upgrading our offerings as much as possible. However, we also want to stay small and focused. I do not want to grow the business much more than where we are now, but I would like to keep improving it.

o-o I always have the impression that all these wonderful essences are hand picked and sniffed by you. I have the impression you get materials that no one else gets. Where do you find the natural oils and absolutes that you later sell to perfume lovers and perfume makers? And how difficult is it to obtain good qualities?

Definitely! Each and every oil is hand picked and compared aromatically to an array of the same species of oil offered by various distillers and suppliers. I do the selecting, but I also ask the staff what they think. Our customer service specialist, Barbara Mauk, has been using essential oils and making natural perfumes since 1995. So she also helps. We usually select the oil that has the best olfactory characteristics. We use scent strips and watch how the oil reacts over time. We also will dilute some in alcohol and some in a fixed oil such as Jojoba oil or Fractionated Coconut Oil to see how it reacts.

We do get some unusual oils, but I do not think we get oils that others do not or cannot get. I think all companies like ours have a unique opportunity and responsibility to select and carry oils that are best suited to their customer base. One of our specialties is the amber fragrance, so we have a good selection of Labdanums and other oils used to create amber accords such as Styrax (Liquidambar) and Siam Benzoin. We try to carry a wide variety of oils, including lesser known ones. I love woody aromas and also florals. I love spicy oils, citruses, chypre, and oriental type aromas, etc. I have a great fondness for the deep woody and earthy oils - Agarwood, Sandalwood, Patchouli, Cedarwood, Vetiver, yet I also love Ylang Ylang, Tuberose, Roses, Lotus, Neroli. We try to cover the bases, but we have not expanded much into concretes or floral waxes yet. There is always more to do.

Sourcing oils is a real specialty. Fortunately, I already had a few years experience in importing before I started importing essential oils. Importing in itself can be a real test of patience, courage and trust. So, how to find good oils? Basically, you need to check a lot of sources. Always get samples first! I like to get at least a dozen samples from a new distiller or supplier, even if I am not looking for some of them. I want to be able to check the quality of a wide array of the oils they make or carry. If 2 oils seem very good or even excellent and are offered at a good price, but 3 or 4 are not so good and the rest are just okay, then I won’t buy from them. It says to me that they are not either consistent or trustworthy. All, or almost all of the samples received from a company should be at least very good quality with some in the excellent range. Also, I look for how the company represents itself. The person that I am communicating with is also very important. I have had some people contact me to sell oils and I end up educating them on their own products! Because of our highly visible web site, each week I get at least 3 or 4 solicitations for essential oils from international companies. I do find some new companies that way, but most of them do not carry the quality or type of oils that we are looking for. But this is how we came upon some unusual oils such as Muhuhu and Vanuatu Sandalwood oil.

It is not difficult to obtain good quality oils if you know what good quality oils are. But you must learn how to recognize fakes and be able to tell the quality by aroma and other physical tests that you can do yourself. You can use chemical analysis if financial resources are available and if you understand how to properly do so (and very few of us do). If you are looking for a specific oil, it can take a fair amount of time to find a good one at a reasonable price. We looked for Lotus absolute for a couple of years. There are a lot of oils that I have waited months or years to purchase until I found just the right one – excellent aroma, trusted company, fair price (not cheap! - but fair and reasonable).

o-o I have commented a lot about the sandalwood crisis on my blog and issues such as sustainable production worry me a lot. What do you think? Are we perfumers, by using sandalwood, partly guilty for the situation? What do you think has to be done to change the situation?

It is a good and yet difficult question. First I would say that in this day and age, we all have an incredible degree of choice that has never been possible before in the past. With that freedom comes a responsibility to chose wisely. A lot of people found out about Eden Botanicals from a nice selection of Indian Sandalwood oils we used to carry. I love Sandalwood oil, as most of us do. Sandalwood makes practically any blend of oils better. It is a great harmonizer. But, there are not enough trees to support the demand for it. So yes, anyone who uses Sandalwood oil (if it is real) will be adding to the problem. And anyone who drives a car is adding to global warming. The point is to use the resource as wisely as we can. To use less where it is required and find substitutes where it is not really required. We all have to be willing to give something up for the greater good.

Eden Botanicals’ course of action was to stop buying and selling Indian and Indonesian Sandalwood oil (Santalam album) and to start looking for substitutes. We carry oils that could be considered substitutes or at least they could be blended into substitutes such as: Muhuhu, Amyris, Cedarwood. We also started carrying Vanuatu Sandalwood. It is being distilled by a family operation that has been growing and planting about 8,000 new Sandalwood trees a year for the last 9 years. They are growing the Sandalwood trees in plantations and giving trees to villagers and islanders to plant on their properties. The climate and soil is such that the young trees and the host trees (necessary for the hemi-parasitic Sandalwood trees) do very well there. But, I would not be comfortable saying that Vanuatu Sandalwood trees are sustainably harvested. Indian Sandalwood certainly is not. The demand for Sandalwood oil is far more than the availability. Sandalwood trees (all species and in all geographic areas), Rosewood trees, Atlas Cedar trees are not being grown and harvested sustainably. Very few trees are. In 40 years all the trees that are “sustainably” planted, grown and harvested could be cut in one year. Sustainable is only in the moment; it can change with as simple a thing as a new government rule or a change in land ownership. Greedy people will always take too much.

We all want to believe in things like sustainable harvest. And we should try to implement and encourage governments and industry to implement these types of policies. But we should not fool ourselves either.

When I started carrying Vanuatu Sandalwood, I got several emails from Indian and Far East buyers looking for quantities. Mostly they wanted to adulterate Indian Sandalwood with it. One person wanted 50 kgs a month to flavor tobacco with. I never even sent a sample to any of these buyers. Not that I couldn’t have made a sale and a profit, but I do not want to make money that way. If a perfumer uses a kg in a few years time, I do not see a big harm. Fifty kgs a month for tobacco is insane.

So, use less Sandalwood of all species and from all areas, find substitutes, and encourage others to find substitutes. Also drive less and produce less waste. We waste a lot of resources in our daily lives. Another example is Agarwood. It is in much worse shape than Sandalwood. We do not use, buy or sell any wild Agarwood oil, but we do carry an extract of cultivated Agarwood. There are a lot of Agarwood plantations starting up in India, Vietnam and Thailand. There are a lot of oils that come from plants that are over harvested: Spikenard, Atlas Cedar, all species of Sandalwood, Rosewood. The list goes on and on.

o-o As this is a perfumery blog: What do you think about modern perfumery? If you could speak to a young apprentice perfumers class, what would you tell them?

What is modern perfumery? I have nothing good to say about synthetic perfumery. Natural perfumery is the way to go. You will be riding a wave of success and will have fun doing it. Everyone wants natural items these days. I wanted to create a natural perfume line when I first bought Eden Botanicals in 1999. But I never had the time. I think it will happen that natural perfumes get into the large, upscale stores and it will be done by grass roots efforts. Natural perfumers cannot compete with the perfume industry and their huge advertising budgets. So, we will see creative natural perfumers getting into the stores one by one, and a trend will be created where natural perfumes will be highly sought after - all without the big advertising budgets. That will be the heyday for natural perfumers and natural perfumery. Then the perfume industry will try to catch up by creating “more” natural or “semi” natural perfumes and they will call them natural. They will be playing catch up, and ultimately they will dominate the market again. It will likely happen similar to the organic foods industry.

For those getting into perfumery, I would suggest using pure essential oils, absolutes, CO2 extracts, concretes, resinoids and other naturals as the fundamental base of your creations. Natural isolates are okay, although not so important at the beginning. Some will want to sneak in a few synthetics but if you do, you should know exactly why and exactly what effect you are looking for that cannot be found with a natural ingredient or isolate. Next start tincturing your concretes, resinoids, etc. and other natural substances that are not readily available on the market. If you are starting out as a hobbyist t is okay to purchase decent quality oils and not the best quality. But do not use poor quality. The main thing is to learn the different qualities by trial and error and by aroma. You should learn to talk about the aromas and the qualities. What makes this Rose Otto better than this one? Developing your nose and sense of smell is of paramount importance. If you are serious, get the best quality oils you can find. You cannot create great perfumes unless you start with great ingredients. And develop your skill. Apprentice with a pro and learn from them. Read books and join study groups and take classes. Do not learn to copy others but learn how to think for yourself and learn how to ‘feel’ the oils and what they will do. Develop your intuition. Intuition will take you further than any amount of knowledge but knowledge is also important. Learn the fragrance families. Understand the qualities of the constituents in the oils, what they do and what they smell like. Experiment a lot and be sure to keep accurate records of all your efforts.

o-o I know there are a lot of perfume lovers out there who would like to sniff natural beauties, not blended, but the pure essence. What essences would you recommend them to start with? And what would you recommend to a perfume lover who wants to start making perfumes herself?

I would recommend finding a few different suppliers who carry oils tailored to natural perfumery. Get recommendations for suppliers from friends and other perfumers. They should be suppliers who sell in small quantities and they should offer samples either for a small charge or for free. Order samples from several recommended companies and compare them. Find the suppliers you like and develop your palette of oils. Get small quantities of each because otherwise you will spend a lot of money. You can begin blending drop by drop so you do not need large amounts. There are about 30 drops in a ml. so even a 1 ml sample
will last a while if used judiciously. You can purchase a bit larger amounts of oils that improve with age such as – patchouli, vetiver, cedarwood, etc.; and less of oils that do not have a long shelf life – citrus oils, needle oils, etc.

As far as which ones to get first, I would suggest that you get those recommended by your teacher or a book or workbook that you have decided to use. The various teachers of natural perfumery have developed their own methods for teaching. One method is to learn the families of the oils. In that case you may need to get some oils that you may not need for blending but you do need them for training your senses. If on the other hand, you just want to start blending (and you are one of those who never reads directions but just gets right into it) then get all those oils that appeal to you. Then expand out from there, because even oils that do not appeal to you will have their place in your creations, used in moderation. At the right time and place even unpleasant aromas will add something that your favorite oils just cannot give.

o-o Finally, please tell us whether people can buy samples from your company, and where they can do so….

We offer samples of every oil that we carry and encourage people to get lots of samples, from us and from other companies as well. We also offer a satisfaction guarantee for all of our oils, which is a great benefit for customers. The easiest way to find us is to go to our web site: www.edenbotanicals.com. Then go the Pure Essential Oil pages. There are 10 essential oil web pages and on each page there is a link to a pdf file listing all of our oils. The list includes pricing and it can be printed or downloaded for future reference. I think we carry about 170 or so oils at this point and although there are a few that are specific to aromatherapy, most of them can be, and are, used by perfumers.

Thanks for the interview, Andy. And congratulations on the success of your wonderful perfumes!

Will Lapaz
Eden Botanicals
www.edenbotanicals.com
will@edenbotanicals.com

Do not miss tomorrow’s post from the garden of Eden….

Well, referring to yesterday’s post: Here are some pictures outlining how the visual sense is engaged when unpacking Orris. The tactile senses are engaged by working on the satin ribbon when unpacking and fooling around with some gold paper. I couldn’t resist bringing in some gold. Don’t worry, the price for the Orris will not be affected by extravaganza…

The concept is similar to what you know from Lonestar Memories. Here, the front images was selected by the artist Sands Murray-Wassink. Click here to read the interview with the artist and perfume lover on this blog a while ago. I find the picture fitting perfectly  with the scent. It is wild, and dynamic. Dramatic in a sense, and joyful. When I have seen this proposal to illustrate the scent the first time, I thought: “Wow, what a dramatic, lively picture for this scent!”.
I love it. In it I see the headnotes, the dark rose, with the cinammon and the pepper lines. I can feel the heartnote, a wild orris, with frankincense and the agarwood extending all the way into the base
There, in the basenote I can graps the sandalwood, the vetiver and hints of ambergris.
Thank you Sands for bringing in your very personal appreciation of this scent!

This edition of The Sense & Society, Issue 03, features

The Sensory Dimensions of Gardening, by Christopher Tilley

a topic that I find interesting of course and -surprise, surprise!- the sense of smell plays a role in gardening, more prominently for women, underlining my prejudices of brutal men digging and sweating, harvesting big things like potatoes and of delicate women in rose veils, flying from rose to lily, sniffing and enjoying the garden beauties.
Well, the article starts with -An important development in material culture studies in recent years has been the growing realization of the significance of the multisensorial qualities of artifacts as a key to understanding ther meaning and significance- which brought me in one line from women in veil and potatoes digging men to perfume packaging and beyond.

Thus, a perfume’s multisensorial quality is the key to understanding the meaning of it. I would go further; understanding should be translated into  appreciation, like and dislike (And, pardon my commercial attitude here…it might well be the final key to clients buying!) In the end, before we even got a chance to dig our nose into any perfume bottle’s content: The keys to grasp it and appreciate it or dislike it are already given:
- The visual impression
- The tactile impression
- Maybe also an accoustic impression

I am sure there are billions spent to render this sensual first contact as pleasing as possible on one hand and on the other hand, best fitting with the particular client profile, a particular segment that is addressed with a fragrance. So, here I sit with my little box and my 30 ml Orris flacon…and wonder about the senses and how my Orris packaging concept addresses them… you should find some pictures of how I intend to address at least the visual and tactile senses hopefully by tomorrow.

Finally, what sets gardening apart: It involves all senses, in a time where  many of us deprived ourselves from these impressions. When have you sniffed fresh earth the last time, by simply digging your nose into it?

Happy digging…

What we love as autumn colours, trees and leaves showing all variations from dark green over mellow yellow to blood red is basically the visual signature of a recycling process that accompanies death on cellular level. In a sense, things looks more joyful than they are in autumn, as if nature wanted us to stop thinking about things to come, but rather to enjoy the colours of the moment.
In a sense, I enjoy the moment the same way in perfumery right now. X-mas is ante portas, as are the bottles for the Orris fragrance that will be delivered this Wednesday, the labels are printed, the cardboard boxes are ready, the flyers too. Thus, things look colourful and bright. What is ahead of us is quite some work, though. Us means W. and me, happy pouring and bottling! X-mas means samples, hence I will in the coming days see that I can stock up there, too.
Finally, if nothing goes seriously wrong, Orris will be in the shops, world wide, and ready to be tested and bought: November 15.
Now, that is something to look forward to.
(pix: wild wine leave seen in Zurich lately)

I mentioned it before…I got the chance to answer a few interesting questions that I appreciated a lot. About perfumery, synthetics, scents and more. You find the interview here, at Le Parfumeur Rebell. Enjoy!

This weekend, here in Zurich, made me think about several issues. In light of summer-like temperatures it felt like there really is a truth, unconvenient and somewhat imminent, that is  shaping our future. Jumping from one temperature record to the next makes you wonder, as does the sound of falling stones in the mountains, that hasn’t even stopped in October (permafrost diminishing, stones are not fixed in the frozen ground anymore).
Thanks to sunny days, a wonderful rose has survived the autumn and was sending waves of a spicy, rich and sweet scent into Saturday’s warm sun. It seemed more intense than in summer. I wonder whether plants such as roses produce more scented molecules, different ones?, under harsh condition?
Talking molecules and truth: There was time to do some reading. I got my free copy of the September/October Adbusters’ edition; some of you might have read it already. I read Clayton Dach’s article with great joy, not because he cited part of our interview that should appear in Adbusters soon….
No, it was because Clayton dared to tell an unconvenient truth. For those interested in the discussions on perfumes, irration by perfumes or public acceptance: you may find his thoughts eye opening. (find out more about adbusters here)
Finally, there was my meeting with Vero, with Samsara …(!!!) and two lavender trials. One which was a somewhat rosy lavender with spicy notes, in the head and middle notes, slightly reminding in cinnamon. The second one, which resulted in some ahhhhh’s once landed under the nose of my tester W., is more herbaceous, with a fir line running from the first head note into the middle note (Balsam fir absolute!). A woody base, with some musky lines beforehand. I will probably go into more detail later, for the time being, Vero and I, we agreed on this one being better. We found the discreet rose without too much spices to match much better. It will now mature further; we agreed that this one does not seem to need to many changes anymore.

We will see….

(pix: The last rose as seen Saturday in the garden, scent: rich, spicy, sweet rose)

Fragrant wishes for this Sunday from Zurich where an autumn sun brings out the most beautiful colours and where the last flowers enjoy innocently the warmth of this golden rain, not knowing that these are their last days to play…