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I am finishing the last things before leaving Switzerland on Saturday. As always… the closer the vacation comes, the more you feel like you could not work one day more….a mental thing. There is one issue that bothers me: As we will travel by bike, my luggage is restricted to the absolute minimum. What perfume shall I take with me? Difficult matters…..
There was one point that I forgot two mention yesterday. As a matter of fact, there were two points. One was raised by Anya in her comment…yes, indeed. Anya called it the collective unconscious, a glimpse on a paper, a comment on a blog, swimming in a flow of information and influences, all these little puzzle stones finding their way at the right moment hopefully when creating something.
The other point was: With all my likes and dislikes, and the unconscious influences…I am still quite disappointed with my lavender thing. Maybe there is another influence… a relaxed mind that is fresh…
Finally, here is the link to the a spectacular review on Lonestar Memories on Scented Salamander… This review was the first thing I read this morning except for the headlines about what is going on in the Near East. I loved it and highly recommend to read these lines that are like poetry…. enjoy.

Finally: More comments and critics on Perfume of Life on the Orris blog birthday sample scent. You may find this interesting to folllow…

In a desperate attempt to get muscles ready for the trip in France that begins in 7 days I take the bike daily. Passing over a pedestrian bridge on my way to town I see a bunch of ducks, sitting on a little sandy semi island in the river Limmat. Usually they sleep. The sun light is still yellowish and the sleeping ducks is a picture of peaceful creatures in golden light. Every moring I pass by there, get a glimpse on them and feel jealous for their morning sleep. I’d bet… they are even fed by old ladies during the day; duck paradise.

Thus, having passed the ducks half an hour ago, it is time for this week’s last post… as promised earlier ….on the lavender. Where are we there right now?
Things got somewhat complicated and the state of work is pleasing with some “buts”.  Taking advantage of some things I have learned while working on the Orris earlier this year, it was an easy  thing to arrange a fresh-berry-yummie orris accord for the middle. The head note is green and round and the base so far quite woody-fresh, elegant and enduring. Without going into the details of the composition there are weaknesses:
The head needs a twist…like a mini-micro-touch of galbanum or similar -> not decided yet.
The head needs to see more lavender -> can be done
The woody base needs a twist more erotic stuff, it is still a little bit too dull -> why not!
The middle needs to get a little hole filled -> Tricky. I realized that (on skin) there is a brake in the melody, somewhere in between the orris theme and the woods. For a while there seems the Okoumal/Kephalis to stand alone. A shaky construction involving cistus does not bridge the gap. Contrary to the scenery from the bridge over the Limmat with golden water and happy ducks, the vista is not there, yet.

Pix: Packages of samples, ready for their travel, Australia, Canada, … you name it.

After an epic fooling around with Excel, trying to get an overview about postage paid, cash in and cash out, I treated myself for 2 hours with working right away on the skeleton of yesterday. Lines of actions: Add some flesh to the base with tonka beans (replacing coumarin), vetiverol, a hint patchouli and vanillin, some ambrein to the cistus and oakmoss, up to the IFRA allowed limit. Adding hair and skin by addition of ionone, beta, phenylethylalcohol and iso-amylsalicylate to the orris line, and blood and nervous tissue by the addition of some methyl-pamplemouse (guessed right: brings in a citrus, green, vetiver line), linalool, linalylpropionate.

Humbly begging for attention, the preliminary result landed under W.’s nose, while Germany-Italy was still playing at 0:0. The comment was something like:” Hmmm ..that’s new and interesting….move it and play that ball!…..it smells like…..ohhhh, again they can’t keep the ball…..something….ahhh, what a chance….. something familiar, like a classic….go,go,go…. a little bit old fashioned”.

Humbly returning to my computer, the formula changes were entered in excel and the perfumer entered in a thinking loop: Are my compositions old fashioned? Grummel-grübel-studier (no translation…). Well, looking back at last Saturday’s sniffing meeting with Vero, old fashioned might turn out to be a compliment. We sniffed Que sais je?, by Caron. This, after scents that seem to have been created by Mr. 666, the bad beast, you name it, with the purpose to send our noses to a frozen universe, expanded endlessly, with not much more left than 0.1 degree Kelvin background noise. And then there came Que sais je. Tuberose, vanilla, civet, oakmoss, so fine, so rich, so yummy, with this wonderful orris story, powdery and lasting. A dream!

Now, coming back today to yesterday’s trial: Somewhat too hairy: I have to shave this barbarian thing. It could need a little bit more vibrance energy at the beginning, it does not seem to know how to use its muscles yet, and I have give it a little bit more of a green powdery make-up.

Happy 4th of July to all my readers in the US, enjoy and celebrate! In todays post we will visit together the skeleton of a scent. I worked for quite a while on the scent with Lavender. hmmm…I need a project/category name for it, because my new blog that will soon go live and replace my blogspot.com blog, allows me to easily create categories….hmmm… how about ….hmmm…can’t think of anything clever as working title for this project of mine… I will have to ask Barry ;-)

Well, I worked on it, with the goal to come up with a sketch that is good enough to be followed further, approaching at least schematically the picture I have in mind. Looking back at it, I can clearly see how this draft might work; it will need much more to become wearable, but the basic lines might fit. The next step: Do it again and move on by decorating things out. I will leave the skeleton mix for maturation just to see how it develops over time. Starting with what I had already (Okoumal, with a hint coumarin, kephalis, cistus, and castoreum, decatone) I moved on, carefully not to mess things up again. I added a fir line with bergamot to the top, an orris line (which will need careful fine tuning later, right now it is just a line) and sandalwood to the base.

And finally: The lavender…I have a large selection of various qualities at hand, not to miss the synthetic lavender boosters; I decided for a mix of my French lavender with the Bulgarian quality. The synthetic boosters will come later, when I work on the flesh for this skeleton. Like testosterone doses added to your daily vitamine intake brings about muscles, reduces fat and makes you look like a handsome guy, boosters like linalool add volume to a lavender, bring down the sweetness and excessive flowery aspects. As with all things in live, it is just a matter of dose, too much and your lavender looses its natural appearance and looks like Arnold Schwarzenegger in his days as actor, before his botox time as governor…