Today’s picture shows you a fir cone that I picked up in the nearby woods, while exercising, a sketch I did this morning before writing this post. It is the layout, the matrix, sketched with an electronic pencil, and I want to add color with an electronic brush later when I find time. If you look close you see how I started drawing it: I started with a diagonal line, defined the core proportions and then added details. If you try to sketch complex objects you need to create something like anchor points that allow you to check the proportions and angles.

And yes, actually, when sketching, you do not sketch a fir cone, you sketch angles and shapes and lines.

The same is true in perfumery. When I sketch a gardenia base, I do not really paint a gardenia with scent, but I paint lines and shapes and angles, hoping that the sum of these will give rise to a larger picture that reminds in a gardenia, highlighting some aspects while hiding others. Thus, I continued working on the gardenia base. Base means here: A gardenia scent that is going to be used like an essential oil in a fragrance. This base, itself consisting of about 14 ingredients, will be just one component within a (hopefully) fragrance that features gardenia among other things. The shapes and angles that I used in this base are to a good extend molecules that you find when doing a head space analysis: methyl benzoate, tigliates, linalool, lactones. I added some salicylates that add powderness and make the mix bigger, some spices that add edges and brightness, some flowers such as Jasmine absolute and orange blossom absolute that add softness and white spots, some vanilla for extra sweetness and geraniol for a light greenness.

This last version of my gardenia base trials: I like it, put it onto my skin before jogging yesterday and it survived 80 minutes sweating and ventilation. That’s pretty good. Jogging test past. Next: See what I do with it. But that’s another story. First things first this week: Stocking up on some homages fragrances….rose vermeille and Carillon pour un ange will need my attenttion.