Your chair?

This image does me remind me of something a girl once told me. When she was a child she had an odd thing, when someone she didn't know visited her parents and sat on a chair, she always sniffed that same chair after the visitor was gone. Hmm would be strange if adults did the same thing. Kids are much closer to smell, they smell without being prejudged, they just analyze odors not dividing them in bad or good smells.

The Axe effect

Is it true that we choose our partner because of the odor of the body he or she has? I think so, we all have an unique body odor but it's also that a whole family can have a family odor. I think that we choose our partners not only for her or his character but also because of their scent but we are not aware of it.

I found an interesting article about how hetero and homo sexuals react on the odor of a male or female. Researchers obtained the body odors of male and female heterosexual and homosexual "odor donors" who avoid all fragrances, soaps, and shampoos for 9 days. During this time they could not shave their armpits or eat spicy food. Following this preparation they wore cotton gauze pads under their arms for three days. These pads were later cut up and places in plastic squeeze bottles for use in the study. These pads were smelled by a group who didn't know from which group it came from. The result was as follow:

Heterosexual males found the odors of heterosexual females to be the least unpleasant, and the odors of gay males to be the most unpleasant.

Gay males found the odors of heterosexual females to be least unpleasant, but the odors of gay males followed close behind.

The odors of lesbians and heterosexual males were judged most unpleasant (but the overall differences were smaller for gay males than for other "odor evaluators").

Heterosexual females found the odors of gay males and lesbians to be more unpleasant than the odors of other heterosexual females and heterosexual males.

Lesbians preferred the odors of heterosexual females and especially disliked the odors of gay males.

http://mentalhealth.about.com/od/gender/a/bosexpreference.htm

According to a study by Dr George Preti makes the smell of a sweaty male armpit a woman feel calmer. For this study they collected the sweat of male donors by placing pads under the armpits and made concentrated compounds extracted from the sweat. Female volunteers were being exposed to the smells for six hours, after six hours the women reported feeling less tense and more relaxed.

Preti and team also measured the women's' levels of luteinising hormone, which plays varied roles in triggering ovulation and in sex drive. Pulses of this hormone released from the brain increase in size and frequency as women approach ovulation. In the experiment, the researchers found when women smelt the sweat extract it induced a surge of the hormone.

http://www.abc.net.au/science/news/stories/s888984.htm

Interesting to make a relaxing perfume for women from the sweat of men. Well in the essential oil of sandalwood there is something similar as the pheromone called androstenone what also is found in the sweat of men. But would it calm me down? I'm not sure when looking at the photo of vin Diesel, somehow it didn't make me feel calm........

Vega

Vega by Guerlain is a beautiful aldehydic perfume. I had the change to smell it thanks to Andy Tauer who was so kind to sent me a sample of this lovely juice. Vega was originally created by Jacques Guerlain in 1936 and was recreated by Jean-Paul Guerlain for the opening of the renovated La Maison Guerlain in 2006.

The first acquaintance with this perfume made me think of Chanel no5, but that's because it's an aldehydic perfume, it's not the same but the topnote has some resemblance, Vega has a more powdery scent and Chanel no5 is more flowery. My impression of this perfume is chique it's a chique perfume. The scent of aldehyde is clearly present with an almost metal scent and believe it or not I smell a scent of blood. To soften the aldehydes there is a lot of ylang ylang used and what makes this fragrance so great is the use of iris, a soft powdery scent that soften this perfume on a remarkable way. To warm this all up there is some sandal and vanilla added.

I wore Vega a couple of times now and received a lot of compliments, when you wear this perfume you will not stay unnoticed. Vega is not a romantic perfume it's a chique perfume, it's a beauty.

I'm so lucky

Every time when I'm in my perfumery room and smelling all those lovely fragrances I'm aware that I'm a lucky and happy person. Working on a perfume is a wonderful process, it's so magical. Adding a bit of this or that can change the whole perfume you only need a tiny bit to get that result. I have so many materials that I study them every day, even when I don't have the time to work on a perfume I find at least the time to add a diluted material on my skin to smell it the whole day, sometimes I put two materials on top of each other to smell the result of their combination. Today I have Ambrettolide on one wrist and Muscenone on the other.

You all know now that I work with natural oils and handmade aroma chemicals. For everyone that thinks aroma chemicals do smell "chemical" and less pleasant as naturals l wish you had the change to smell them. I think it's a psychological thing to think they smell "bad", it has to do with your expectations.

For example a rose does have many aromatic molecules it's not one molecule that makes the rose smell like rose, there are hundreds. Some important ones are: Phenylethyl alcohol, Geraniol, Citronellol, Nerol, Linalool and many many more. You think these molecules stink or smell bad when they are smelled on their own? You think the single chemicals Geraniol and linalool smell "chemical"? No they smell wonderful.

On my perfumemaking group we have some members that are new to perfumery and think that working with chemicals is the same as working with fragrance oils. Fragrance oils are a complete different thing, I never work with that. A fragrance oil is a blend of different aroma chemicals mostly based on oil. These fragrance oils can contain materials that are not safe to use on your skin. I do use bases sometimes but these are not complete perfumes, I use for example an oakmoss base(a base is a composed blend) because real oakmoss is only allowed to use in real small amounts because it can irritate your skin(never noticed that by myself by the way) this base is made of safe materials. So I use bases as notes like an oakmoss note for my perfumes, not as a complete composed perfume base.
Well back to smell my Ambrettolide and Muscenone.....

Inhaling the scent of summer

Sitting behind my PC I thought about what to write today, when reading Andy's blog, I thought about how lucky I am that even when it's winter I still have the scent of summer around me, even though they are bottled. When opening one of these bottles I can smell summer again.

Yesterday was a grey and rainy day, well I could say the same thing about today, and I was longing for the spring. The holidays are over and now we have to wait for the spring to come, promising a summer with an air filled with lovely scents. I burned my aroma burner with a few drops essential oils of mandarin and jasmine and inhaled the scent of summer.

Today I'm studying some of my essential oils, on one wrist I'm wearing a dilution of Pink lotus absolute and on the other I'm wearing a dilution of Tuberose absolute. I'm still working on a perfume based on Tuberose, it's one of my favorite flowers. I do like Pink lotus but it's not as flowery as I thought it would be, it's more earthy, I will talk about that later.

Perfumery art or craft?

Perfumery is an art form and it's also a craft but I don't consider every perfume as a work of art. And not every perfumer is an artist either, they like to call themselves artists but what makes them artists, who decides that?

For example I would like to paint (but I'm really not good at it, I whish) the fact that I paint doesn't make me an artist does it? I could call myself a painter or artist when I believe in myself and think I'm good at it.

I could make a "perfume" by taking sandal oil and mix it with alcohol put it in a bottle and name it "Sandal dream" and think I made a perfume a work of art I could even consider my self as an artist, a perfumer, but am I?

I think someone else decides if you are an artist or not, I don't think you can say something like that about yourself, before someone else call you an artist.

Art is about evoking emotions you have to reach people with your creations, tell them a story with your creations, they need to be touched by it. It's about beauty(although not always), about emotion, feelings, imagination, harmony, expression and sensibility. When you've accomplished that you can call yourself a real artist and your work a piece of art.

The beautiful painting is from: http://boundlessgallery.com/

Happy New Year

I wish you all a very happy new year and may all your dreams come true, may you stay healthy and be happy, love and be loved, be creative, forgiving, open minded, helpful to each other, appreciating for everything you have and for all nice to each other.

Have a wonderful and fragrant 2007