Thursday, January 11, 2007

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.....

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

yes, yes, yes!
And there is another aspect... complexity. There are single molecule scents that are so complex and have so many facettes like ambroxan!
For me, by the way, there is nothing more relaxing than sitting in front of my strips and playing...
have a wonderful fragrant weekend

Jenny said...

Hi Andy, yes isn't that strange! How can only one molecule having so many facettes? Another one I like for its complexity is Ambrox DL.

Too bad it's only allowed to use real tiny amounts of Oakmoss, I love Oakmoss and it's hard to replace it, I'm still searching for a good substitute, I think some things can't be replaced like natural Oakmoss.

You too Andy have a wonderful relaxing playful fragrant weekend.
We lucky ones, we still can play even when we are adults!

chayaruchama said...

What I wouldn't give to stick my insatiably curious nose into all your vials...

Thank you for sharing your olfactory adventures.


It's the best tutorial I could have- next to being there.

Love to you two...

Jenny said...

You're welcome Chaya, I'm glad you like it.

Fragrant wishes