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

Perfumer Ineke

Ineke Ruhland is born in Canada she moved to Europe in 1988 to work in the fragrance industry. In 1996 she studied perfumery at ISIPCA in Versailles France. Following three years of apprenticeship at a fragrance house in Paris, Ineke moved to San Francisco where she created her own perfumes. The perfumes Ineke makes are delicate and elegant, presented in beautiful bottles named following the alphabet.

A

After my own heart

Notes: bergamot, raspberry, lilac

sandalwood heliotrope musk


After my own heart is a fresh tender perfume it has a tiny subtle sweet note but over all it's light and playful. The dominant note is lilac but it has also a fresh citrus note and a green note is also present. The color of this juice is reflecting the fragrance very well it's soft fresh with a transparent feeling.

B
Balmy days & sundays

Notes: freesia, leafy greens grass honeysuckle rose mimosa

chypre accent musk



Balmy days & sundays is more rounder than After my own heart, it's heavier because of the honeysuckle. But still transparent with a green freesia note. It's a quiet perfume like a whisper, a bit too timide for me.

C
Chemical bonding

Notes: smooth citrus cocktail tea blackberry dewy peony

vetviver amber powdery musk


This perfume has citrus but it's fruitier it's not sparkling citrus like in a cologne this citrus is combined with heavier notes, well like Ineke describes the notes herself she say it's a smooth citrus cocktail and that's true. You can smell some sweet fruity notes through it, maybe that's the blackberry I'm smelling? I like this one the most of all four because in this perfume the base is more prominent than in the other three. The base is dry ambery maybe some Ambrox and Cashmeran is used I don't know.

D
Derring-do

Notes: fresh citrus blend rain notes cyclamen magnolia fougere accents

guaiacwood cedarwood musk


This is the masculine perfume from Ineke it's a fougere accord(lavender, patchouli, oakmoss, coumarine) mixed with citrus and magnolia. I love the scent of magnolia and was surprised to find it in a men's fragrance, it works perfectly well in this perfume. It has rain notes for sure like the air can be filled after rain with a scent of waxy green wet leaves. I say waxy because it doesn't smell crispy green but rainy green waxy with a melon note as well. The base is nice woody musky.

Ineke's website is beautiful please have a look:

http://www.ineke.com/

The photo's are from her website and from:

http://www.basenotes.net/

Perfume the movie

Yesterday I've seen the movie "Perfume the story of a murderer" and I enjoyed it very much. I read the book a couple of times because the story is intriguing. I was real curious about how they would make a film based on the novel "Das Parfum" by Patrick Suskind(see photo on your right) from Germany who wrote the novel in 1985. There are 15 million books sold until now. Only in 2001 he gave away the film rights for 10 million Euro!!! The movie was directed by the German film director Tom Tykwer.

The story is about Jean-Baptiste Grenouille who was born in the 18th Century in Paris and had an incomparable sense of smell. He had a live without love and was only interested in scents and smell, not only scents that considered to be "nice" smells but also "bad" smells. The strange thing was that he didn't own a body odor of his own and noticed that because his body didn't had a smell he was a nobody to everyone. It was as if everyone was looking right through him and didn't notice him at all. As he grew up he "fell in love" with the smell of a young woman, a virgin. He wasn't fallen in love with her person but only by her scent, her sent gave him tears in his eyes and he was deeply touched by it. He wanted to know how he could conserve her scent, and wanted to create a scent for his own so he wouldn't be no longer a nobody to everyone.

When he met the perfumer Giuseppe Baldini he proved that he could do miracles with scents and created a perfume without ever learned how to make it. The perfumer was so impressed and knew that he could use Jean-Baptiste Grenouille to make him new wonderful perfumes a thing he wasn't capable of anymore.

The perfumer learned him how to conserve scent and Jean-Baptiste finally knew how to use it for conserving the scent of the young woman. He had to kill her, shaved her had and spread her in a layer of animal fat what absorbed her scent. He distilled the fat and finally had a view drops of her scent. He killed 12 virgins to complete his divine perfume....

It must have been a difficult job to make a movie about smell without actual smelling it but the book didn't have smell as well. I think they did a wonderful job filming this novel. Some parts of the novel are different but the movie tells the whole story complete and changed only small bits, I think because it was necessary for the movie.

Some parts of the movie could be "smelled" I think that's something incredibly difficult for a movie. I especially liked the end of the movie when he's about to be executed, when he's got disgusted by humans, he thinks about the women he killed and realized there is also something else to enjoy the scent of a woman... by making love to her, he never thought about that before.

Merry Christmas

vrolijk kerstfeest

sعيد ميلاد المسيح سعيدة

Joyeux Noël

frohe Weihnachten

merry christmas

Buon Natale

christmas alegre

Feliz Navidad

glad jul

веселое рождество

즐거운 성탄

圣诞快乐

mo’adim lesimkha

The nose knows????

Fig

On the Yahoo group: Perfume Making, we're talking about how to create a fig scent. There is a fig leaf absolute but the absolute can't be used in a perfume because it's extremely phototoxic. This photoxicity is because of bergapten a component also found in bergamot and the component angelicin. I found an article about angelicin that you can read here where is told that angelicin was tested on the skin of mice and the outcome was that it produced skin cancer when administered with ultraviolet A radiation. Also Ifra(The International Fragrance Association) says that fig leaf absolute can't be used in fragrances.

I like to eat figs they are honeysweet and I heard that figs are real healthy. I like the smell of fig leaves as well, my brother has a fig tree in his garden and the smell of the leaves are wonderful. So I tried to make a fig scent not the scent of the fresh figs but the dried figs and a fig leaves scent.

This is what I made for the dried fig scent so far, I used benzyl alcohol(light floral), linalool(floral woody, rosewood like), amyl cinnamic aldehyde(waxy jasmine), benzaldehyde(almond like), coumarine(tonka like), benzyl benzoate(balsamic), exaltolide(musky), maltol(sugary), ethyl phenyl acetate(honey like), ylang ylang oil(exotic), vanillin and indole(animalic).

The smell of it does smell like dried fig indeed but it needs more of a dark sweet scent so I think for the next batch I will use also some labdanum absolute, beeswax absolute for the honey note and some Geranyl acetate to sweeten it and maybe some amyl salicylate as well for a sweet herbal orchid like note.

I also tried to make a fig leaf scent and used stemone(fresh green), galbanum oil( green), linalool, benzyl acetate(fresh jasmine fruity), beta ionone(woody violet), leaf alcohol(smells like fresh cut grass), cis 3 hexenyl acetate(green leaf), styrallyl acetate(green gardenia rhubarb), lindenblossom base, vertelione(violet leaf like), Phenylethyl dimethyl acetate(pungent green), black pepper oil and cyclogalbanate(green galbanum pineapple).

It's a nice green leaf scent but I want to make it more green maybe a bit deeper green, so the experiments will go on.

What is it......

that made me start making perfumes? Sometimes I ask myself that question. I always loved fragrances, as a little child I always took a cloth with me to bed and my mother had to spray some perfume on it, I kept it close to my face when sucking my thumb. My mother was a consulant of Mora Shira when I was a child and I liked to sniff all those lovely fragrances.

I liked to read books about essential oils and liked gardening, so I also started to read books about all kinds of plants and flowers. I also liked to read about healing herbs, but one time my brother gave me a book from Jean M Auel it was her first book "The clan of the cave bear". I was hooked, what a beautiful book, I never read something like that before. It's a long story to tell but this book is about the prehistory it's about a "human" little girl that lost her family in an earthquake and starts to run and run for weeks until she is found by a Neanderthals clan.
She raised up between them but they don't accept her so easy, she is different. The woman that takes care of her is a medicine woman and learned her all the secrets of healing herbs. This way the little girl Ayla gets respect from the clan and she can stay. Well the story goes on but it's too long to tell it all. Jean M Auel wrote 5 novels about Ayla.

The parts in the book about healing herbs were very interesting to me, and I started to plant healing herbs in my garden and made creams for my face with them. Later on I liked to make a garden that was fragrant so when you walked trough it you could smell all kinds of different flowers and plants. I planted the fragrant flowers and plants in a way that you always could smell something also in the evening and night. It was like walking through a perfume and smell all the details of it. I think there it started, I wanted to make a perfume.....

Here you can read more about the books from Jean M Auel and read a piece of the first chapter of her first book The clan of the cave bear:
http://www.amazon.ca/Clan-Cave-Bear-Jean-Auel/dp/product-description/0553250426
Here a site about the herbs Ayla used:
http://ecfans.com/aylasherbs/AHerbs_ac.htm

Jardins de Bagatelle

A perfume what smells like you walk in a garden, a garden with all kinds of fragrant white flowers. The opening is fresh, flowery with some sharp green notes. It's filled with juicy Neroli tempered with Mimosa. It's not a fruity perfume but more a perfume made of a bouquet of white flowers with some citrus and woody notes with an animalic note in the background.

The heart of this perfume is full of white fragrant flowers, but the scent of the flower I can detect most is Gardenia soon assistant by the sensual notes of Tuberose and Jasmine. A scent often used together with Tuberose is narcissus, the smell is a bit similar to the smell of Tuberose although Tuberose smells more creamy and have a green note and Narcissus has a more fruity and more animalic scent, if the smell of Narcissus could have a color it would be yellow. The Narcissus gives a nice bite to this perfume.

To hold all these lovely fragrant flowers together there is added an Iris note, maybe with the use of Ionone a component of Iris that has a dry woody flowery fragrance. It gives a solid smell to these fragrant white flowers so their fragrance will melt with your skin and doesn't smell like you wear the scent of flowers but something that becomes a part of you and your body chemistry. The fragrance of Iris will lead you to the woody notes; a warm earthy smoky Vetiver together with Cedar and Patchouli to spice it up a bit, also an animalic note is added to prevent this perfume to become an innocent perfume.

Jardins de Bagatelle is a very well made elegant perfume, it surprise you with little unexpected notes and the notes are perfect balanced. I do love all the perfumes made by Guerlain and I do love this one as well, but it's not my favorite like Mitsouko, Shalimar or Samsara.

Apologize

I realize I don't post as often anymore, I apologize for that. I have many things to say I want to do more reviews of the Guerlain perfumes and also of the perfumes by Ineke. But lately I can't always find the time. I just post when ever I have the time or whenever I feel like it, I want to enjoy to write the posts and don't want to feel like it's a must. I hope you all don't mind that I don't post on a regular bases.

Fragrant wishes to all readers of this blog

Smell

Yesterday I was in a perfumery shop and had a real nice conversation with the lady of the shop. I asked her if I could smell some of the new fragrances and we start to talk about fragrances in general.

I told her that I think Chanel no5 is nice and that it was really new and special in the time it was made but that it's not one of my favorite. She said she was a real fan of Chanel no5 and that when she wears it people always say to her that she smells so nice. I told her that Chanel no19 is my favorite and that I like Coco Chanel as well.

O, she said, before I liked Coco Chanel as well until I went to a funeral of a good friend of mine, she said that the daughter of her friend was wearing Coco Chanel and since then the smell of this perfume reminds her of this sad day and that she can't wear it without being really sad.

That reminded me of a perfume I can't wear or smell without being sad, it's Light Blue by Dolce & Gabbana I weared this perfume when our dog Jacko died. Since then I don't wear it anymore, I can recognize this perfume without any doubt when someone wears it. I still miss my warm and dear friend.

This is our dear friend Jacko who died two years ago

We started to talk about how difficult it seems to translate smell in words, I found out that when I ask someone to describe a perfume they look at me like I asked something really strange, they say something like that it's nice or that it's sweet or that it's fresh but they find it difficult to tell more about it.

A couple of days ago I visited my brother, my friend was there as well, my sister in law and I started to talk about a perfume. She used words like, it has a high tone or this perfume smells round etc. My friend raised her eyebrows and asked where the hell we were talking about. She said it was like we were talking a different language. We explained to her what we were talking about and after the explanation she understood a bit more of this special language.

I told the lady of the shop about this and she affirmed this, she told me she did a wine tasting course once and that it was difficult to describe the taste or smell. There are some kind of words used to describe some aromas, but she told me that some descriptions were not her descriptions, everyone has their own scent memories or referents, so the description by someone else could be from a whole different scent experience than yours.

We also made the connection to music, we both like music it seemed. Music can touch you in the same way a fragrance can, but somehow it's easier to describe music then to describe a fragrance. We can even find out what kind of notes the music is made of, try that with a perfume....Maybe we have to learn how to describe what we smell it's an important part of our live, strange that we have a difficulty to find the words for such an important thing.

Blending perfume

Today I was thinking about the difference between a blend and a perfume. I still don't know the difference but I guess a blend is a simple mix of some aromatic materials, well maybe it doesn't need to be a simple mix but it isn't a perfume although you could call perfume a blend but that's not a common word used for a perfume(I think). You're still with me? It sounds a bit confusing.

I searched for the word "blend"(in verb form) in the free online dictionary and this is what it says:

*To combine or mix so that the constituent parts are indistinguishable from one another.

*To combine (varieties or grades) to obtain a mixture of a particular character, quality, or consistency.

*To form a uniform mixture.

*To become merged into one; unite.

*To create a harmonious effect or result.

Mmm you could say the same thing about perfume, so maybe you can use both words but I prefer to use the name perfume above a blend. A blend to me is a mix but not necessarily a perfume. To mix some aromatic materials doesn't make a perfume even when it smells good. You wear a perfume on your skin it becomes a part of you, perfume has something special it becomes personal. I think you can say that a perfume is a blend but not every blend is a perfume.

Blending different aromatic materials is a remarkable process, you think you know how the result will smell because you know what you just mixed but the outcome is sometimes different than you expected. Sometimes you know because of earlier experiences but you can't always predict how a mix will smell. Like when you paint and you mix colors you'll see that blue and yellow mixed together will form a whole new color; green. We all know that by now, it's the same in perfumery we know the outcome of some combinations but we can't predict them all. A couple of days before I added a tiny bit of Maltol to a creation. Maltol is an aroma chemical that smells like sugar. I added a real small bit, but the outcome wasn't sugary at all, it made the fragrance more stand out it gave the fragrance a solid base what gave the top and heart notes a lift. I like discoveries like that.

I found a new hobby

At my Perfumemaking group we are talking about tincturing. I like the idea of making tinctures of unusual materials. Zz from Parfume Moderne gave us some tips on how to make tinctures. I remember that I tried to make them a couple of years ago but that wasn't a success.

Right now I made two tinctures; one with coffee and one with dried apricots. When I like the result I will make more tinctures. I used 2 grams of the materials and 14 grams of alcohol to try it out, I'm not sure that it will work that way or that I have to add more coffee or apricots.

I can imagine that it's a really nice hobby to find all kinds of things to tincture. I know that Zz tinctured mushrooms for example that sounds really interesting. I'm already looking around for more materials to tincture, but right now I just have to wait patiently......

The photo is from http://www.jashbotanicals.com/

Have a fragrant day!!!

Orris by Andy Tauer now available

The wonderful Orris perfume by Andy Tauer is created without thinking about the costs. It's made of the expensive materials Orris and Agarwood with dark rose, spices and mysore sandalwood.

Andy shared this perfume with 40 people by sending them a free sample to celebrate the 1 year anniversary of his blog. I was one of the lucky ones that received the sample.

The reaction he received on this perfume was sensational. Everyone wants this perfume. And even though Andy didn't have plans to make this perfume in production because of the high costs of the ingredients, he decided to create a limited number of bottles of this incredible stuff.

The Orris is different than any other orris scent I'd ever smelled. It's soft dry woody, but because of the spices it isn't just soft powdery but more intense. It's soft with a smoky and spicy touch. It's starts with lemon and spicy notes but soon gets dark, deep and smooth with still the spiciness on top of it. Somehow all the perfumes of Andy have something that you can recognize as an Andy Tauer fragrance. He has his own style that always come through his creations.

The Orris perfume could be ordered right now the shipment will be by 15 November.
http://www.tauerperfumes.com/blog/

Blending, mixing, stirring and sniffing

The whole week I'm blending, mixing, stirring and sniffing. I took the whole week off so I can spent all my time on making perfumes. I'm studying the musk materials right now, I have many different musks and I'm trying to find out which musk combines well with the other. The odorants of musk are really different I have sweet musks but also musks that have a dominant animal note, I have musks with a dry note a full rounded note, a green note, a musk ambery note and so on.

I'm also working on the fruity/chypre again. The fragrance matured for a while so I had the change to smell the result. I'm in love with this fragrance the picture I had in mind for this fragrance is a self-assured woman who is feminine but also strong. The fruity notes stands for the femininity and the firm base with oakmoss and amber for her self-assurances. I added some notes that are also used in men's fragrances but combined with feminine notes like fresh juicy tropical fruits and flowery notes of jasmine and tuberose. I like the result but I will smell it over a longer period, I can't wait to wear it when it's done. I will try just a couple of things to see what it will do to the fragrance.

Two male colleagues asked me to make a perfume that smells fresh, watery, fruity-apple like and it has to be a little but not too sweet. It has to smell in the direction of Cool Water by Davidoff and One man show by Jacques Bogart. Sounds interesting so I experiment with that as well.