Thursday, July 1, 2010

Mystery of Musk- waiting for the reviews

Well, here I sit surrounded by my collegues offerings, waiting for the rest of the world to catch up with us here on the 1st of July in Oz!
(For those of you who have landed here the first time, I'm talking about the Natural Perfumers Guild "Mystery of Musk" competition...you can read more about it on my previous blogpost)
I've emailed a better photo of my "Craving" for one of the bloggers to use, and started my own notes on the other musk submissions.....
Started only, because as soon as I'd done one initial sniffing of them all, I came down with a massive head cold AND NOW CANT SMELL THEM PROPERLY!!!!!!

Perfumers hell! At least I did get one good initial sniff.....
They are all so different!

It's been such an amazing experience....the challenge of trying to create something with a limited pallette to a very tight time schedule was....interesting. And frustrating...and amazing....and has given me ideas for a whole range of new perfumes!

And beyond that, it has now given me a glimpse into the perfumed world of my collegues...it's so incredibly interesting to see what they have come up with, working with the same restricitions and the same theme!
And the perfumes we have all created are (to me as a perfumer) almost like sneaking a look into the others private diaries!
Our personalities, likes and dislikes have flavoured our creations and have produced an incredibly diverse collection of scents....
Some are bright and happy, others deep sweet and sultry...others again have an ethereal lightness and softness of touch. Earthy and masculine or interesting and quirky, it's like a musk party full of different and diverse characters, all dressed in their individual version of what a "natural musk" should be wearing this season....

Scentual Cultural Diversity, grin!


What surprised me at first sniff, is how many of them are florals. In fact, going through the ingredient lists, I think I'm the only perfumer who hasn't got at least a floral bynote or accord in there somewhere.
"Craving" is definitely the dark one of the bunch....
And it's fascinating if you look at the packaging we've all chosen, how well the colours used with each creation, actually reflect the nature of the perfumes themselves!

Once my head and nose have cleared again, I'll be writing about my impressions on each of these delightful creations...(I've got Charna's "Musk Nouveau" on my wrist at the moment...and the deep sweet sultry notes can just penetrate through the fog in my head a bit...sigh.....)

More to come in the next week!

10 comments:

  1. Oh, get well quickly Ambrosia we want to know your impressions!!

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  2. Timing! An incense loving friend of mine is also recovering from a head cold, she's in the northern hemisphere, seems head colds respect no borders.

    Much better photo of "Craving" Did you create the artwork?

    >>>"Craving" is definitely the dark one of the bunch.<<< Serendipity? Me being a bloke, I was hoping yours might have a masculine edge, does it?

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  3. yeah I do all the artwork...I love painting and photography, so the packaging and the website are just as much part of the joy of creating the perfume experience for me as the perfumes themselves.....
    My partner reckons it's definitely "blokier" than all the others, ...but not exclusively masculine.
    A scent for both sexes...

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  4. Excellent stuff :)

    Let's hope the cold releases you back to your reviewing tasks very soon.

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  5. Get better soon ! Thanks for the lovely samples- will be reviewing very soon. Lovely packaging too - I do appreciate the effort.

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  6. Get better soon ! Thanks for the lovely samples- will be reviewing very soon. Lovely packaging too - I do appreciate the effort.

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  7. Get better soon ! Thanks for the lovely samples- will be reviewing very soon. Lovely packaging too - I do appreciate the effort.

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  8. Craving is incredible. I put it on 6 hours ago and I can still smell the delicious aroma clearly! How do you do it Ambrosia?
    I am really impressed. In my opinion, Craving is a unisex sophisticated gourmand scent. It's hard to create a gourmand scent that's 1) truly unisex 2) not too sweet or foody. Craving succeeds on both challenges.

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  9. Hi, believe it or not, I dreamed about your last night hahah. We were in Malta and you were painter (as well as perfumer). You had some strange car :D

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  10. How cool! I do love to paint and I;d love to visit Malta some day...(And I'm quite likely to drive a "strange car" too, grin!)

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