I used to suffer terribly from what they now call "SAD" or Seasonal Affective Disorder, and the winters in Berlin were particularly long and grey.
Each year, as soon as the days became shorter, my mood would start to darken too, and I would only begin to pick up as the days lengthened and the sun came back out of her hiding place below the equator.
Some years later when I started to make actual perfumes, I took a break from the complex floral formulas I was experiementing with, and started to think: Why shouldn't it be possible to combine Aromatherapy with Perfumery and create Perfumes that actually have therapeutic effects as well as smelling beautiful?
| Sororia Organics
A few years ago, I went back to England and visited the area where
the mystical Isle of Avalon is supposed to be...the coastal area around
Tintagel and Glastonbury....the birth place of King Arthur, and the
legendary Merlin, Vivianne, the lady of the lake and Morgainne,
priestess of Avalon...
It was late summer and there entire area is
full of apple orchards...ancient gnarled trees full of wisdom and a
sense of antiquity...sourounded by the lush scent of ripe apples,
hanging heavily from overladen boughs.....
I
climbed Glastonbury Tor one evening...and as the soft haze settled over
the valley beneath me, you could almost hear the chants of the
preistesses drifting over from the Magical Isle of Avalon....mystical
incense, herbs and the wafting deep and fresh scent of ripe apples from
the ancient trees......
 When I got back to Australia, I sat down
to try and capture this picture in a perfume. Fruit notes are
particularly hard to capture with natural ingredients, as fruit (apart
from citrus) simply doesn't lend its scent to extraction the way flowers
do...Some years before I had scored a tiny bottle of apple essential
oil, distilled from whole granny smith apples in South Afrika by a rogue
distiller...it had the sharp apple topnote to it, but totally lacked
the sweet depth of an actual apple, the way many essential oils do...and
of course this tiny bottle wasn't going to be enough to actually make
any quantity of perfume....
So I set out to find a way to create a scented picture of the real thing.
 I
found a number of different apple CO2 extracts used in the food
industry, that gave a sense of the fresh sharp topnotes in apples even
if it lacked the juicy lushness I was looking for, but at least it gave
me a starting point. together with a few drops of my precious apple EO, I
had an apple topnote for my perfume. To this I added Rose ...the most english of flowers, and a perfect partner to the sharp apple tang. I chose to use a particularly delicate Rose du Mai, as it adds an fairy like quality to the blend, a flower blossom touch....
Neroli
adds further floral beauty, while I found a touch of mandarin added in
the fruity sweetness needed to give a sense of ripeness to the apple top
note....the perfume began to take form....The heart and base are
a blend of hay, fresh mown hay lying out in the fields, drying for the
winter feed... fir balsam from the trees of the forest around the
orchards...and labdanum incense resin from the isle of Crete, used by
the preistesses in Delphi, which seemed rather appropriate...labdanum is
also such a soft, ambery sweet scent in itself, that blended perfectly
with the floral fruity mid and topnotes.....re creating that sense of
orchard and forest I had in my vision...priestesses burning incense in
the temple of the apple isle on a late summers eve.......
"Avalon"
Scent family: fruity floral
Notes top: apple CO2 and distillate, neroli
midnotes: rose du mai, green mandarin, apple blossom accord
base: labdanum, hay, fir balsam, amber accord
Order your own bottle
of "Avalon" here:
(Orders outside Australia perfume oil only pls as we cannot ship alcohol based edp overseas!)
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| field of bitter orange trees |
A few months ago I came accross an essential oil company I hadn't heard of before...
 A Fahkry & Co, an Egyptian company that distills and sells an amazing collection of essential oils and absolutes, including a special organic collection the widest range of orange flower, neroli and petigrain versions I've ever come accross! The website is pretty impressive in it's description of it's various organic endeavours, from new organic farms to seed saving and gentle extraction methods...and it's so refreshing to see companies outside of Europe adopting green approaches! I'm always a bit suspicious of companies I've never heard of before, esp. those that make organic claims, but these guys are very forthcoming with information and sent me an amazing collection of samples along with sheaves of accompanying paperwork with detailed analysis sheets for all the oils! And I'm rather impressed with the quality too, no cheap synthetic knock offs here!
I'm going to review the oils I've got here in groups, because there's simply too many to cover in one post!
What really blew me away was the range of citrus products! Ive never seen so many forms of petigrain and biregarde in one place before!
I know that this is a particular love of many perfumers, so I thought I'd write about them in more detail with my own scent impressions!
Orange flower absolute Deep, fruity with almost nutty undertones
Petigrain bigarade absolute This one I particularly love! It has such lovely fresh twiggy notes along with the petigrain freshness and a wonderful tea note!
neroil egyptian a tangy neroli
mandarin petigrain wow, a petigrain with a touch of mandarin sweetness! It's also got that fresh twig sappy feel to it....a real natural sorta woodsy mandarin touched scent!
key lime petigrain and then a real tangy, citrus petigrain...almost lemon verbena notes!
biregarde flower extract this is a zingy floral, lighter than the orange flower absolute
petigrain bigarade earl grey notes...very elegant
bigarade green notes of green mandarin
bigarade rouge this is softer than the petigrain mandarin...it's just lovely...softly mandarin sweet fresh green....
distilled fruit birgarade this is soft sweet citrus, undefinable which one, and much gentler than the straight cold pressed oils....I want to use this one in a floral perfume, with maybe a delicate white rose....
Key Lime distilled I want to bathe in this one! Lime lollies on steroids! I've loved lime essential oil for a long time, but this key lime has an added tang, almost like a touch of grapefruit and lemon verbena...I'm in citrus heavan!
My nose is dizzy just from reviewing them all one by one! So much vareity within a simple theme...absolutely lovely!
They also have an impressive range of herbal oils, as well as some really nice rose and jasmines....which I'll be reviewing later on!
All up, I'm delighted to have found these people!
They also have one of the holy grails of hard to find oils: CAROB essential oil! They were out of stock when I contacted them so I'm still waiting impatiently!
Spent a wonderful day today with the lovely Suzanne Naseby of Wytchy Ways
Suzanne came up to my workshop to consult with me about creating two massage oils for her online store, and it was a true delight! I had met this wonderful woman previously, when I took part in one of her "Soul Collage" workshops and had been impressed by her warmth and knowledge as a counsellor, and was delighted when she approached me about designing the scents of her new products! We spent an hour gossiping on my sunny verandah before we got down to work, catching up on stories of all the people we know, and our lives as middle aged women teetering on the edge of menopause...
And then, after mislaying our coffee cups and being held up by dogs and cats demanding attention of my new guest, we settled down to the actual work.
Custom design is my favourite thing to do. It's always fascinating to see which scents a person is drawn to...to me it's almost as intimate as having a peek in their personal diary, and the session with Suzanne was decidedly fun!
 She had two very different scents in mind: One for use on Sabbath celebrations, one for Esbats. For those non-pagans amongst you, Sabaths are the Solar celebrations in the Pagan calender, such as Eostre/ Easter, Samhain/Halloween and Winter Solstice/Chirstmas. The Esbats are celebrated on the full moon. So we are basically working on a solar and a lunar scent. Suzanne had brought a few of the oils she had already bought with her, including a delightful smelling benzoin, which proved too thick to work with this morning, even with the help of a warm water bath...but we came up with a few rather nice blends...on the solar side, Suzanne had something foodie and luscious in mind, seeing as good pagan celebrations always have great food and a feast as a central part of them....what we ended up with is a rather scrumptious warm spicy sweet melange which will work to stimulate and awaken all the senses.....ginger, cinnamon, fruit and more all combined to give it life and zing in a totally delicious way.....the lunar Esbat blend is much softer...elegant clarity built around the Rose of the Goddess, and the deep, sacred beauty of frankincense. She has also chosen a really interesting smokey base to underline the incense notes, which gives the blend a true "temple" feel...Each bottle will also have one drop of pur herbal oil of mugwort or wormwood, which Suzanne has magically charged during ritual herself, to give the oils an even greater effect.
The bottles she has chosen are interesting too. Simple, elegant aluminium flasks which she is planning on decorating with swing tags and material. So we ended the session with 5 little bottles of potion, samples to go home with Suzanne to be sniffed and pondered at leasure...over the next week or so, each of the scents will undergo a further alchemical transformation as the individual oils blend and interact with each other, so we'll see how they settle down. It's quite an involved process getting it "just right", and I'm sure it will take a few more changes and trials to find the "perfect blend"...
But they are going to be pretty special!
'Twas all up a very nice day...Alchemical Scent Magic at it's best!
I recently took part in a wonderful perfume competition, "A Midsummer Nights Dream" run by the lovely Amanda Feeley from Essentual Alchemy. The idea was to create a perfume inspired by William Shakespear's play. The perfumes were then sent to a number of different perfume reviewers.
What I find really beautiful about this project, is the artwork the reviewers used to accompany their reviews! So I've reposted not only the reviews themselves, but also the paintings that accompanied them!
You can read more about my offering to this project "Pan" here:
"The Story of Pan"
and you can order samples of it in my webstore
Carol from WAFT wrote: LOVE THIS !
 |
| Sir Joseph Noël Paton - Evening |
An intoxicating patchouli scent that could fit just as easily into the
summer of Patchouli love , but this was created in honor of Puck = a
tamer , gentler version of Pan in our Shakespearean play....PAN the
scent is wildly gorgeous - a green earthy Rosemary and Patchouli scent ,
deepened with oakmoss and embellished with cinnamon , nutmeg and
thyme....lordy lordy this is wonderful . Long have I searched for the
perfect rosemary scent ( that doesn't remind me of lamb stew
)...Dominated by rosemary , PAN is my favorite scent of the summer !
Earthy , resonant , spicy and just outright sexy in the best way .
The Windesphere Witch writes:
"I can't resist a perfume that claims...."If you don't want to get laid, don't wear it". Pan
is a perfume that I think could definitely live up to that challenge.
It's very masculine, the horned God himself and the muskiness mixed
into the delicious blend of rosemary, thyme, marjoram and Indian
Patchouli is delightful and exquisitely sexy in a sort of "roll around
naked and sweaty in the tall grass sort of way" and it smells incredible
on my husband, better than it does on me and I think that this one
takes a man to unleash it's potency. Pan is quite herbaceous but there's
also something in it that reminds me of my horse Henry when we've been
galloping around in the dense woods for a bit and he's fairly sweaty and
so am I. It's that fine line between animal passion and human
playfulness that I think that she's captured here and she's done it very
well. At first sniff Pan seems simple and then suddenly you're enslaved
by his lovely flutes. Follow him anywhere but at your own
risk.....unplanned risky delightful sex in a bottle this one is:)
Donna from Perfume Smellin'-Things wrote:
"My next adventure was a frolic with Pan, the very naughty brainchild of
Ambrosia Jones, proprietor of Perfume By Nature near Sydney, Australia.
Pan is a wild fellow indeed, but as with many purportedly “masculine”
fragrances, many women love to wear them too and this one really won me
over. Pan reminded me of the more rustic perfumes from La Via del
Profumo in Italy, which is saying a lot, because those are truly
excellent compositions. It’s not as heavily animalic as my beloved
Tcharas or as green and exhilarating as Hindu Kush, but it has its own
distinctive character. Pan (The character of Puck in A Midsummer Night’s
Dream is a thinly veiled version of the mythical Greek satyr) has a
dry, sun-soaked halo of herbal and piney warmth wrapped around its
chypre base of dark oakmoss and resins. Rosemary and thyme combined with
a spicy (yet not sweet) heart make this redolent of warmer climes, and
it’s not hard to picture this mischievous being frolicking in the rugged
hillsides above the Aegean Sea, chasing buxom women and laughing the
days away. I don’t get too much of a “night” impression from this, but
surely most of the trouble Pan/Puck gets himself into occurs in the
midnight hour! He is up to no good and so is his namesake perfume, a
lusty and rich concoction guaranteed to turn heads. In fact, I received
an unsolicited compliment from a co-worker, who urged me to come closer
so she could smell my perfume. Staying power is excellent, lasting all
day with no problem at all and any confident man should really enjoy
wearing it. However, he will have to pry it out of my hands first!
I must confess, I am a fan of chypre. It gives me a deep feeling of completeness and wholeness that is actually indescribable. Thank goodness for a fragrance that speaks for my indescribable feelings. PAN from Perfume by Nature leads you into a journey of a woody citrus forest that is guarded by Pan, God of Nature. You immediately notice patchouli that sings of a deep moment in the wild. Then you are guided into a forest full of oak trees covered in moss. The tall dark trees towering over the forest with a heavy passion for dark and intense moments that arise in PAN.
Quickly PAN
dries on the skin into a sweet passion fruit state of mind. I really
enjoyed this journey with Pan, God of Nature. It showed me that nature
is better when left alone without the use of chemicals and pesticides to
ruin what is really intended for its goodness.
Now, I understand why Pan is so wild
about nature. It is a wonderful place to be and thanks to Pan, Ambrosia
Jones was able to compose a beautiful perfume with a beautiful message
through her knowledge of the God who is passionate and respectful of all
Things Living.
Monica Miller from "Perfume Pharmer"
" Earthy, wild and spicy,
I would say Pan would make a great men’s fragrance…but hey, PAN can go
both ways, and often does. Definitely evergreen forest like, there is a
camphor herbal lift and a playful, botanical and animalic, spiced apple
cider- musky undertone. I say “try it!….if you dare….”
And this beautiful poem:
"Ah the Oft maligned and scorned God Pan! What has he done to deserve your wrath, O Christians, that you turn him into the Evil One? How strange to take a Pagan God, a nature spirit, and pit your hate against him, why?
Is it his sexuality you fear? His sweet pan pipe music that turns your heart to gold?
Do you fear to feel yourself as part of nature, as natural as the grass and the trees, as natural as life itself?
Fear not
the divine spirit we call PAN. He is NOT the devil as you say. he is not
dressed in red, nor does he live in a fiery abode. Unless the passion
we call desire that drives the human race generation by generation is
evil?
We ride towards our future on the back of PAN
We express joy, laughter, giggles and all things fun and good with PAN
We eat drink and make merry on our holidays with PAN
We revel, we intoxicate like drunken monkeys on fermented fruit, in a natural way..with PAN
We forget our troubles for a moment lifted by the music of PAN"
Carol from Waft is also selling sample collections from "The Midsummer Nights Dream" project through her online store The Niche Place , contact her directly to ask about this!
My own Offering to the "Summer of Patchouli Love" is a perfume named "Happiness".
Why did I choose it for the patchouli challenge?
Originally I was going to start from scratch and create a totally new patchouli perfume...I was thinking I'd go for a floral patchouli, maybe Rose and patch with a touch of jasmine...something deep and sensual that would evoke the 60's indian headshop oils the way most of us remember them....(and also because previous perfume competitions seem to have shown that most women love floral perfumes over everything else!).
I started working on a few variations and they seemed quite promising...but I got talking to a few friends about the project, and one in particular remarked "I really HATE patchouli!". I almost fell on the floor laughing, as she is also a loyal customer of mine who has been buying and wearing my "Happiness" for a number of years now...and it's really heavy on patchouli!! "No way!" she said when I told her this, "I KNOW patchouli and there is definitley NONE of that nasty heavy moldy stuff in "Happiness", I'd KNOW!
So I dug out the recipe and showed her....but it got me thinking....
"Happiness" is actually one of my oldest perfumes...it started it's journey many years ago when I first discovered essential oils. I was suffering through a dark depressing winter in Berlin and looking for oils to use in my oil burner that would cheer me up a bit...I had just been reading about the anti-depressant effects of Patchouli and decided to try it out. I carefully dripped a few drops of the thick dark brown liquid into the buner and was enveloped by a sense of woody warmth....dark, comforting, woody/sweet...it definitely made me feel safer and less dejected...I then added a few drops of lemon oil, as the same trusty book had just told me that this was a good antiseptic to use to ward off colds...and as the two scents mingled, I sat back in amazement! Suddenly there was a beautiful, cheerful scent that was somehow something totally new in the air! These two completely different oils complemented each other amazingly well, and not only that, I found myself suddenly feeling hopeful, almost joyful and well, Happy!
10 years and a whole continent later, I found myself living on a hippie community in Nimbin, Australia. We were flat broke, and I was making up my first ever batch of annointing oils to try and sell at the local markets. And one of these was a blend I'd made based on my experience with patchouli and citrus in Berlin which I'd named "Happiness" which was meant to cheer people up!
I'd added sandalwood to the blend which is another soothing oil from therapeutic point of view, and it was pretty bloody yummy! (note for non Australians: "bloody" is a word commonly used by us Ozzies to describe everything good bad and otherwise. We do not regard it as a swear word, but as normal everyday language usage to replace the word "very".)
The hippie customers at the market seemed to think so too, and my career in scent was born!
As the years went by and the business grew, I played with the recipe and made "Happiness" into bath and massage oils and eventually into an alcohol based eau de parfum version. And it went on selling. My perfumes became more sophisticated as time went by, as I added more exotic flower absolutes, and clever gourmand notes and Chypres to my designs, but "Happiness" remained one of the most popular scents, wherever I went. Men and women both bought and wore it, and even those that went for the deeper sexy florals would often by a small bottle of "Happiness" to wear to work or as a "pick me up" perfume too.
And I think this is one of the things that makes it special.
"Happiness" was one of the first ever "Aromatherapy" perfumes out there. If you read some of the posts that conventional perfume critics have written on the subject of Natural Perfumery, they will use this term in a derogatory manner, as if somehow, the fact that a perfume designed to have positive effect on the body automatically makes it somehow dilletantish and crude. Personally I think they couldn't be further from the truth. I'm a hippie green revolutionary at heart, and Natural Perfumery to me is in essence a form of Cosmetic Permaculture. The art of making a perfume beautiful, organic, sustainable and healthy makes into an even more beautiful work of art in my books. And if the perfumer is skilled enough to make a scent therapeutic as well as delightful in smell....
And as I went on thinking about the concept of designing a perfume to embody the spirit of the 60's, I began to wonder if maybe "Happiness" might be just perfect...
After all the 60's were all about changing the world. Bringing back a sense of harmony between Nature and Humans, and also about Love, Peace, caring for one another and well, spreading a little Happiness!
So in the end I decided to submit the very perfume that I had been inspired to make by my own quest for inner Peace.
It's a slightly more sophisticated version of my original annointing oil nowadays... the patchouli is a particularly fine aged one...the sandalwood is a more eco-freindly Australian version from sustainable plantations....the lemon is a soft, fresh green lemon from unripe fruits, with a touch of lime to give it a fresh tang...and theres a tad of spice and a nuance of vetiver to give it body and depth.
But it's still based around Patchouli and Lemon, same as the first drops in my oil burner in Berlin, all those many years ago.
The 60's were all about hope, and humanities adolescant dreams of Peace and Love...
And "Happiness" grew from mine!
I'll be posting what the critics thought of "Happiness" in my next blogpost, and there will also be a number of giveaways you can link to if you'd like to win a bottle of "Happiness" to try for yourself!
Peace Love and Patchouli!
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I've been sidetracked from perfume into making jewelry....beautiful glass and metal pendants with art nouveau paintings and delicate flowers....
