Creating Natural Perfume
Well, today as always I’ve been pottering around my workshop.
Filling orders, rearranging the wall that is covered in shelving and hundreds of bottles of various tinctures and extracts from every flower and herb imaginable….and fiddling with the various experiemental blends I’ve got going.
The one dearest to my heart has got the working name of “Vintage”.
It’s based around my memories of my grandfather. He was one of those true gentlemen you don’t find very often. The kind of person who made you feel as though there was actually something wirthwhile in the world. He had real integrity, solid, kind, reliable and with an air of authority and strength with it that made him someone people admired and trusted. And he used to make up the most amazing stories to tell me as a kiddy, as I sat on his big lap and snuggled into his chest and breathed in the soldi, warm scent of him.
I’m creating a perfume that would suit him. Something solid and real, that makes you feel , well, that things are right in the world.
I’m using white grapefruit as a topnote, because it’s fresh without being sweet, coupled with fir because there is something incredibly clear and clean about all of the conifers. And fir is the gentle, mellowest of them. And the base is deep and woody, with musky undertones to give you that feeling of solidity I’m looking for. Not a flower in sight in this one! Nothing sweet or playful, I want a “Real” scent, that any man would be happy to wear. Mind you, I’ve been wearing the various trial versions myself for a few months now….this is going to be a truly unisex scent I feel.
I’ve got around 10 variations sitting on the “work in progress” shelf in their own carefully labeled bottles. All of them smell great. But I’m not quite happy with the balance as yet…..In some of them the grapefruit just takes over, in others the base is so heavy that you lose the fresh notes…and some are just a tad too sweet…..but it’s getting pretty close!
