Back to work

Had my appointment yesterday and everything is going fine. Won’t be completely healed for a couple weeks, but all looks good and I’m getting back to some blending and website work.

We’ll be switching to jars for the shea cream since it is just thick enough to make it a little hard to squeeze from the bottles.  I have some pumps on order to try too, but the jars should be nice. Posted a new pic on the Body Shop page.

Going back to work on the new blends and also updating a few scents before putting them back on the website (Gardenia Musk for one).  Will post more updates as I go.

So far so good

Surgery went well and I’m feeling more energy today.  I should be productive again in a few days (I see surgeon Thursday to assess healing, but he was very pleased how it went).  Thanks so much for good wishes!   

The roses are just starting to bloom so I’ve been enjoying the first cut roses of the season — Abraham Darby and Madame Alfred Carriere are leading the way this year.  The deciduous oaks just leafed out in their bright spring green, along with a couple Japanese maples. Geranium Biokovo, leucojum, heuchera, and the crabapple are all blooming too.  Robust buds are forming on the clematis.  Daffodils and camellias are almost done.   I haven’t wanted to wear any scent for a few days, but I put on some La Chasse last evening for this spring mood.  Hope you enjoy your signs of spring when they come to your area! 

Away for a few days

^{I’m having a surgical procedure Friday March 23 and will be away from email Friday and Saturday.  I’ll post on the blog to check in soon as I can afterward. Thanks so much for all your good thoughts! This isn’t life-threatening surgery, just uncomfortable with a little needed downtime.  Back soon…}

Perfume Bases

Someone recently said he thought I had used grape alcohol in the past for edp, but I have always used specially denatured perfumer’s alcohol from Remet in southern California. This type of specially denatured professional perfumer’s alcohol is what is used in nearly all commercial perfumes. For the oils, I use a natural pure fractionated coconut oil base. I add no silicones, emulsifiers, sunscreens, or colorants.

I made an interesting discovery about bases recently. A few perfumery ingredients come in crystal form, such as vanillin and some musks. You can weigh them and add the crystals right in when you mix a large batch of a scent, but it’s also convenient to have a small amount pre-mixed in alcohol to use when blending tiny batches to develop new formulas. Some perfumers use different substances, like IPM or DPG or BB, to dilute solid chems for this purpose.

I recently smelled BB, benzyl benzoate, and I realized this could be the dilutant that gives me a cardboard/nutty/balsamic drydown from some brands of perfume oils. I’ve never used BB in my own blends or products, but this explains at least one possible source for that balsamic cardboard smell in the drydown of some scents I’ve tried. I’m sure BB doesn’t have that smell to everyone, but it does to me and perhaps to a few others out there so I thought I’d mention it. BB is sometimes used on purpose for its light scent, but it is also used sometimes in bases with the assumption that it is light enough not to interfere; I can see it wouldn’t work for me, at least not in large amounts.

quick update

My surgery is scheduled for March 23. I’m getting as much done before that as I can. Surgeon says I’ll have complications — not very comforting, lol. It will take a couple weeks to recover. I’ll post more updates, before and after. Progress is good on the woodsy scents I’m working on, and I still have several rose variations I’m working on too.  Lots to do.

Website Update

I thought I should give an update on the website plan. I have to have a minor surgical procedure soon and will wait until after that to put the cart up. I’ll find out the surgery date on Tuesday. It will take about a week to recover, and then I can get back to business. Meantime, I’m trying to do as much scent blending as I can. The surgery is nothing life threatening, just one of those things you have to get through. I will post again about this when I know the date because I’ll be away from email for a couple days at that time.

Sandalwood and Jasmine

Been raining pretty much for a straight week now and that little spring teaser feels like a dream rather than a memory. Even lots of snow on the mountains today! Wish I could get a photo.

Had to take a few days off from the rose to work on a couple woodsy blends. I think Sandal is about ready for testing. It’s very woodsy with just some light floral notes, mainly jasmine. Might try increasing the jasmine a tad.

The natural jasmine oils commonly used in perfume are jasmine grandiflorum and jasmine sambac. The sambac is a bit muskier to me, but I love both. You can grow the sambac in a pot on your windowsill – they are sold online and are very generous bloomers, even indoors. The variety called Maid of Orleans is an easy one and has a potent scent.

I also grow star jasmine and pink jasmine in the garden here. Star jasmine has a spicy kick to it, and the pink is a lovely powerful narcotic floral. I think the pink may be my favorite of the ones I grow, but it’s hard to choose. I’ve not seen star or pink offered as natural oils anywhere, though some small natural perfumers probably tincture their own. When you see star jasmine or pink jasmine listed in the notes of a perfume made by a company that is not all-natural, it is most likely to be a synthetic recreation of the flower. They are both quite different from the jasmine grand and jasmine sambac that are more commonly used in perfume. Star jasmine is actually not a member of the genus jasminum; its botanical name is trachelospermum jasminoides.

Back to work. And spring dreaming…