I have some new ingredient samples to sniff and have been testing the gardenia mod too. One Indian attar is quite interesting; they don’t disclose the exact blend of ingredients, but it has some deep woods with Indian spices and is very nice (I think it’d be pretty with rose). Another one I had to take outside to open because it was so potent, lol, and it will need to be diluted to homeopathic levels before I can evaluate it (very animalic).
Along the animalic theme I have a bit of vintage Scandal parfum to sniff, and from the vial it is the most potent, dark leather I’ve ever smelled so it’ll be interesting to try on skin. I just tried a sample of vintage Femme parfum and it is wonderful, much more to my liking than the current version. The vintage parfum samples I have are fun to revisit from time to time, and it’s nice to try a few that are new to me. Many have higher levels of oakmoss than we can use today, and many have the old nitromusk called musk ketone, which we don’t use today. The style itself is different too of course, without some of the modern notes that have been popular for freshness and often with heavier, more animalic bases.
I decreased the tonka in gardenia a little bit and think that was the right way to go because it felt a bit sweet between the beeswax and tonka, but I really like both those elements and want to keep both in it. I’m going to try bringing out the deep sandal note a bit more in the base; I’m trying to keep the base very soft but it feels like it still could use something more at the very end after 3 hours or so.
A couple of links to news items today…
Here’s an interesting interview with Patricia de Nicolai at Osmoz.com (and for the patchouli lovers among you she talks about an upcoming men’s release called Patchouli Homme):
http://www.osmoz.com/News-Trends/Interviews/Patricia-de-Nicolai
I love her Temps d’Une Fete in spring/summer and enjoy Sacrebleu sometimes in winter (especially around the holidays — it seems festive to me). In the interview she also discusses the need for a balance between using fine naturals but also synthetics in perfumery.
And here’s a link to a free download of a technical paper about pheromones for those of you interested in whether we have any scientific evidence that these chemicals affect humans when used in perfume:
http://www.perfumerflavorist.com/fragrance/research/52197782.html
I’m going to try to do a bunch of paperwork this weekend. Can’t believe it is the beginning of August. Happy weekend!