Memorial Day Update

I hope everyone had an enjoyable Memorial Day weekend! My assistant is off on a break until Thursday so I’ve not been able to make samples of Forest Walk yet, but we’ll do it Thursday when she is back. I don’t want to risk making all the samples myself because I don’t want to flare up my wrists (they are fine as long as I stay within my limits), but I wanted to reassure readers that all is well and the Forest formula is set. As soon as I have an extra set of hands here again we’ll put samples up and the bottles will go up shortly after.

Meantime, I’ve been working on some things for the July show and I’ve made progress on the Vintage Rose reformulation. I have a promising new VR mod that I’m testing.

Tickets are on sale now for the July 8 San Francisco Fragrance Salon, and you can get $10 off until the end of May with promo code FragrSF12x.

It was my Dad’s birthday today — he is 81! We are lucky he’s doing so well at this age. He’s pretty amazing. 🙂 Happy Birthday, Dad!

Jour Ensoleillé Review, and Update

Thanks so much, mals, for the beautiful review of Jour Ensoleillé on The Muse in Wooden Shoes! You are right that it has some indoles from the jasmine and some barnyard animalic notes from para cresyl phenyl acetate. Many people find it has a pleasant amount of animalics, but it’s not for people who are super sensitive to those notes. I love that people get how it is about those September late afternoons. That is my favorite time of year for that golden afternoon light!

I put up the web page for Forest Walk and am getting closer to the release. I’ll try to put samples up first and will post here when I do.

My brother and his family were out for the weekend and I enjoyed spending some time with them. Was nice to take a little family time.

Forest Walk is done! And a note on Vintage Rose…

So far all testers have liked the final mod of Forest Walk, and I’m converting the formula to batch size. I’ll launch it in a couple weeks. Can’t wait! (Aside: I snapped the photo above several years ago in nearby Armstrong Redwood State Reserve.)

Compared to mod 25b (which was the last mod discussed on Nathan’s blog), I reduced the dirt/earth accord, removed one floral ingredient, added a little bit of frankincense, removed one woodsy ingredient, increased the fir absolute, added a trace of galbanum resin, removed the blue hemlock, and increased the black hemlock. The changes eliminated the murkiness that read as seaweed to a few people. Testers have been very enthusiastic about the current mod, and I’m excited to start batching it.

It took about 40 mods, which is fairly good for me (Nostalgie was well over 100 mods). I picked this theme for Nathan’s blog project partly because I knew I could finish something woodsy more quickly than something floral. I also chose the forest theme because I’ve been wanting to work with my hemlock absolute. The final formula has about the same number of ingredients as the first trial formula (32), but I’ve swapped some in and out and adjusted percentages since I began. The original trial formula was probably over 85% the same, but the success is in the details.

I also made a slight tweak to Vintage Rose. I’m batching it early next week and will put it back on the site. The only two scents that still had the old labdanum were Champagne and Vintage Rose. I switched the Vintage Rose formula to the new labdanum last weekend and made a few other minor tweaks while I was at it. I think it’s smoother now with less scratch to the woods. The plumy rose accord is the same.

I’m continuing to work on the floral Champagne variant. I want to amp up the jasmine just a little more. I’ll also get back to original Champagne formula this weekend so that I can return it to the site soon; I need to test the version with the new labdanum more before calling it done.

I’m also working on display items for the July 8 show in SF. Lots to do!

We’ve had glorious weather here, and the roses have produced armloads of flowers daily. The first spring bloom is always the best. The sweet peas are blooming too, which is an annual treat. Photo above shows one of the climbing roses on the fence around my front garden (this one is climbing Pinkie).

Fun new blog to visit

I just wanted to post a quick note about a new blog written by Jessica at Now Smell This; it’s called Tinsel Creation (she explains the reference), and it combines her interests in perfume, art, literature, beauty, and things vintage. Jessica is an eloquent writer, as you probably know from reading her posts on NST, and her doctorate in art history speaks to her expertise in that field. I loved today’s post on the art of a perfume ad. I look forward to more posts in this series. Just when you thought you’d seen every possible permutation of perfume blog, another original idea comes to life!

I sent out about nine Forest Walk testers so far and will see what people think. I need to stock up on a couple ingredients in it so I can start batching as soon as I know that it’s done. Can’t wait!

Voile de Violette Review

Thanks, Victoria, for your lovely review of Voile de Violette on EauMG! Your timing is perfect for spring.

Happy May Day! My youngest niece will be doing the May pole dance at their elementary school this year. The town has a May Day parade the first weekend in May and then the third grade does a May pole dance, winding ribbons around the pole. The kids all dress in costumes for the parade and are awarded prizes for best in various categories. It’s the kind of thing that makes it fun to grow up in a small town.

Yesterday I sent out the first four testers of Forest Walk mod #32 and the CdB take-off. I added a soft galbanum topnote to Forest Walk before sending it out. I need to make more testers and send a few more out, and as feedback comes in I’ll decide whether to alter it more. I would love to be able to bring both of these to the July 8th show, so I’m trying to finish them up.