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Flowering Trees in Tenerife
We have just returned from Tenerife where I discovered a number of new (to me) flowering trees. First, a stunning red blossomed tree with fern or frond-like leaves, on which the flowers look like a kind of red honeysuckle. In fact they are not related. This is the Delonix regia, flame tree or Royal Poinciana, a native of Madagascar but found in tropical and semi-tropical areas. It is a member of the bean family or Fabaceae so it will be related to tonka beans, sweet pea and acacia. Other trees that we noticed were a yellow blossom similar to the above which is an acacia. And two types of oleander,…
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Forget-me-nots
These pretty blue flowers don’t really have a scent although I have seen perfumes inspired by them or interpretations (a floral bouquet can be made with rose and jasmine notes, and a powdery background). Myosotis sylvatica is the Latin name for the garden or wood forget-me-not and they are part of the borage family Boraginaceae. Flowering during April and May you can see a beautiful sea of blue at ankle level. There is also Myosotis arvensis, the field forget-me-not, and the national flower of Alaska is Myosotis alpestris or the alpine forget-me-not. Myosotis scorpioides has an interesting name – this is the water forget-me-not also called “scorpion grass”. Sylvatica has…
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Rosa damascena trigintipetala
The pink shrub roses used to make rose oil and rose absolute for perfumery are from two main varieties, the Centifolia rose, and the Damask rose, or Rosa damascena trigintipetala. These grow in Bulgaria, Turkey and Morocco, and I was lucky enough to visit the rose growing areas in El Kelaa des M’Gouna, Morocco, in 1997. There, the rose bushes are actually the side crop, used as hedges to assist and protect the wheat that is also being grown. The town of El Kelaa and nearby growing areas are part of a large oasis in the Sahara Desert. This week I had cause to look again at my journal from…
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Bath Bombs
Today I want to talk about bath bombs. I just had a bath with a Lush Twilight ’21 (yes, I know it is 2023 but the bomb only just came into my possession). It seemed like it had layers – so there is the pinky lilac outside layer, and in the middle a turquoise coloured layer and when it all dissolves the bath water is a lavender colour. But the compound that makes up the different layers, chemically, must be slightly different – because they dissolved at different rates, and rather like an apple with the core dissolving before the outer layer, the turquoise inside layer fizzed and dissolved faster…
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Cherry Blossom season
I’ve been trying to decide if my favourite time of year is Spring or Autumn. I used to say Autumn definitely, with all the leaves changing colour. But the last few years we have had such amazing Spring blossoms. I am learning that they aren’t all cherry blossoms, although some of them are types of cherry tree. But there are also other types of Prunus, which would include plum blossom and almond, along with apple blossom. I have learned about the different types of cherry blossom as well, like the Kanzan cherry (Prunus serrulata) which is larger and grows in clusters, and the weeping cherry or “Snow Fountain” which has…
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Plant Names – Books
On my birthday I received Perfumed Botany by Jean-Claude Ellena and a book on Plant Words by Kew. I am looking forward to reading them. I also bought the book by Dominique Roques In Search of Perfumes, and the book Nose Dive by Harold McGee. I particularly like to look up words and Latin names – it is good to know for example, the Latin name for the garden privet, Ligustrum ovalifolium, was the inspiration for one of the names of the powerful, green scented raw material 2,4-dimethylcyclohex-3-ene-1-carbaldehyde (CAS no: 68039-49-6). The Summer of 2024 was particularly good for smelling the privet flower, too, which has a green and watery…
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Lactonic Scents
peach; coconut; milky; nutty (various); osmanthus; fig; musk; jasmine; tuberose; solar; waxy. I’m smelling very “lactonic” today! This was a question asked on Bluesky which set me thinking. What makes a “lactonic” note or perfume? Initially, perfumes made of the notes of peach and coconut come to mind, gamma decalactone, gamma undecalactone, gamma nonalactone.Delve into this a little more, lactones are often described as “milky”. To make an osmanthus perfume, or a tuberose, one would use lactones too. Then as I put my perfumes on today, I thought, well, quite a few musks are lactones (e.g. cyclopentadecanolide, and ambrettolide), and fig notes can be made using gamma octalactone, so I…
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My Perfumery Bucket List
During my career and personal life I have been lucky to visit over the years: Morocco to see roses, Atlas cedar and camomile; 3 times to the World Perfumery Congress and local areas of Provence including visits to Grasse and the Perfumery museums; Floriade in the Netherlands; Oman to see roses and frankincense (olibanum); Provence to see lavender and roses; Geneva; Ludwigshafen; Cologne/Köln; But still on the Perfumery bucket list (and it’s growing!): Mimosa in bloom, France; Ylang ylang, cloves in Madagascar; Cistus, Seville; I also need to go back to Köln to the 4711 museum, as for our visit we did the Farina Haus, not knowing until we arrived…
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Vintage perfumes
Years ago, in the ’80s, teenage me had a favourite perfume, “It” by Lentheric. Fast forward to today, I obtained a vintage bottle on eBay. Now, as a successful perfumer of many years, I know fragrances mature and reactions take place, sometimes undesirable ones. But I’ve had very little real experience of any vintage perfumes. It doesn’t have the “off” alcoholic notes. But this doesn’t smell as I remember, to be honest. It’s a lot more aldehydic, animalic (even civet?), and oakmossy, chypre. I do like a good chypre, but I didn’t remember “It” being one? What happens to fragrances after this many years, is it only these kind of…
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Fragrance Layering
I have to say, I smell amazing today. I keep getting wafts of fragrance (just lately, I’ve got into fragrance layering).I’ve layered Liz Earle Vanilla & Clove Body Lotion, followed by J. Floris Chypresse, topped off with Liz Earle No. 15. I love the Liz Earle No. 15, it is probably my current favourite in my perfume collection. It is floral and woody, rose and sandalwood/an oudy hint. I’ve had very mixed results wearing it – one very balmy Spring/early Summer day was the first time I really sprayed a good amount on, and it was amazing, I could smell this cloud of it all day. That day I had…
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My Desert Island Products
These are the products I use often and do not want to be without. Cleanser: Liz Earle Cleanse & Polish; Moisturiser: Liz Earle Skin Repair Rich; Eye Cream: Espa – 24hr Eye Moisturizer and Lift & Firm Intensive Eye Serum; Hand Cream: There are quite a few of these as I use a lot of hand cream: The White Company – Nourish Intense Hand Treatment; Liz Earle – Hand Repair; This Works – Perfect Hands; Garnier – hand repair in the red tube; Neutrogena Hand Cream; Any of the L’Occitane ones (Shea butter etc); And I always travel with a tube of Nivea Soft as a multi-purpose cream. Foot Cream…