Products
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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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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…
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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…