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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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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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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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Rabbit Ear Aldehyde…
A while ago there was an article on LinkedIn discussing the removal of butylphenyl methylpropional and hydroxyisohexyl 3-cyclohexene carboxaldehyde (HICC) from the Perfumers’ Palette due to regulations, and the use of floral pyranol, as one of the aroma chemicals that can be used instead to create a lily of the valley note. But there was mentioned in this article, “rabbit ear aldehyde” and as I’m a chemist as well as a perfumer, I’d love to know what molecule this relates to. It is presumably another lily note. Could it be cyclamen aldehyde, because that has a structure such that in it’s molecular diagram, the carbons and the branching are a…