Leather ~ Ms Adrian

Le Parfumeur Rebelle's Leather Project commences:

Gail Adrian's submission to the leather project is the one I chose to begin with -- for no particular reason other than it landed in my hand.

This is a perfume in and of itself. It is light and dark, sweet and salty, warm, ambery, animalic and floral ~ in a word: Lovely.

Directly from my notes: Reminds me of a Native American blend with grasses and smoke and earth, muted fire, soil after a deluge of rain, is slightly floral (a nearly finished perfume!), animalic ~ this scent undulates, surges in and out like warm, murky waves. I would wear this if I wanted to seduce someone ~ ha!

Justine

Scentsation scentsory overload & loving it.

I have been a gardening fiend this past few weeks.  In fact, I am neglecting a lot of other things in life, like making soap or scrubs. My excuse has been because I have injured my back (which is on the mend), so I can't lift things.  And I haven't.  Just ask my husband ;) ... he was recruited to be lift boy.  However, that hasn't stopped me from planting things and a bit of weeding.  

It's been great year for my roses... I was gifted an antique jacques cartier and then i have two climbers that have just rock and rolled.  Now I am obsessed and need more.  If I can't eat it, smell it, or be healed by it, then it better be pretty ... 

Oh feline Goddess of the Kitchen...

...I petition and invoke thy steadfast state of relaxation to calm me as I attempt to take product photos on the kitchen table. Here, I will lay a green milk glass saucer before thy snoozing hairy feet, with a wee bit of home-baked bread with organic butter spread upon it.

Daisy Ernestine, help me maintain my cool, and help me to have a steady hand, as I hold the camera, and snap pics of perfume bottles in various stages of packaging.

Your humble servant,
sara, the un-photographer

Fascinating!

I am perplexed as I continue to labor on an astrological scent that requires an ability to create and balance luxurious and rich warm expansive scents of luxury with an underlying theme of disruption, creating order out of chaos and micro-management.

I have to admit, I've been struggling. And that can only mean another roller coaster ride for me.

Quite recently, I have been noticing that specific aspects of my patrons' lives which leave me puzzled appear in my life in the form of my own challenges that in turn, lead to new realizations leading to scentual resolution.

While I am having a blast, raising my hands over my head, and shreiking WHOOOOO while the winds of magic and empathy blow on my face. Nevertheless, the experience is also exhausting and requires my personal aromatic comforts.

To this end, I am finding for my own edification and centering, notes that include different Patchouli's, and Chocolate Tinctures.

Prelim From Tonie On the Leathers . . .

"Mooney got soft suede. Rox's~ I have to smell more~ it's so complex. I got 2 from Nic~ #1 maybe got tea~ #2 is the inside of an old cowboy boot~ a saddle. A warm tack room with dust filtering through the windows, dancing in the sunlight. There's a common thread that runs through these~ is it sandal & choya? I think it's tres cool that you babes are doing this~ offering cruelty free scent interpretations."

Operation Leather

Over the next few weeks, some of our contributors here will be posting information and reviews on a recent leather accord project hosted by Le Parfumeur Rebelle.

Modern natural botanical leather accords are usually typified by the use of birch tar, nagarmotha, choya nakh and choya loban, among other pungent smelling naturals.

I think you will be surprised and enchanted by the diverse interpretations of LPR's leather accord project submissions.

Rules? What rules?

Nobody can teach you to be a natural botanical perfumer.

Nobody.

They can teach you how to analyze and evaluate. They can teach you perfume history, and they can regurgitate information gleaned from the handful of perfume making books that specialize in pre-synthetics. They can even try to force you to follow methods of blending that directly relate to modern synthetic perfume formulation.

But they still cannot teach you to be a perfumer no matter how much money they charge for the service.

You teach yourself. You teach yourself because there are not yet any hard and fast rules in modern natural botanical perfumery. The same techniques and modes of blending used before the late 1800's don't apply -- there are far more raw materials in our palettes than there were then. Modern French techniques don't apply either.

As those folks who use these mismatched methods of instruction harp on and on about Edmond Roudnitska and Jean Carles, let them be reminded that these great perfumers made their mark because they tossed the rules.

tinctures aren't just for 'fuming

File under 'Happy Surprises', eh.

I was preparing scallops for dindin on Sunday night, hoping to recreate something I did in March when I was able to get my perfumey mitts on a black truffle. The truffle is long gone, but I did have a stack of crimini mushrooms, some good butter, and tinctured black truffle (in grain etoh) from 2006, bwahaha. *eagerly rubs hands together*

You can do a couple droppers of truffle tincture into melted butter, let it steam and stew, and have a very good truffle aroma and flavor left behind.

And here I thought I was limited to futzing with the tincture in earthy blends and accords...

Intro

Seems we're suffering from a bit of stage fright ~ ha!

I'll make the first post to kind of let folks know what this is all about.

You'll notice that there are several bloggers writing this blog -- all of them are botanical perfumers or severely addicted to botanical perfumes. Some of them you may recognize from elsewhere on the blogosphere or maybe through their business websites. Some of them will be entirely new to the game.

This blog is about the perfumed life.

And how we do it our way.