Fragrant Rose Bouquet for Sale

Most of the roses bred for the cut-flower industry smell anemic and lack character in that arena - in exchange for longer vase-life and easier transport. So imagine my delight at finding real scented roses on Mother's Day! The flower girl's name is Sabrina, and she has a cute dog and pretty roses that are not only affordable ($10 for a bouquet of five roses). Most of them are scented and might look quite ordinary (the pink ones) but smell divine, a little sweet-vanilla-like and violetty, and definitely Tea-Rose-like; very much like Bulgari pour Femme, actually.

I was so dumbstruck that I actually asked Sabrina at first which perfume they sprayed on the roses... It was that extraordinary!
It was not until she showed me their unscented varieties (the green trimmed purple roses below - which actually were so pretty that almost seemed to be worth buying despite their fragrant shortcomings).

{Fragrant}



{Not fragrant}


My daughter bought me a bunch of the fragrant pink ones with her weekly allowance (simply because I had no change in my wallet - I secretly put it back in her piggy bank).

Creamy Sandalwood

Driven in part by my disappointment from Santal Massoïa (too cold, linear and paper-like) I've decided to smell for myself what sandalwood and massoia bark smell like together. Intuition tells me it should be smelling creamy, rich, warm and seductive, and not like a glass of cold milk spiked with iso-E super.

Sandalwood is a tricky note for me: one that does not develop very nicely on my skin. That is to say, the sandalwoods that are available nowadays don't agree with my skin. Unless you're attracted to sawdust and soured sweat. So intuition told me that adding a creamy aspect to it, which is what most contemporary sandalwoods are lacking, is going to allow me to enjoy sandalwood even on my finicky skin.

Massoia bark oil and CO2 extract have a unique aroma in the world of natural essences: intense, fruity, fatty-buttery with pronounced oily, lactonic notes of toasted-coconuts that comes from massoia lactone (the IUPAC name is (R)-5,6-Dihydro-6-pentyl-2H-pyran-2-one). It also naturally occurs in osmanthus absolute, which is why in some combinations, and when used sparingly osmanthus gives off a coconutty aroma to a composition without even being noticed on its own. Case in point is my Charisma perfume, which took on this character only once I've added the osmanthus absolute. 

Other milky notes were also taken into consideration, including a milky oolong tincture which I haven't used in any of my ready-to-wear line yet, although it is absolutely stunning. The idea was to create a very rich, opulent sandalwood perfume that is both sophisticated and a little beachy and fun-loving.

I used a smidgeon from a sample of Royal Hawaiian sandalwood oil I recently received, as well as my personal stash of Mysore sandalwood oil and Vanuatu oil (the latter is my favourite). Add to that a healthy dose of massoia bark, milky oolong tincture and a handful of secret spices - and you get the broad picture.

The next step was to balance it with something floral, so it's not just an accord of woods. I was on the fence between champaca's incense, fruity undertones; and ylang ylang's creamy, banana-ish character. Then there is the question of warmth and spices: shall I add cloves, cinnamon, allspice, or nutmeg? I wanted their warmth, but not the culinary associations. So I opted for coffee instead - to give it a roasted, spice-like edge, but not mess up with the woody-coconutty context. This perfume is still in the works, so I will stop right here and will continue testing and tweaking until I'm perfectly happy with it. For now, I'm just enjoying dousing myself with it on those early days of summer. And it's especially appropriate to wear today, as it is Shavuot!

P.s. It's interesting to note regarding Massoia: Massoia lactone is produced synthetically, mostly, for both perfumery and flavouring purposes. Peeling the bark eventually kills the tree, so it's not exactly a "sustainable" ingredient, even though a little goes a very long way...

Salt-Cured Angel Wings

In line with last' weeks Leather & Tobacco theme, I'm wearing the new Cuir d'Ange (angel's leather) from the Hermessence collection. This is the first perfume that is both intriguing and wearable that came out of this line since, perhaps, Vanille Galante. And in fact, it also layers quite well with it.

Cuir d'Ange is both bold and delicate, if such a thing is even possible for a leather scent. By the name of it, I'd expect something much more delicate, actually, like Chamois leather - feathery, lightweight and reminiscent of a baby's head. I'd expect more powder and musk.

Instead, Cuir d'Ange smells more like the stretched skin on a dumbek drum, or perhaps like cured angel's wings... There is more than just a tad of smokiness at the start, but there is also a sweetness lurking underneath, a touch of vanilla and also the briny element that was in Vanilla Galante (which inspired me to layer them together - and you should try it too!).

There is a hint of an aquatic element as well. Peculiar as it is, is actually works and adds an interesting dimension to the scent yet without making it unpalatable (which is almost the case for Épice Marine). If anything it bring stop mind the saltwater taffy that I fondly remember from Vanilla Galante.

Comparing to the rest of the line, it has an excellent staying power and a diffusive sillage, but not too obtrusive. It's almost as if there is a feathery lightness to it, which make it easy to wear. And it's far more intriguing than any of the scents ever been since Poivre Samarcande and Vetiver Tonka saw the light of day. I want to find out more about the story behind it.

Leather & Tobacco Week

This blog has been silent for a while, as the last two weeks were fully dedicated to teaching two courses back to back: Citrus & Colognes and Leather & Tobacco. Not to mention before that I was occupied with other things - recovering from jet lag, taking care of a sick teenager, and participating in two Pilates teacher training courses (just the stuff I do for fun... Because I don't have enough things to do)... It's nice to have your plate full; but it's also nice to ease in back to the good old routine of perfuming and blogging at the quiet of my own space, and at my own pace. Until next wave of events, of course.



It's rare that I get to teach the fragrance family of Leather & Tobacco. Students must be at a very advanced level to study this genre, as the materials are quirky, strange, weird and forceful. Not to mention: at this point, they should have under their belt all the technical stuff, and have a solid understanding of composition and be utterly familiar with a wide array of raw materials.


We studied a bunch of animal essences, including ambergris, civet and castoreum. In fact, we even tinctured ambergris that week - a rather messy process! This is what we did in the lab on the first day:




As the week progressed, we immersed ourselves with the raw materials and the history of these unique sub-fragrance-families. We started with tobacco fragrances and studied some of the key raw materials for the tobacco family. We also visited the tobacconist, drank plenty of Lapsang Suchong tea (black tea that is pine-smoked) and even smoked a cherry flavour cigar (it took me 3 days to finish off that one... My students were not very helpful!). The idea was to get to understand this genre from the flavouring point of view, which is how it historically began, and from that develop a scent that belongs to the genre and has a unique characteristic of a tobacco product - i.e.: pipe tobacco, cigar, etc.

Studying leather was also a little more multi-sensory than usual. We visited some leather shops to immerse ourselves in the scent of leather. How does a jacket shop smell like comparing to a shoe store? How does a boot smell compared to a sandal? Each leather has its own scent, and we were likely mistaken for a bunch of shoe-fetishist as we scoured the shelves sniffing the inside and outside of boots... Thank goodness we were a small "group" of 3 (including the instructor). Otherwise they might have had to call the authorities.


I've heard about Chamois a lot, especially in several of Mandy Aftel's books. But never bothered to find one. This class gave me the excuse to indulge in two pieces of this fine leather, that is used like a cloth for polishing cars; but is in fact the entire hide of an animal. I find this to be both creepy and humbling. The leather is so fine it has the texture of the plume-covered newborn's back. And it's also a bit stretchy. It is delicately scented - a leather scent alight, but one that does not dominate a scent that is added onto it. We didn't wash our Chamois before scenting it. I really wanted to see how the scent will mingled with all the curing materials on the leather. Each student got to pick a historic formula for scenting leather (and I picked a couple as well). They all worked quite beautifully on the leather. All in all we had 3 renditions of Peau d'Espagne (all from David G. Williams' Perfumes of Yesterday; and I also re-did one of Poucher's Frangipanni formulae.



Here you can see the many essences we used for recreating Peau d'Espagne (Spanish Skin) - a historic perfume formula from the 17th Century which was used for perfuming gloves. It's a rich, complex melange of precious historic materials such as animalic tinctures, floral extraits (a step in the enfleurage process), and materials that are not commonly found on the modern perfumer's palate. There needed to be plenty of interpretation of the formula and how we can create it with what we have on hand, as authentically as possible. The result, I'm afraid to say, smells like a rather cluttered composition that if I were to compose it (or any of my students), I would heavily criticize their overindulgence of so many raw materials - often with no clear idea of why they are there and where is this composition going. At this point (pre-maturation), it smells like a chaotic cacophony of many floral and animalic scents that is lacking a clear vision or integrity. When applied to leather (we used the Chamois for that purpose)  it smells much better though.



On the last two days, students got to create their own original leathery scents, based on all the raw materials and classic perfumes we've studied that week, the formulae they and practiced and created so far. Each student had their own brief, so that each perfume was a completely original idea. Which is appropriate for this level (about halfway through the 8-course program). The next program in the series is the Fougere week, which will take place September 21-25 at my home studio in Vancouver, Canada.

Citrus & Cologne Week

The other week, five students from all over the world gathered at my studio to dip their toes in the waters of cologne and experience what studying perfumery is all about. The Citrus & Colognes Week is the ideal course to start studying perfumery. You get to work with really simple, fun materials that are familiar (mostly citrus and herbs, but also some basic woods, spices and floral notes such as sandalwood, cedarwood, rose and neroli). Students learn all the nitty-gritty details of lab etiquette, how to handle the materials, dilute, measure and tincture them, etc. We also unveiled the mystery of aromatic extractions: how essential oils are distilled, how absolutes and other extracts are extracted, etc. and how to make your own macerations and tinctured.

Zest, juice, flowers, twigs and leaves - these are all fragrant components that come from the citrus tree and are used in both perfuming and flavouring. This week, we attempted to dissect the characteristic of each citrus note, draw connections between all the sub-categories of the citrus building blocks (citrus-leafy, citrus-lemony, citrus-orangey, citrus-sulfur and citrus-floral) and be able to discern between a sweet and a bitter orange; between grapefruit and bergamot; and between neroli and petitgrain (among other similarly related citrus notes). It's not an easy task, and one that I always wish my more advanced students would spend more time on doing...

In particular, we learned how to tincture citrus zest (Meyer lemon... mmm...), and leaves (i.e.: Kaffir lime leaves); as well as dried orris roots (which turned out beautifully although they still need a little more maturing).

On the technical trouble shooting frontier, we learned how to added distilled water or hydrosols to create true eaux de colognes and eaux de toilettes and understand the technical difficulties that arise from this. We also learned about the chemistry of citrus oils, and how their unique characteristics makes them popular not only as a flavour but also as an active ingredient in many cleaning products such as soaps, solvents and detergents.

Last but not least: We've created historic formulae of eaux de colognes from given tried-and-true formulae from my new book; as well old historic recipes from various historic books in my library. Students also learned how to analyze classic and commercial citrus and cologne-type fragrances, and try to pick out the notes and re-create the scent based on the smell alone. On the last day, we also attempted at creating our own original citrus perfumes without any given starting point of a formulae, but rather drawing on a personal inspiration that emerged from an exercise we did together in class.



The next course will take place in September: Fougere Week (September 21-25). It is suitable for beginners. Ideally, you should have read Ayala's book "Foundation of Natural Perfumery" and taken the Citrus & Colognes and/or Lab 101 course prior to that. If this is your first time applying for the program, email ayala (at) ayalamoriel.com with your CV and a coverletter explaining why you'd like to study this program. Suitable candidates will be contacted to schedule an interview in person or via Skype.

Sweet Spring Sap

Mystery tree that gives off a sweet, balsamic fragrance reminiscent of vanilla, cured tobacco and labdanum. It took me as long as several years to identify the source of this heavenly, unmistakable smell... It is hidden, because it comes not from flowers, but from the resin surrounding the budding leaves, which first appear in spring on the completely barren trees. Sources of smell are varied and many, and somehow, even though black current buds are a known fragrance material, it just did not occur to me that this sweet smell is coming from yet to be opened buds.

An attempt at tincturing the fragrant new leaves.

Black cottonwood buds. Sticky, fragrant - very close to balsam poplar buds absolute.