Gourmandises: Otherwordly OOAK Gourmand

Gourmandises is a new OOAK parfum oil.
This custom perfume features notes of wintery maple-syrup from the everlasting flower, paired with enigmatic licorice, velvety-smooth vanilla and roasted coconut and pecan. Ambergris and exotic resins and spices create a mysterious, dark gourmand that is otherworldly.
Comes as a perfume oil only - 10ml roll-on based in pure jojoba oil.

Top notes: Aniseed, Star Anise, Sweet Orange
Heart notes: Cinnamon, Clove Bud, Basil
Base notes: Patchouli, Vanilla, Tarragon Absolute, Cèpes, Myrrh, Vetiver, Immortelle

Curry Adventures

Curry Plant (Helicrysum italicum), originally uploaded by Ayala Moriel.

Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
- Albert Einstein

When inspiration strikes, it meets all kinds of challenges before being fulfilled. Obstacles once met pave a different path and at times a different creation than that which inspired its quest. The aromas of India have been on my mind recently, beginning to develop into a clear olfactory vision with name, ideas for notes and everything. I envisioned this perfume to have leis of marigold in it strewn with spices and woods. But, once starting to work with the actual materials, I always find that things don't really go quite as planned... If it's not the name, it's the notes that are missing; and if there is a name and notes put together in a blueprint "formula" - they are bound to not work... Such is the ironic humour of life. And rather than becoming frustrated with it, I learned to enjoy the journey. And also accept the failures, frustrations and banging the head in the wall so to speak...

And while Albert Einstein's saying (also echoed more humorously by Samantha Jones of Sex and the City), after repeating the same mistake more than once, it's definitely unrealistic to expect any success. Creating perfumes certainly takes more than just a little bit of madness... And sometimes banging the head against the wall is exactly what you need to realize it's time to change direction. And I'm talking about way more than just twice. Or thrice. With this particular adventure, it wasn't till the 4th take that I realized that perhaps, using marigold, cumin and turmetic together is most certain to make my perfume smell sour, instead of richly spicy like a curry.

So 7th take into this adventure I've finally hitting the nail in the head this morning. And I've not only decided to abandon the marigold I was so attached to (visually, metaphorically, spiritually...), and just move on to what the scent is supposed to smell. And what seemed to work here, was using another golden flower instead of marigold: the modest, everlasting aroma of the curry plant (Immortelle absolute). I've likely used too much and will need to adjust the formula greatly to make up for this potent material; but it's definitely smelling like a woody Indian curry!

Immortal Rose

Immortelle, originally uploaded by Églantine.

Immortal Rose is a new one of a kind perfume that I've just added to the website yesterday afternoon. It's a beautiful and unusual combination between two very bold notes: immortelle absolute and rose geranium absolute.
How this perfume came about is interesting: when I was working on my Immortelle l'Amour back in 2007, I asked for feedback from one of my long time customers, and a fellow perfumista who's known to many of you as FiveoaksBouquet on Perfume of Life forum.
The reason why FiveoaksBouquet was the perfect person to ask opinion about was because she loves immortelle so much, and is a huge fan of Annick Goutal's Sables, which she kindly sent me a sample of, since it is no available in Vancouver. She even sent me a handful of beautiful immortelle potpourri made over 20 years ago by Caswell-Massey.
One of her suggestions was to add rose to my 1st mod, and so I did. Neither of us was too smitted with the result, and 4 mods later, the Immortelle l'Amour that you all learned to known and love is non other than the very first mod that I created...
However, the idea of immortelle and rose note appeals to me, and 3 years later, when I have at my disposal a bold and beautiful geranium absolute, I decided to play with this perfume again. I feel that the rose geranium (both oil and absolute), in addition to some rose absolute creates the desired effect that I was hoping to find originally. Gernaium has the "rosier than rose" quality, and although it's not as fine and complex as rose absolute, it is exactly that quality that makes it so suitable for the dark, dusky and earthy maple tonalities of immortelle absolute.
I have decided to offer this perfume as a one of a kind perfume because I think it takes a very unique personality to pull such a perfume off. It is very sweet, with an overdose of vanilla like my original formula; yet earthy and rosy as well, with fresh notes from the geranium and orange that balance it well. And 3 years in it is also beautifully matured into a very smooth elixir.

Liquid Fume

Frankincense, originally uploaded by galeriacores3.

Smoke is the origin of perfume: an ancient ritual of burning resins to create and purify mental space and exalt one’s soul to connect to the divine. By fire and alchemy physical matter (resins, spices) transform into spirit through smoke.

Burning loose incense is one of my most favourite ways to experience and enjoy fragrance. There’s something magical about the transformation of golden frankincense tears into smoke. Sparks fly when the charcoal is lit on fire, and that’s just the beginning of the excitement. Once the heat takes over the charcoal, a few precious resinous tears are placed on the ember. At first, they just rest quietly with their majestic dusted gold appearance. But soon enough, they can’t stand the heat any longer and begin to sweat their perfect aroma into the air, which turns from invisible vapours in the first few moments into smoldering smoke the next.

Frankincense has a way of affecting the human mind, coaxing it into relaxation and a meditative state of consciousness. The mere act of burning incense connects one to different elements of nature: fire, wood, metal. It gives me a sense of connection to my ancestors, the deserts of the Middle East and ancient rituals that were meant to bring people closer to themselves and closer to the gods. When I burn incense, a fransformation occurs in front of my eyes, taking over my space with its smoky perfume that is at once balsamic, sweet, woody, resinous, fresh and calming. All that remains to do is to let go and devote oneself to the experience this ancient perfume

With Liquid Fume I tried to create a perfume that captures the experience of burning incense, within the liquid medium of grain spirits. Without any matches or charcoal and real smoke, I tried to bring a sensation of warmth, dryness and the rich, resinous balsamaic odour of burning frankincense. I tried to imagine the most dense incense condensed in a bottle, with the warmth of embers and the dripping honey of melted frankincense tears… This is what I hope Liquid Fume will be for you.

Frankincense is of course the core of this perfume. But other notes were added for bringing out different qualities of an incense burning ritual: Virginian cedarwood and guiacwood were chosen for their smokiness, liquidamber for its molden-gold sweetness, helicrysum and labdanum absolutes for their rich, sweet honeyed and resinous qualities, and sweet orange to brighten everything up and remind us of the fresh, almost citrusy aspects of frankincense.

Top notes:
Sweet Orange, Virginian Cedarwood, Copaiba Balsam

Heart notes:
Liquidambar, Guiacwood, Atlas Cedarwood

Base notes:
Golden Frankincense, Labdanum, Helicrysum Absolute

Liquid Fume one-of-a-kind perfume is available on AyalaMoriel.com or via Etsy.

Mermaid's Heart

137.365 - And Only for Love, originally uploaded by nikilynn.

“The little mermaid drew back the crimson curtain of the tent, and beheld the fair bride with her head resting on the prince’s breast. She bent down and kissed his fair brow, then looked at the sky on which the rosy dawn grew brighter and brighter; then she glanced at the sharp knife, and again fixed her eyes on the prince, who whispered the name of his bride in his dreams. She was in his thoughts, and the knife trembled in the hand of the little mermaid: then she flung it far away from her into the waves; the water turned red where it fell, and the drops that spurted up looked like blood. She cast one more lingering, half-fainting glance at the prince, and then threw herself from the ship into the sea, and thought her body was dissolving into foam. The sun rose above the waves, and his warm rays fell on the cold foam of the little mermaid (...)”
(The Little Mermaid, Hans Christian Anderson)

Mermaid of Stanley Park, originally uploaded by janusz l.

Shaped like a mermaid’s heart and adorned with corals, starfish and other treasures from the sea, L smells nothing like the ocean. Yet just like the waves licking warm sands, it soothes a wounded human heart with its vapours of cinnamon buns immersed in vanilla milk and musk. Immortelle gives it the barest hint of saltiness, mostly in the extrait version. The array of notes is simple, perhaps so much as to be considered bold. If the potent as the (similar) Musc Ravageur (also by Maurice Roucel) is a lustful hug, L is a soft caress on the face.

Biche dans l'Absinthe

Astute Deer, originally uploaded by Razzy Raz.

Doe through the Artemisia bushes… Her coat glows in the warm autumnal sun. Freedom is happiness. And the single notion that being is all there is to life.

Victoire Gobin-Daudé, a gifted French independent perfumer, who unfortunately whose line was discontinued, unfortunately, uses only natural essences in the five perfumes she released to the world to enjoy for a limited period of time.

Biche dans l’Absinthe offers yet another perspective to the bittersweetness of green and aromatic fougeres: the pairing of animalic with herbaceous.

Opening with sweaty notes of cumin and the underlining warmth of immortelle, the doe has just paused from a brisk morning gallop in fields of semi-dry hay. It is mid Autumn, and the first sunrays are warming her shiny coat, releasing steam of animal sweat and morning dew from the surrounding vegetation. Citrus notes play a subtle role of diffusing the bitterness of Artemisia (absinthe) while bergamot creates a soft powdery aura, complementary to the cumin.
There is a hint of floral in the heart, alongside the Artemisia. It might be orange blossom, or perhaps neroli. It is very subtle and is present only to soften and blend the phases together. The base is at once dry and sweet – with dried tobacco leaves, the abovementioned immortelle and its animalic yet herbaceouse-dry sweetness, and hay of course, for a good measure of coumarin and nourishment for the doe so she can run freely on my skin for hours to come.

Top notes: Lemon, Cumin, Bergamot, Lemon Leaf
Heart notes: Artemisia (Absinthe), Neroli, Lavender Absolute
Base notes: Tobacco, Immortelle Absolute, Hay Absolute

For more information about this line you can try to contact:
Gobin Daudé Parfums
34, rue de Penthièvre
75008 Paris
Phone : 33(0)142250386
Fax : 33(0)142250669
Email : gobin.daude@wanadoo.fr
Manager : Victoire Gobin-Daudé
Sales contact : Christophe Bourgeois

Immortelle l'Amour

Fiery flower withholds
the moments of untold love
Written with the flames of phoenix feather
Leaving ashes forming into letters
Our walk was interrupted by the ghostly winds
and misty sea spray remained on our breath
Two hearts warming to the dancing flames in a fireplace
Skewered together with that same bleeding feather
Their longing for a kiss freezes on the snow
Like Tire sur la neige

The maple-like nuances of immortelle absolute are used here along with sweet orange, cinnamon, wheat and three different infusions of vanilla, creating a perfume that truly captures the aroma of cinnamon-pancakes and Tire d’Erable (“taffee on the snow”), an inseparable part of the Quebec heritage in the Maple Harvest Festivals. You’ll find it hard to resist licking this perfume, but it will prove to be a true friend for a love-injured heart. Immortelle l'Amour will be available as parfum extrait and in a tea-form.

Top Notes: Sweet Orange, Cinnamon
Heart Notes: Rooibos Tea, Broom
Base Notes: Immortelle, Vanilla, Wheat

* Immortelle l'Amour will be launched for Fall-Winter 2007-2008, along with a complementary tea blend, and will be available exclusively through Ayala Moriel Parfums starting November 2007.

More About the Inspiration of Immortelle l'Amour

Immortelle l’Amour, my new perfume created for the chilly fall and winter months tells the story of undying love. The formula was ready long ago, yet it was particularly difficult for me to name the perfume. Although I had a few names – all with an equal appeal of both meaning and sound – I had to choose the right one and know it’s right before releasing the perfume. When it comes to matters of love, it sometimes takes courage to say the truth. And so I ended up with the name that seemed to me, at first, to be too romantic, bordering on the cliché… Once I realized this is the right name, the best to describe both the botanical and inspirational origin of the perfume, I felt the time was ripe and it was just a matter of picking a particularly chilly day in November to release it to the world and add some warmth when its most needed.

Immortelle l’Amour was inspired by the immortality of true love and the unique aroma and energy of the everlasting flower – Immortelle. Immortelle is also known as helicrysum or everlasting flower. The essential oil is prized for its unusual healing properties, including pain relief and skin rejuvenation. The Latin name Helicrysum points to its connection to the sun and its own healing properties, bringing a soothing warmth to the soul.

In Immortelle l’Amour, the helicrysum (immortelle) flower absolute is used as the main theme for the perfume. Unlike the essential oil of helicrysum, which is herbaceous and honeyed (very similar to both chamomile and marigold), the absolute has a dark, ambery fragrance with a somewhat spicy-earthy underlining note, reminiscent of both fenugreek and maple syrup (incidenatally, both immortelle and fenugreek are used in the flavour industry to create a maple-syrup flavour.

The immortelle note is juxtaposed with a rich vanilla accord, using a few different varieties of vanilla: a dark absolute from Madagascar, a vanilla CO2 from Bourbon islands, and a tincture of vanilla which I made from plump vanilla pods (seeds and all) from Ghana. Another home-made tincture is used – that of red tea (rooibos), as this material is rarely available in the market as an absolute. Another interesting edible note that I’ve used is wheat absolute. It has a very subtle, iodine-like note, and along with cinnamon CO2 Immortelle l’Amour fills the air with an authentic warm cinnamon-waffles with maple smell… As it dries down, it feels as though an invisible maple taffee is spread upon the skin, sans the stickiness…

Names and Scents

It’s really nice when an olfactory idea and a name or a concept pop up in my mind at the same time (or approximately the same time). When this happens, all that needs to be done, is get to the organ and start working. In other words: materializing the concept, completing the task. This is how most of my perfumes are made. But not all of them. Sometimes, I have only an olfactory idea – an accord I know I want to use, or a certain quality the perfume is going to have that is different, but I just can’t quite put it into words.

This is where I am at now. The feeling is of a terrible dissonance. A mystery that must be solved. A search for something unknown, yet utterly important. There is a sense of urge, as well as a sense of receptiveness to the answer that might come when I least expect it.

As I have mentioned earlier, my current fascination is with minimalism. Making a perfume with the least possible amount of notes to make it a perfume. This have proved wonders in my Film Noir, and I was just as pleased as I was surprised with the result, which left me with a craving for more…

More gourmand notes. Bust just few of them. More bold statements. More voluptuous lusciousness of dark tones and hues. More of less is more.

I am now in an adventure, and this adventure is taking me to the dark and sweet mystery that the sun infuses in the everlasting flowers, extracted into Immortelle Absolute. This and vanilla. And wheat. Not much more than that, as the cup full of heavy brandy may tip over and spill if I just add a tad of unnecessary nuance.

Only time and patience will lead me to the right doorstep, and than I will lift my head and see a sign on the door with the name of my next perfume on it.