…or just beginner’s luck?

The first exercise from the course was to build a cologne to get feel for the power that modifiers have to change the mood and feel of a composition.

So using a ratio of 7/5/3 I completely followed my intuition  in choosing the following notes from Top to Heart to Base:

Top: corriander, lemon, petitgrain

Heart: black pepper, clove, clary sage

Base: Jasmine absolute, labdanum, vanilla

The original was quite nice. That was it. Nice.  Nothing too special.  Not a great flop but nothing to shout about either.  I let it sit for a day to contemplate it and give it time to marry and completely forgot about the modifier.

The next day I noticed the modifier box was empty and after choosing the modifier, what I call the “wild card” I added one drop in 10ml of perfume and the effect was immediate.  The composition went from sort of flat to POW! with just one drop.

24 hours later it was more noticeable on the strip compared to the first attempt.  Now for the skin test.  I tried it and loved it!  I then had LV try it as it did indeed have a masculine edge to it, something I love, and he really liked it because it was soft.  Then I had Dalma try it and she loved it, “mom, you could sell this!”  I love her!  Then Fabio tried it and he said he liked it, it smelled nice but on him it’s not his type, it was too gourmand, but he found it to be very well balanced he said. Their feedback was very useful in moving forward.  I’m a lover of spices so I can imagine why I was drawn to structure it the way I did.

Modifiers are very powerful and must be used with restraint and discretion.

I am quite aware that many, many a perfume flop are right around the corner and I’m not exactly rubbing my hands together in anticipation but I know they are instructive so I’m going to bask in my first success.

More tinctures and an interesting experiment coming this week, stay tuned!