Helichrysum – Her Two Scents

week-in-review30-01

This Scented Week In Review for January 30, 2015:

TSWR gives me an overview of how my olfactory training and my life are meeting and feeding each other. This week life gave me citrons and I’ve had to make some citron-ade. Let’s just say it was a challenging week but the evidence is there that my nose and my brain are moving in the same direction and that’s cause for even a tiny bit of personal pleasure.

Experiments – well, I’ve set aside my initial formulations for the project. I felt like I no longer had control over it and they weren’t expressing the direction of the brief. Therefore, I embarked earlier this month on a whole new set of experiments for my final perfume project. Two sets of seven ratios. One set based around the heart notes of Neroli, Tuberose, Ylang Ylang complete and extra. And the second set around the heart notes of Tuberose, Helichrysum and Tiare, absolute. Now I finally feel like I’m getting somewhere. (wherever there ends up taking me :))

Citron – Cédrat in French, or Cedro in Italian. I saw this at the grocery store and having the essential oil in my possession I had to hold the real thing, smell it, feel its rough skin. It’s about 2 or 3 times the size of a lemon and only faintly resembles it in smell. It smells more like grapefruit. The peel is very porous, bumpy and uneven. When I dig into it a smell reminiscent of clementines fills my nostrils, the kind that we used to eat as kids. I just don’t get that smell any more. Citron is much less pungent than lemon or lime. It’s a subtle citrus.

Productivity – I can’t stop talking about the benefits I’ve reaped since starting to use Evernote in December. Since implementing it I am able to start my day with a clear desk! Not one piece of paper of things to do. It’s now my go to place for like, everything! From birthdays to goals to reminding me what size I need to crop my images for the blog and for my newsletter. Evernote does this and more. But forget productivity, the true benefit of this app is that it frees my mind to create and that, dear friends is worth all the data entry effort!

The Circle – more on this in the upcoming post on Lessons In Perfumery but needless to say that I have since freed myself from the Perfume Pyramid! Ahhhaa! I didn’t even know I was a perfume prisoner until I found the circle. It just makes so much more sense and there’s lots more room for play! Give it a whirl!

In-joy!

Common name: Helichrysum

Genus name: Helichrysum italicum

Supplier: unknown

Note: top-mid

Main chemical components: neryle acetate (around 27 percent). The essential oil also contains terpenes (alpha pinene, 2 percent; limonene, 5 percent; italicene, 3 percent), sequiterpenes (beta caryophyllene, 1 percent; alpha curcumene, 3 percent; gamma curcumene, 10 percent), alcohols (linalool, 2 percent; nerol, 2.5 percent), ketones (italidones, 9 percent), and oxides (caryophyllene oxide, 2 percent).

Interesting bits: Blooming from May to August, this essential oil is produced by steam distillation or by solvent extraction of the flowers. It’s a discreet plant growing in dry, hot areas of the Mediterranean and can differ in chemistry, like most other EOs, due to soil and climate. It dislikes humidity, preferring shelter from cold winds and frost. What I learned while researching this EO is that there are distinct differences between the Helichrysum absolute and the EO (any for that matter): absolutes find expression more in the heart and base note whereas the EO typically captures the top notes. So combining the two would create a broader spectrum and greater longevity of the flower.

Their nose: The fragrance is warm, slightly honey like, rich and buttery, with green notes of wood, spices, herb. It is a fascinating oil because it is made up of several layers of notes that appear to unfold during the dry down. (naturesgift.com)

(Corsica) is a pale yellow liquid displaying a rich,sweet, honeyed, herbaceous-aromatic bouquet with fruity, tea-like undertone of good tenacity. (Bosnia) a rich spicy-aromatic bouquet but the undertone is green, hay-like in character. (whitelotusaromatics.com)

“Perhaps the herb everlasting (Helichrysum italicum), the fragrant immortelle of our autumn field, has the most suggestive odor to me of all those that set me dreaming. I can hardly describe the strange thoughts and emotions that come to me as I inhale the aroma of its pale, dry, rustling flowers. A something it has of sepulchral spicery, as it had been brought from the core of some great pyramid, where it was laid on the breast of some mummified Pharoh. Something, too, of immortality in the sad, faint sweetness lingering so long in its lifeless petals. Yet this does not tell why it fills my eyes with tears and carries me in blissful thought to the banks of asphodel that border the River of Life. ” –from Scent Memories by Francis Jacox

My nose: This note is my first love, I am spell-bound by its nuances and will forever be captive of its story! I find it utterly elegant as a single note with a dry woody aspect, dry like gin, dry. It tends to disappear after the first initial smelling.

1 hour after and it’s already beginning to fade, tip-toeing its way to an exit. So soft. Truly a top note, and yet, I can’t simply dismiss it as just that…there’s something deeper, more grounded about it. No doubt this characteristic is something that growing on cliffs and clinging to mountainsides lends the oil.

3 hours into the dry-down and I can still smell tiny whispers of it on the scent strip but more woodier.

After 1 day wow, it’s still clinging, holding on for dear life. Very dry, papery almost, still present, almost powdery.

Tag: Helichrysum

TSWR-citron, circles, Evernote and more

aromatic profile: helichrysum