Tuberose – Her Two Scents

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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!

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Remember my first Escentual Mood Board? Well I do; aye carramba! I was trying to do this, but wasn’t able yet to express what I meant. This month’s perfume inspired board, what I call an Escentual Mood Board, is all about entering fall with a spring your step!

I hate giving up so I left it alone for many months and took another stab at it when inspiration struck again this week. If maturity has taught me anything it’s to wait for the right time as the right time will always present itself if you believe in what you’re doing.

As the olfactory landscape doesn’t have its own language, I mean to translate it into something anyone can decipher using images, text, colours and feeling.

Not being able to express myself olfactively in the beginning is very similar to the process of training to be a perfumer. In the beginning you have no idea really what you’re trying to express, or you know what you want but don’t have a deep enough understanding of the single materials to know which speaks the words you’re looking for, nor do you know what the right ratio is to be able to adjust the volume of the expression.

So, now that I’ve found a way to translate my inspirations into something visual, the plan is to create at least one of these a month (or more, if inspiration strikes) to look into at least one of the many perfume ideas I have roaming around in my head. The idea isn’t to explain the whole concept but to sketch the rough outlines and then if you’re inspired you can either fill it in yourself, creating your own composition, or use it as a spring board for something completely new.

This mock up doesn’t really illustrate anything I have in mind, but was really just a place to test my abilities, even though I had to think about the perfume as I was building it.

That said, the Spring Into Fall escentual mood board sketches a perfume that while heavier for fall has a joyful, energetic opening that hints at the Spring. From the Top to Heart note, the perfume wants to lead you into the autumn with the energy of youth. Moss is one of my favourite things so I’d like to have that as one of the base elements along with a woody element. Of course, I’d like something that draws on either Tuberose or Gardenia (or both!).

Most of the images I’ve taken myself but take a look in the credits for those that I need to give a shout out to for their wonderful artistic contribution to this board.

The next couple weeks of November are going to be full to the brim but with stuff that’s inspiring and challenging and exciting! I’ve got Module 3 that I need to dig deeper into and it’s a lot of background stuff on the history stuff I thought I’d just whizz by but I’m finding really, really interesting and absorbing. Then there are the usual evaluations of my perfume project in progress

I hope this gives you some olfactive inspiration for your week!

In-joy!

Credit: watercolour splash by Sadmonkeydesign, watercolour landscape by andreuccettiart, morning mist by C-Jook, old wood texture by Random Acts Stock, all via DeviantArt.com

Tag: Tuberose

TSWR-citron, circles, Evernote and more

Escentual mood board: spring into fall