Yesterday afternoon, while discussing what to get daddy for Father's Day with my youngest, I was informed that one of the gift's was going to be a men's cologne. I panicked. No way, that really wasn't what I had planned or hadn't planned, but after considering the alternatives to a men's cologne, I resigned myself to a fast and furious production schedule of exactly one day.
Since I started making perfumes, about a year ago, I've started to collect and save samples of all of the formulas I've worked on. I have chypres, fougeres, ambres, musks and many other families and styles of fragrance. Granted, most of them are exercises designed to teach and train in olfactive arts, acting more as a testament to the fact that I'm trying and making minute progress in honing my craft than a great artistic achievement. Still, it is intensely satisfying and, I have to confess, offers the opportunity to daydream about far off exotic lands teaming with unheard of species of fragrant plants or sitting in on a board meeting reviewing the latest numbers from my latest successful product.
Anyway, the men in my family are not the "cologne" types. They wouldn't be caught dead at a perfume counter. The only perfume or cologne they have or will ever own was given to them as holiday presents and then sit on a closet shelf waiting to be worn to the Niece's Wedding, the Company Board Meeting and other events that creep up and interrupt their regular cyclic schedule of going to work everyday and engaging in the regular weekend rituals they've grown accustomed to.
I opened my drawer of textbook exercises and slowly opened several bottles to try to decide which one was going to be the sacrificial lamb for my child's Father's Day gift. I had several choices, a fougere, a hay scented cologne and a bay rum cologne. Having notice that all of the perfume victims on my list had already purchased and owned bay rum cologne, I figured Bay Rum Cologne was the most appropriate choice, if for no other reason than that they were comfortable with it and might use it if the right occassion, like my brother and his fiancee's upcoming wedding, presented itself. So the Bay Rum Cologne was pulled from the drawer and readied for it's Father's Day coming out party.
The original solution had been made in February but needed some dressing up and diluting in order to be made presentable. I added a tiny base of synthetic sandalwood, labdanum, atlas cedar, siam balsam and vetiver. The heart was augmented with a very healthy dose of dihydromyrcenol, bay, cardamon and juniper berry. The top notes included orange terpenes, lemon, eucalyptus, pimento, neroli, litsea and bergamot. A more than healthy dose of dark Jamaican Rum was added throughout the process.
My child was happy and satisfied to watch me scurry about in a mad rush of measuring, diluting, bottling and making labels. Somehow in the midst of all of this, we also managed to clean my car inside and out with the new power washer that was the "other" gift of the day.
The presentation went well, all the women liked it! I ended up making two larger bottles for my "Dads" and several smaller bottles for my brothers and sister's husbands. My mother asked me how she was supposed to use it and I told her to dab some behind his ears and make him sit real close to her on the couch while they watch television....;). .
