I have been very preoccupied with other aspects of my life lately. With deadlines, personal obligations and bills have all taken a good deal of my time during the past few weeks. Despite this, I'm happy to report that I've been a good perfume addict and have managed to devote at least a few hours to studying materials, tweaking formulas and blending new concoctions to sit undisturbed in the far reaches of my pantry.
Earlier in the year, I had purchased a generous size portion of Nerolidol, a "woody, tea-like note" and had been experimenting using it in various tea themed fragrances. At a certain point in my life, I can remember not being able to function without a steaming hot cup of Earl Grey first thing in the morning. Sometime in the intervening years, I switched to over to coffee. Creating a tea based perfume might bring back memories of a previous stage in my life when it was not so complex.
A few weeks earlier, Brad Kalavatinos, a fellow perfumer and owner of Le Scent Studio in Normal Illinois had sent me a sample of an accord he was working on for a tea fragrance. He created a fragrance that he could relax in, that was imbued with the natural, quiet beauty of tea on a backdrop of cream with violet and smoky undertones.
Inspired by Brad's vision of tea and my love of clary sage I decided to take a stab at a basic tea accord and put together a formula of Coumarin, Oakmoss, Orris/Violet, Clary, Tea, Hedione (it ain't jasmine like I know jasmine) and Begamot. It was put aside and several weeks and several versions of tea came and went. There was a lemon tea, lavender tea, herbal tea and tea to the point where I had completely forgotten about making tea altogether.
On occasion, if I'm going to spend a lot of time on the road, I'll take an accord with me as a sort of pick-me-up to make the day more pleasant. Yesterday, the forgotten tea accord number one beckoned and made the trip with me on my daily rounds. I dabbed a little as I drove to work, but being a bit ahead of schedule, decided to take a detour into the Whole Foods Store & be tempted by the essential oils on the shelves and purchase a few grocery staples. The cassis bark and clementine were plucked off the shelf and I headed for the check out aisle.
As I was checking out, the youngish cashier looked at me brazenly and demanded to know what I was wearing. HAH! I thought that only happened on the pages of women's magazines, movies, advertising or on some secret perfume blogspot. Now it was happening to me in real life. I swelled up with a mixture of disbelief, panic, pride and joy as I confessed the truth. Uuuhhh, I made it myself, you really like it?
Never dreamed that would happen to me the way it did but it really made for a very nice rest of the day.
