by Jim Peterson | Jun 28, 2020 | Uncategorized
A perfume’s “top” notes evaporate fast. Within 15 minutes or so there’s little left of them. This makes them no less important to the finished creation. They are the first aromas one smells and, in fact, are often experienced by those who wear them and no one else....
by Jim Peterson | Jun 28, 2020 | Uncategorized
Perfumery: Practice and Principles, by Robert R. Calkin and J. Stephan Jellinek describes the “heart” notes, also known as “middle” notes, of L’Air du Temps. A floral bouquet builds on the base notes (see last post), and becomes the heart and central theme of the...
by Jim Peterson | Jun 28, 2020 | Uncategorized
Perfumery: Practice and Principles, by Robert R. Calkin and J. Stephan Jellinek, is my favourite perfume book. First published in German in 1954, it came out in English 40 years later. My first copy fell apart and I’ve had to order another. Chapter 12, “Selected Great...
by Jim Peterson | Jun 28, 2020 | Uncategorized
When I was a toddler, things smelled very strong. Vegetables were revolting–cauliflower smelled like vomit, Brussel sprouts like something long dead. It wasn’t until my twenties, that I began to use this sensitivity for more pleasurable effect. In the 1970s,...
by Jim Peterson | Jun 28, 2020 | Uncategorized
When I was a boy, I played with a fan my grandmother got in India in the 1920s. It was made of sandalwood and had an entrancing smell, woody and very dry. When I first smelled sandalwood essential oil, I was surprised it didn’t smell like the fan; it smelled even...
by Jim Peterson | Jun 28, 2020 | Uncategorized
Other than the greatest wines from the early half of the 20th century, I’ve smelt nothing as complex as the finest oud. Great wine expresses itself through the medium of fruit; oud expresses itself through the medium of wood. Like wine, ouds vary enormously in price....
by Jim Peterson | Jun 28, 2020 | Uncategorized
There are two kinds of musk: natural and synthetic. Natural musk comes from a small Himalayan deer which is now endangered. I remember my mother reeking of it, but that was the 1950s. It may be the most delectable smell that exists. In later decades,...
by Jim Peterson | Jun 28, 2020 | Uncategorized
When I compounded my current line of perfumes, I knew about about the Odor Effects Diagram. I went by smell alone. Curious to arrange my own perfumes on the diagram, I first chose Amber. The perfume has nothing purely anti-erogenic and, in fact, there are no head...
by Jim Peterson | Jun 28, 2020 | Uncategorized
Yesterday, Kate came over and smelled some of my new experiments. I asked her to smell a version containing hydroxycitronellal. The results excited me because the perfume had gotten more lift and persistence. I had added coriander, thinking of it as a spice to balance...
by Jim Peterson | Jun 28, 2020 | Uncategorized
I mentioned in my last post (which see) that from what I read, there is a paucity of exalting compounds. Jellinek, In addition to several aldehydes, considers only two aroma chemicals to be exalting—“nonalactone” and “styrol.” “Nonalactone” is somewhat ambigous as...
