=====TODAY'S BOOK=====================
THE SCENT TRAIL
How One Woman's Quest For The Perfect
Perfume Took Her Around The World
by Celia Lyttelton (nonfiction)
Published by New American Library,
a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
ISBN: 9780451226242
Copyright (c) 2007 Celia Lyttleton
SCENT (Part 3 of 5)
======================================
(continued from Tuesday)
The musk trade was ruled illegal because, even though the process of
removing musk pods from male deer doesn't harm the animal, the deer
were often trapped in the process and so died before the trappers
arrived to remove their musk pods. I have smelled real musk in the
Middle East; compared with synthetic musk, the real thing is far
more potent, but, apart from the fact that I didn't want anything
that was the result of cruelty to an animal in my bespoke scent, I
thought the synthetic musk quite strong enough!
We moved on to florals, and Anastasia produced three types of
jasmine, one from Grasse, one from Morocco and finally Indian
zambac, which was deliciously heady. She told me that jasmine gets
stronger the farther east or south you go because the molecules of
indole increase. Indole is a chemical which occurs naturally in many
essential oils, including jasmine, neroli and orange blossom; it is
a crystalline substance with an odor which is too pungent unless it
is greatly diluted, Anastasia waved a sampler of aldehyde with
another of zambac under my nose and the jasmine was instantly
transformed. Jasmine turns vulgar on the skin, but aldehyde--which
is an alcohol--dilutes it so that the scent floats and does not
overpower.
Anastasia told me that she worked with over three thousand different
oils and unguents. When we sat down in front of an ornate cabinet
shaped like a fan and reminiscent of a musical instrument--which
is called the perfumer's organ--in her drawing room in South
Kensington, she told me that it contained seven hundred vials of
pure perfume, extracts, absolutes, essences and attars. I realized
then that it was going to be possible to return to all the places I
have loved without having to leave her house in London.
Anastasia said that people who love warm, sultry nights veer toward
a scent with patchouli and jasmine, with woody notes, whereas
people who are low on energy often prefer a perfume with rosemary,
eucalyptus oil and Sicilian limes. I realized that the ingredients
you choose to make up your own perfume can match and reflect your
character, as well as enhancing your charisma.
A really good scent is a palimpsest and the layers are made up of
what, in the trade, they call "notes." The top notes, of citrus,
"float"; the middle notes are floral and longer lasting; the base
notes are usually woody and the most enduring. Anastasia said that
in some ways the concoction of a scent resembled a greyhound race.
As you breathe it in the citrus notes hit you first because they
have very strong molecules, but they linger for the shortest time.
Then you notice other notes, for instance the woody resins, and then
the base notes, like musk and civet, make their impression on you.
It is said that Napoleon was attracted to Josephine by her civet
scent and he urged her not to wash so that he could just smell her.
Different scents react differently on different skin types and they
change with a particular body's chemistry. Body temperature also
affects the chemical balance and character of a perfume. Anastasia
said that because my own skin is pale, a French jasmine would suit
me because it is delicate, whereas the stronger Indian jasmines suit
darker skins. However, I preferred the Indian zambac jasmine. My
skin is also smooth, which means that it allows scent to escape more
rapidly than rougher skin, or greasy skin, both of which hold
perfume longer. So, for that reason and because my skin is also dry,
Anastasia said I would need a fairly tenacious scent.
There are seven "families" of smells: fougere (fern), floral,
citrus, chypre, woody, leather and oriental, and as I watched
Anastasia conjure up what perfumers call "my perfume profile,"
waving wands of perfume samplers under my nose, I thought that what
she was doing was akin to what a medieval alchemist would have done.
'Composing a Perfume'
Perfume composition is a very delicate art, a matter of personal
taste and refined imagination: it is essentially an abstract art.
To compose a perfume is to combine certain scents deliberately and
create a perfect unity from them. Perfumers smell the raw materials,
mix them and once in a while they get a good result. Most perfumes
contain anything from thirty to several hundred ingredients.
It takes years to get to know and distinguish the hundreds of
different smells, and a perfumer has to learn what effect one odor
will have on another when they are mixed together. He must learn
how to smooth or sharpen a scent, how to bring all the smells
to a common ground so that one does not overpower another. Most
important, he must learn how to achieve the top, middle and base
notes, and finally how to fix a perfume so that it will last.
Perfumers also have to be skilled chemists. Relying on a highly
trained sense of smell, the "noses," as they are known in the trade,
will test their compositions as they progress with blotters: small
wands of blotting paper which are dipped into the mixtures and then
allowed to dry. But the olfactory nerves tire quickly and so the
process is a slow one. A perfume may take up to three years to
perfect. Francois Coty took five years to come up with L'Aimant,
while Guerlain's Chant d'Aromes took seven years and Caron's Infini
was fifteen years in the making.
The first step in composing a perfume is almost always an idea
inspired by nature. Then the perfumer must develop a scent that has
high stability under evaporation and an unvarying aroma, together
with a harmony of raw materials. A perfumer is like an armchair
traveler: alone in his laboratory he is surrounded by hundreds of
essences and absolutes from all over the world, but his intention is
to transpose the memory of, say, the fragrance of a cedar or the
scented shadow of a magnolia, the memory of a tropical forest or a
garden in the rain, or something more abstract, like a piece of
music, into a perfume.
Having come up with the idea of, say, a forest at dawn soaked in dew
and a pair of lovers whose sweat mingles with the dew on the forest
floor, he will begin to associate particular olfactory images with
the visual images. He might think, for instance, that these would be
well represented by a fougere, a fresh but erotic woodland scent
with sensual undertones. He may include top notes of lavender and
pine essence; middle notes of oak moss and patchouli, which he might
blend with bergamot; then he might blend these with another equally
pleasing odor of mossy base notes anchored with an amber, a spicy
accord of musk and myrrh to represent the amorous embrace of the
lovers.
In this way, using his olfactory judgement, the perfumer obtains the
essence of the scent. Then he must impart "character" and perfect
the composition. He knows that, for a flowery note, he has a whole
range of natural plants, from the sweetness of jasmine to the
velvety charm of tuberose. The initial impression of a scent should
always be fresh and vigorous. It should suggest the presence of
flowers, fruits and herbs, things that titillate our senses of smell
and memory. Then the fragrance has to be "anchored" by a fixative
such as orris root, benzoin (a resin) or oak moss. Finally the
perfume is left alone for a while so that it can mature, like a
wine, before the perfumer returns to his perfumer's organ.
(continued on Thursday)
THE SCENT TRAIL
How One Woman's Quest For The Perfect
Perfume Took Her Around The World
by Celia Lyttelton (nonfiction)
Published by New American Library,
a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
ISBN: 9780451226242
Copyright (c) 2007 Celia Lyttleton
SCENT (Part 3 of 5)
======================================
(continued from Tuesday)
The musk trade was ruled illegal because, even though the process of
removing musk pods from male deer doesn't harm the animal, the deer
were often trapped in the process and so died before the trappers
arrived to remove their musk pods. I have smelled real musk in the
Middle East; compared with synthetic musk, the real thing is far
more potent, but, apart from the fact that I didn't want anything
that was the result of cruelty to an animal in my bespoke scent, I
thought the synthetic musk quite strong enough!
We moved on to florals, and Anastasia produced three types of
jasmine, one from Grasse, one from Morocco and finally Indian
zambac, which was deliciously heady. She told me that jasmine gets
stronger the farther east or south you go because the molecules of
indole increase. Indole is a chemical which occurs naturally in many
essential oils, including jasmine, neroli and orange blossom; it is
a crystalline substance with an odor which is too pungent unless it
is greatly diluted, Anastasia waved a sampler of aldehyde with
another of zambac under my nose and the jasmine was instantly
transformed. Jasmine turns vulgar on the skin, but aldehyde--which
is an alcohol--dilutes it so that the scent floats and does not
overpower.
Anastasia told me that she worked with over three thousand different
oils and unguents. When we sat down in front of an ornate cabinet
shaped like a fan and reminiscent of a musical instrument--which
is called the perfumer's organ--in her drawing room in South
Kensington, she told me that it contained seven hundred vials of
pure perfume, extracts, absolutes, essences and attars. I realized
then that it was going to be possible to return to all the places I
have loved without having to leave her house in London.
Anastasia said that people who love warm, sultry nights veer toward
a scent with patchouli and jasmine, with woody notes, whereas
people who are low on energy often prefer a perfume with rosemary,
eucalyptus oil and Sicilian limes. I realized that the ingredients
you choose to make up your own perfume can match and reflect your
character, as well as enhancing your charisma.
A really good scent is a palimpsest and the layers are made up of
what, in the trade, they call "notes." The top notes, of citrus,
"float"; the middle notes are floral and longer lasting; the base
notes are usually woody and the most enduring. Anastasia said that
in some ways the concoction of a scent resembled a greyhound race.
As you breathe it in the citrus notes hit you first because they
have very strong molecules, but they linger for the shortest time.
Then you notice other notes, for instance the woody resins, and then
the base notes, like musk and civet, make their impression on you.
It is said that Napoleon was attracted to Josephine by her civet
scent and he urged her not to wash so that he could just smell her.
Different scents react differently on different skin types and they
change with a particular body's chemistry. Body temperature also
affects the chemical balance and character of a perfume. Anastasia
said that because my own skin is pale, a French jasmine would suit
me because it is delicate, whereas the stronger Indian jasmines suit
darker skins. However, I preferred the Indian zambac jasmine. My
skin is also smooth, which means that it allows scent to escape more
rapidly than rougher skin, or greasy skin, both of which hold
perfume longer. So, for that reason and because my skin is also dry,
Anastasia said I would need a fairly tenacious scent.
There are seven "families" of smells: fougere (fern), floral,
citrus, chypre, woody, leather and oriental, and as I watched
Anastasia conjure up what perfumers call "my perfume profile,"
waving wands of perfume samplers under my nose, I thought that what
she was doing was akin to what a medieval alchemist would have done.
'Composing a Perfume'
Perfume composition is a very delicate art, a matter of personal
taste and refined imagination: it is essentially an abstract art.
To compose a perfume is to combine certain scents deliberately and
create a perfect unity from them. Perfumers smell the raw materials,
mix them and once in a while they get a good result. Most perfumes
contain anything from thirty to several hundred ingredients.
It takes years to get to know and distinguish the hundreds of
different smells, and a perfumer has to learn what effect one odor
will have on another when they are mixed together. He must learn
how to smooth or sharpen a scent, how to bring all the smells
to a common ground so that one does not overpower another. Most
important, he must learn how to achieve the top, middle and base
notes, and finally how to fix a perfume so that it will last.
Perfumers also have to be skilled chemists. Relying on a highly
trained sense of smell, the "noses," as they are known in the trade,
will test their compositions as they progress with blotters: small
wands of blotting paper which are dipped into the mixtures and then
allowed to dry. But the olfactory nerves tire quickly and so the
process is a slow one. A perfume may take up to three years to
perfect. Francois Coty took five years to come up with L'Aimant,
while Guerlain's Chant d'Aromes took seven years and Caron's Infini
was fifteen years in the making.
The first step in composing a perfume is almost always an idea
inspired by nature. Then the perfumer must develop a scent that has
high stability under evaporation and an unvarying aroma, together
with a harmony of raw materials. A perfumer is like an armchair
traveler: alone in his laboratory he is surrounded by hundreds of
essences and absolutes from all over the world, but his intention is
to transpose the memory of, say, the fragrance of a cedar or the
scented shadow of a magnolia, the memory of a tropical forest or a
garden in the rain, or something more abstract, like a piece of
music, into a perfume.
Having come up with the idea of, say, a forest at dawn soaked in dew
and a pair of lovers whose sweat mingles with the dew on the forest
floor, he will begin to associate particular olfactory images with
the visual images. He might think, for instance, that these would be
well represented by a fougere, a fresh but erotic woodland scent
with sensual undertones. He may include top notes of lavender and
pine essence; middle notes of oak moss and patchouli, which he might
blend with bergamot; then he might blend these with another equally
pleasing odor of mossy base notes anchored with an amber, a spicy
accord of musk and myrrh to represent the amorous embrace of the
lovers.
In this way, using his olfactory judgement, the perfumer obtains the
essence of the scent. Then he must impart "character" and perfect
the composition. He knows that, for a flowery note, he has a whole
range of natural plants, from the sweetness of jasmine to the
velvety charm of tuberose. The initial impression of a scent should
always be fresh and vigorous. It should suggest the presence of
flowers, fruits and herbs, things that titillate our senses of smell
and memory. Then the fragrance has to be "anchored" by a fixative
such as orris root, benzoin (a resin) or oak moss. Finally the
perfume is left alone for a while so that it can mature, like a
wine, before the perfumer returns to his perfumer's organ.
(continued on Thursday)
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