Stress

Things have been really difficult for me this summer. I am definitely feeling the stress. This morning was starting off rough, but then I saw a bottle sitting on my dresser. It's a Neroli hydrosol from Wyndmere. I sprayed some on myself and reminded myself what it is to be happy. This scent has become a favorite of mine. I want to design a perfume around it in the future.

Dear Blogger...

I just mixed my first fragrance. I wouldn't consider it my first official one, just me playing around. I'm getting a better feel of the smell of the few oils I own. It's a good way to familiarize myself I think, a little at a time. I put a little bit of the fragrance on the back of my hand, we'll see why the boyfriend thinks when he gets home. It's not fantastic, but it smells good. And in a few weeks in the closet hopefully it will continue to improve.

I finished Mandy Aftel's wonderful book last week, Essence & Alchemy. I knew it would be informative, but I had no idea!! There was so much useful information in there! Now my fingers are itching to start mixing. I have to keep telling myself to be patient, in due time. My boyfriend surprised me the other night with 2 glass beakers for my mixing. Now I'm working on making my first formula before I mix. It's so hard to contain myself!!

Lindsey Jean

All of my adventures with perfumery have been halted at present until I am of sound mind again. I unexpectedly lost my cousin on June 1 and I haven't been taking it well. We grew up together and it has all been very difficult to handle. I'm still planning everything that I want to do, but for now that is all there is.

Rose tinted glasses

I have this overwhelming desire to plant rose bushes at my parents' house right now. If I thought that they actually had a chance of surviving there, I definitely would. Planting in that yard is pretty much a guaranteed death sentence. There's not enough shade for one thing, and they forget the plants are there. My parents might have been awesome parents for me, but they are neglectful plant parents. So instead, I'll just do more research and plan out my ideal perfume garden. I hope that I can start planting things to cultivate soon, the sooner I do the better chance I have of actually having plants that can be harvested in a few years. It takes time.

Better with time?

I am hoping that I will get better with this in time. So far, I'm kind of awful at it. I've managed to ruin all of my oil infusions, though I suppose they were never really infusions considering that they all went rancid. I broke down and bought a bottle of Everclear. Alcohol was going to be easier, or so I thought. Apparently my roses weren't dried out completely (even though I thought they were) I took a wiff of the tincture 2 days after putting it in the jar and it smelled just as awful (if not worse) than the failed oil infusions!! On the bright side of things, I started a tincture of some of my vanilla beans. When I shook the jar today a little bit leaked out and got on my hand, imagine my surprise when it smelled like vanilla and not some foul substance! I'm glad that that one is working out so well, I have big plans for it that involve Neroli. Despite my failings and flailings, I have started one more tincture and one more infusion. I'm currently in love with the smell of Black Currant Tea. Especially considering that it's more cost effective than buying a Black Currant Bud absolute. The infusion is staying out of the heat this time. There should be plenty of smell goods in the tea to not need the boost.

For this summer I hope to complete two perfumes: the Neroli and Vanilla concoction and then the Black Currant Tea dabble. I want a new fragrance or two. A fellow aromatics enthusiast that I work with is encouraging me every step of the way, and is even offering up brilliant ideas and brainstorming sessions.

I hope that I can get all of this right this time.

A Note About Infusing

Note to self:  Do not ever try to infuse Honeysuckle again. I tried it twice, and both times it smelled rancid and horrible. Never again.

I have a new infusion I'm attempting now, however. Using my fractionated coconut oil I'm trying an infusion of local roses. I have tried so hard to find the actual rose's name. No luck whatsoever. Apparently "Tyler Roses" don't actually exist, and yet somehow that's all I hear about locally. There are vendors that sell them out of the back of their vans in front of the grocery stores for $2 a dozen. They smell absolutely amazing. And so it brings us to my latest oil infusion project, I'm going to infuse my roses in the oil multiple times, then after I get the strength of scent that I want I'm going to add in a few other things to give it a smokey woodsy smell. I'm excited. And impatient. Some of my supplies are on their way to me in the mail as we speak.

Now this particular batch of roses are a peachy yellow color, but they don't smell as strong as I remember them smelling from last season. Perhaps the red ones or darker colors smell stronger. Nevertheless I will be smelling my fair share of the selection before selecting one for the next step. I found that the amount of oil I was using for this infusion required the petals of roughly half of the roses. So I stuck the rest of them in some water to keep for a couple of days, until the first switch. This morning when I went to pluck the roses I found that it hurt a piece of my soul to dismantle the beauties. This specific rose made it extra hard:

A quick post

I have more developments to share later, but first I wanted to do a quick post before I leave. My boyfriend knows how much I love the Tumblr called Handmade Ryan Gosling (http://handmaderyangosling.tumblr.com/), it almost kindof annoys him I like it so much. So this morning I wake up and find this picture as the background of my laptop. He forgot the "Hey" but I'll forgive him.
Such a sweet gesture for him lol

Best discovery ever?

After much searching and looking for information I have found the best possible source of information!! Fellow perfume enthusiasts who have a Yahoo Group specifically for discussing Natural Perfumes! I'm so excited! Who better to talk to about it then people who know about it?

I hope that this is an opportunity to not only learn more about the process and trade, but to also make new friends. How great would it be to have friends who have the same passion as me?

Heartbreak

I came to a realization last night that hurt to think about. This project will cost me roughly $600 dollars. Which is almost exactly how much I need to take my last and final class to get my Associates Degree. Part of me doesn't want to do the responsible thing. No, a big part of me. School isn't easy for me I've learned. I always thought that I would take college in stride, but after last semester with my massive bouts of depression, anger and stress I've learned otherwise. It's not that I'm not intelligent, it's just that the school environment hasn't been a good place for me to learn. I want to learn what I want to learn, but that's not okay in society today. Oh you took some courses just because you wanted to learn the subjects? Great. But they don't count towards your degree plan, you get bupkiss. They don't have courses for the things that I want to learn, at least not here anyway.

So here is my final conclusion: My heart's desire will be put on hold indefinitely (most likely somewhere close to a year) in order to obtain a piece of paper that says I took the classes they wanted me to take.

Honeysuckle

There's nothing sweeter than a childhood memory scented by honeysuckle. It was always one of my favorite things about visiting my grandmother's house growing up. The bushes were so out of control that they were threatening to overtake the pathway to the front yard. I didn't mind. You could smell the sweet buds from across the yard. Few things are better to me.

One of the difficulties I've come across in this process of preparing to make perfumes is that honeysuckle essential oil is nearly nonexistent. When you do find it, it is so outrageously priced that it's not worth it. I noticed last year that at my apartment complex along the fence, there are honeysuckle bushes. I did some more research (no surprise there) and have hopefully found a way to help capture the scent of honeysuckle. 

I took as many flowers as I could manage to pluck from the bush (most hadn't bloomed yet) and put them into a baggy. I squeezed the flowers through the baggy gently to lightly bruise them (hopefully releasing more oil).

Next I put them into a clean mason jar. 

I'm quickly learning why it's so expensive to make honeysuckle essential oils. You think you have enough flowers, but the truth is, you don't. 

Next I poured in an entire bottle (16 oz) of Grapeseed Oil and shook it all together gently. 

Now it is resting peacefully near the windowsill. Here it will sit for 2 days. After 2 days, the process will be repeated using the same oil from the first batch. It will be repeated a total of 3 more times. Considering that the flowers didn't smell as fragrant as I recalled, I will most likely be repeating it again another time or two. 

Here's to hoping. Wish me luck.

So confused

I have done a massive amount of research for my perfume making plan. One thing that I keep coming across is conflicting statements regarding the use of alcohol in perfume. Some claim it's illegal unless you obtain a permit from the ATF, some say it's perfectly okay. Well? Which is it? I went straight to the source to try to find the answer and ended up right where I started. I still don't know. And I don't know who to ask to find out.

In other news, I am completely disappointed. Being new to all of this, I didn't realize that there is no such thing as essential oils from fruit. Oh sure a few citruses, but no fruit like strawberries or melon. They can be found in "Fragrance Oils" instead of "Essential Oils", but the problem with that is that FOs are artificial and chemical, kind of defeats the purpose of making natural perfume. I suppose I'll just have to stick to the normal things. Good news is, I did find a couple of sellers that have Cocoa and Coffee EOs. Yummy!

A Plan of Sorts

My mom has given me permission to turn my old bedroom at the house into a workshop. Or Mad Scientist's Laboratory as I like to call it. It would appear that I'm going to have to wait until after Heath and Suzie's wedding before I can work on setting it up. I found a few things when I went shopping on my birthday, mainly just things that I found to be pleasing aesthetically, but I did come across this amazing Pyrex coffee pot. I think it will be great for double boiling.

Everything that is in the room is going to have to be rearranged. It didn't take long after I moved out for it to become a storage room for junk (some of it my own). So the first thing on the list is to have a yard sale. All of those porcelain dolls given to me years ago are taking up way too much room. Besides, if I sell stuff that means more money for essential oils, right? That's great considering it's going to take me a while to save that much money. I estimated that it will take probably over $300 to get a comprehensive collection, and that's just the oils. There's still carrier oils, bottles and all sorts of other supplies I'm going to have to acquire too. Thinking about it is making me anxious. No more books, no more stuff just for the hell of it, and no fast food (not that I enjoy it anyway). All money saved goes to the Jar of Dreams.

A Dream Realized

I believe that my life long obsession with all things that smell good stems from my mom's perfume bottle collection. Now mind you, the bottles were always empty when she acquired them, but I remember as a kid when she would find a new one at a flea market. Her excitement was always over her new prize, mine was always over the curiosity. What had the perfume smelled like? What made the lady that had it before buy it? What drew her to the perfume? Did she wear it during a special time in her life?


Someone once told me that scent is the strongest reminder for a person. Imagine if you could create something that just one whiff of would make someone smile or laugh. 


I've been working at a perfume counter in a drug store for 2 and a half years now. I love it. It's not a glamorous job, but I am gifted with the ability to smell all of the perfumes that I want. I get to help people pick out their new favorite scent. I have quite the gift for determining what someone will like, just from them giving me descriptions of what they've worn before. 


So here we are. I want to make perfumes. But I don't want to just mix perfumes. I want to make oils. I want to grow the herbs to make the oils. I want to go through the trial and error process and get frustrated. If all of this means that I get to do something I love, then so be it. 


I want to make perfume.