Cranford Rose Garden on a September Day

I've known forever that roses bloom in June and then, if you're lucky, again in September.  This was a strange season and one sure sign that something was amiss was that there were roses blooming nearly all summer. It seems I was stopping to smell the roses on an almost daily basis.  But after teaching a perfume blending class at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden last weekend I decided to take a walk through the Cranford Rose Garden. Most of it was roped off, probably for some rest and rehabilitation, but the blooms along the path were glorious to see, photograph and smell.

We had just had a talk in class about indole, the molecule of decay, that is present in most flowers. The rose is beautiful in a vase on your desk but it is also decaying so lingering in the background of that gorgeously fragranced flower, maybe not even very noticeable, but there in the back is decay. We're so accustomed to "deodorized" rose that the scent of a true rose absolute might smell dirty, or dank. It also makes it ravishing, sexy and compelling for however emphatically we frown on rotten odors there is a part of us that likes them.

Each rose smells differently. Some are bred for beauty, some for size and some for fragrance, but there, in the deep inhalation of each blossom, is death.

Scented Powder

My summers are spent conjuring up ways to stay cool.  Middle age has caused a heatwave in me that needs as much chilling as possible.  I have a few standby tried and true remedies I use including cucumber water, violet tisane, mugi cha (Japanese roasted barley tea) and an evening bath followed by a delicate dusting of body powder.

Most commercial powders are made with talc, a mineral composed of hydrated magnesium silicate, a known carcinogen. There are other materials which are far less toxic and also have great absorptive properties.  Corn starch is often used but bacteria can grow easily in corn so the less noxious alternative is arrowroot powder, a starch obtained from the rhizomes of several tropical plants.

Another alternative base for dusting powder is clay.  Kaolin is often used but I use bentonite (simply because it's what I have on hand).  Clay is absorptive so it's perfect for homemade powders.

My Herbal Body Powder

Scenting the powder is a matter of choice.  You can simply add essential oils to your powder base and mix them up, either in a blender or carefully spraying the oils over the powder and shaking it up.  I prefer to use powdered herbs to scent mine.  I started with powdered orris root and was using an equal amount of that and arrowroot.  Powdered roses and sandalwood are also big favorites of mine.  Some other choices are chamomile, calendula, orange flowers, lavender or just about anything you can manage to grind up.  I buy some things already ground (roses, orris root, sandalwood) and other things I grind myself in a coffee grinder I use specifically for herbs.

Swan's down is the traditional material used for making powder puffs.  I'm opposed to animal cruelty and I'm not sure what the effect is for the swan.  Another alternative is lambswool.  Far less expensive than down and quite a bit larger, you get quite a whomp of powder from one of these beauties.  Otherwise it's synthetic polyester, not even an option in my book.  There are also vintage down puffs available on Etsy and Ebay, some are quite beautiful.  

We have a bit of summer left before the cool autumn blows in.  Pamper your heatstricken self with a little fragrant dusting.

More Cologne Experiments

I had such a great time making colognes this summer, and the results were so successful, that I tried my hand at a couple more.  The new brews, Fresh Mown Hay and Bay Rum, did not disappoint.

Fresh Mown Hay is a maceration of sweet woodruff (which is left to rest after harvesting in order to bring out it's distinctive hay like scent), orris root, benzoin, roses, vanilla, lemon verbena, linden blossoms and jasmine flowers.  The woodruff not only gives it it's signature scent but also considerable tenacity.  It is a rich, lush fragrance with an almost edible quality to it and conjures images of rolling in meadows.

Bay Rum was definitely inspired by the vast bay bushes lining most of the coastal areas in the New York area. I've been gathering them and cooking with them for many years and finally came around to making a fragrance. Over the summer I gathered leaves and dried them (I read they yield a better fragrance dried) and did my research on formulary and then started to experiment. Using the rinds of some mandarin oranges and freshly ground cinnamon, allspice and cloves I was able to replicate and expand on the traditional scent.

Cologne Experiment Results

The results are in!  My experiments macerating dried flowers, roost, rinds and herbs are completed and I have detailed notes on the results.  After a month's time the liquor was strained off and clarified and then some were matched with hydrosols.  Certain recipes didn't work at all and were discarded but most of them yielded results.  I was really surprised by the tenacity of the different brews, some of them will last days on a tester strip. 

Summer Splash came as a real surprise.  The floral note that resulted from roses and lavender macerating with vetiver, sweet annie and orange peel was astonishing.  It was blended with lemon balm hydrosol to create a summery splash.  This one changes over time in a most interesting way.

Florida Water epitomizes summer for me. There is a large Latino community intermingled in my Brooklyn neighborhood and a lot of the pharmacies cater to this clientelle so are stocked with Florida Water. I have memories of my first years in Brooklyn discovering the pleasures of an evening shower followed with a splash of Florida Water. Orange blossom and clove are the distinctive notes in the cologne so I decided orange blossom hydrosol would be used with a maceration of meyer lemon rind, sweet woodruff, lavender, benzoin, cinnamon and clove. The results smell surprisingly like the water I used all those years ago, and I think it could be considered suitable for men as well as women.

Verbena Water is the result of macerating fresh lemon verbena and sweet woodruff from my garden, dried jasmine, linden blossoms and vanilla pods and then mixed with verbena hydrosol.  It's as fresh as it sounds, the softness of the woodruff and vanilla pared with lemon verbena counterbalance each other beautifully.

Rose Garden is a blend of dried roses, angelica root, jasmine, vanilla pods and lemon verbena which was then mixed with rosewater to create a veritable rose garden in a bottle.

Violet Water is the result of orris root, sweet woodruff, benzoin and jasmine marrying beautifully to create a woodland violet sort of fragrance which was then blended with cornflower water.  Violets contain a chemical called ionones which give them their characteristic fragrance.  Orris root, the dried and aged rhizome of the Iris pallida, also contains ionones but also has a woodland quality to it.  There are no violets in this blend so the name is merely a suggestion.

Each cologne is bottled in a one of a kind vintage glass bottle collected from the beaches of Brooklyn, NY. They've been scrubbed clean and sterilized but they're old and scratched to different degrees. Expect some wear from tumbling in the ocean for who knows how long.

Cologne Experiments

I'm having way too much fun riding out the heatwave researching old forumlary on the internet in search of cologne and toilet water recipes.  After years of collecting fragrant herbs, dried flowers, roots, powdered gums, tree resins, barks, citrus rinds and spices I wanted to see if macerating in vodka would produce results.  All of the old recipes I found used essential oils, absolutes and tinctures but I wanted to see what I could come up with with just the raw ingredients.

I've started two traditional cologne recipes, a violet water, something akin to 4711 and a Florida Water, as well as one true experiment.  It's been about ten days and I can already tell which ones have promise and staying power.  My plan is to let them sit for 30 days and then strain them off, filter them and let them settle.  Then I'll pour off the clear liquor and blend it with hydrosol.

When deciding on what to use for each experiment I'm still thinking like a perfumer and making sure I have top, middle and bottom notes.  I've been aging some orris root powder for a number of years now and it's developing a subtle sweetness that I hope the tincuring will release.  I also have powdered benzoin, cedar bark, vanilla pods and vetiver roots to play with.  Dried roses and lavender make up the bulk of the heart note but I'm also using a generous supply of jasmine sambac flowers that I've dried over the past year.  The linden blossoms that I collected last year have found their way into one as well.  For top notes I have citrus rinds that I dried over last winter including mineola tangerine and meyer lemon.  From my herb garden I've added sweet woodruff, lemon verbena, lavender, basil, sweet annie and rosemary.

So far I'm loving the process and the romance of it all.  When I was a child my grandmother bought me some cologne that I used as a kind of splash.  I have such fond memories of warm summer nights splashing on her cologne after a bath and going to sleep smelling sweetly.

I'm also enjoying using the fruits of my labor over the years, and feeling like a real apothecary.  I looked around during the process and thought that it looked like a film set of an apothecary at work, yet it wasn't contrived at all.  I find I'm repeating to myself, "oh, true apothecary".

Berkeley in Bloom

  

I'm just back in town from a wonderful weekend in Berkeley, CA where I attended a natural perfume workshop with the extremely talented Mandy Aftel.  The whole fragrance experience began for me on the first day of my trip spent wandering the streets of North Berkeley.  Everywhere I turned I was astonished by fragrant blooms.  Thick brackets of jasmine hung thickly all over the neighborhood, and roses the size of cabbages wafted their aromas on the breeze.
  

Berkeley Rose Garden

I discovered the Berkeley Rose Garden, perched high on a hill with an incredible view of the Bay and Golden Gate Bridge.  It was a literal amphitheater of roses.  I was very fortunate to visit the area during peak rose season.  Every rose smell differently and it was a wonderful way to prepare my nose for my upcoming workshop in perfumery.