Fougere Workshop

Create the scent of the forrest floor.

There has been some interest amongst a small group of students in doing another Fougere Workshop.  I'm so happy to teach this class again on Sunday, April 12th, 1-4pm.

Fougere is a fragrance family that came into fashion towards the end of the 19th C.  The word means fern, which makes it a fantasy category seeing how ferns don't really have a fragrance.  Fougere's are meant to smell like the forrest floor and, to my understanding, must have three ingredients:  lavender, oakmoss and a coumarin note (found in tonka bean, hay, sweet clover, etc.).  Often herbs like geranium, linalool rich rosewood and more assertive notes like patchouli are added but it's the careful consideration of the other ingredients that makes the fougere your own.

In class we'll explore the genre and sample many perfumes including the original Fougere Royale and Jicky - the vanguards of the classification -  along with samples from some of the best natural perfumers working today. You'll be choosing from materials like tonka bean, sweet clover, concretes of lavender, geranium and clary sage, several lavender absolutes and essential oils, cedarmoss, cassia and ho wood.  You'll have the opportunity to create two perfumes.  $25 extra to make a third, time considering.

Sunday, April 12th, 1-4pm.  You can register here.

You can see the coumarin crystals forming on these tonka beans.

Once oakmoss is harvested it rests for seven years to develop it's wet forrest scent.

Clover also contain coumarins.

Lavender, one of the key ingredients in a fougere, also contains coumarins.

Lovely Review of Sol de la Foret

Victoria Jent of the fragrance and beauty blog EauMG.net has written a lovely review of Sol de la Foret.

"Sol de la Foret is a dark as a forest during the new moon. The heart introduces a spicy, clove-like carnation floral with a musky sage, still retaining a balance of bitter and sweet.The dry-down radiates warmth with a dry oakmoss and hay – sweet and musky. Overall, the fragrance has a lush vintage feel and to me, this is absolutely gorgeous."

I'm over the moon (although a bit tardy in posting this!).
Thanks Victoria!

Lovely Review of Sol de la Foret in Cafleurebon

So pleased to offer up this stunning review by John Reasinger of Cafleurebon.  John is a Senior Editor and the Natural Perfume Editor for the venerable blog.  I don't think I or anything I've ever created has ever been written about quite so rhapsodically.

"Without being dated or trying to be "fresh" this fougere radiates gentle green, but also timeless strength, in a unique almost brooding manner.  Its power is evident from the first sniff.  It is, however, in its restraint and poise that Sol de la Foret truly impresses me.  Old world charm and sophistication in a modern all natural perfume that still keeps its classic grandeur is indeed wonderful."

Sol de la Foret

available on Etsy

or herbalalchemy.net

Sol de la Foret

Sol de la Foret, my newest fragrance, is a true labor of love.  After falling head over heals with the fragrance family, fougere, I set out to make my own.  To be a true fougere a perfume must contain a coumarin note, oakmoss and lavender.  Coumarin was the first synthetic chemical created in a laboratory in 1886 and was the principal ingredient in Houbigant's Fougere Royale, since considered the industry standard.  Coumarins are found in abundance in materials like tonka bean, sweet clover, flouve and deertongue.  It is also found, rather surprisingly, in lavender.

For this creation I've used a generous amount of rich caramelic tonka bean.  To give it a greener, mossier and more coumaranic note I also added sweet clover, a new favorite of mine.  I used a bit of fossilized amber, a tree resin that is millions of years old from  high in the Himalayan Mountains, in the bottom to add a dry smokey quality to the earth element of the blend.  It dries down very soft and sweetens adding a slight powdery note at the bottom - along with great fixation.  Tobacco and Vanilla CO2 add some warmth to the whole bottom.  Following the rules of the true genre there is also the addition of oakmoss, adding a wet roots and leaves note to the forrest floor.  Those sensitive to oakmoss be warned.

At the heart of the perfume is a lovely synergy of carnation and lavender absoutes with a touch of clary sage and orange blossom concretes.  Tunisian neroli was a perfect match for high linalool ho wood at the top, with just a drop of blood orange.

Top:  ho wood, neroli, blood orange

Heart:  carnation and lavender absolutes, clary sage and orange blossom concretes

Base:  tonka bean, sweet clover, oak moss, fossilized amber and tobacco absolutes with vanilla CO2

This perfume comes beautifully packaged in a brown velvet envelope in a gold box with a vintage velvet millinery leaf nestled inside.  No markings of any kind have been made to the box or velvet envelope so that they bay be reused (or regifted as the case may be).  The leaf is your keepsake, that and the lingering fragrance.

Introducing Sol de la Foret, the forest floor.

See the listing on my website or Etsy store.

To learn more about fougere's, and a chance to make some yourself, sign up for my Fougere Workshop, Saturday, November 16th.

Fougere

I've fallen in love with a fragrance family, the fougere.  French for fern, fougere is a fantasy concept meant to capture the scent of the natural habitat of ferns - the forest floor.  The principal notes in a fougere are oakmoss, tonka bean and lavender.

The first fougere was Fougere Royale by Houbigant, created in 1882, and spurred a whole new perfume category.  While it's probable that these fragrant chords were popular before the release of Fougere Royale, the fragrance captured a moment in time and has forever become linked with it's origination.  Houbigant was the first house to develop a scent chemical meant to replicate the scent of fresh mown hay, otherwise known as coumarin.  Coumarin is present in tonka beans, hay, sweet clover, sweet woodruff, sweetgrass, flouve and deertounge and in lesser degrees lavender, cassia, cherries, strawberries and apricots.  It is an overall pleasant odor reminiscent of sweet grass with vanilla overtones.

Jicky by Guerlain was created soon after in 1889 and it has notes of lavender, rosemary, bergamot,  opoponax, precious woods, vanilla, and tonka bean.


Fougere captured the imagination of perfumers who used tonka, oakmoss and lavender as a base to create new versions of the concept.  Often the base is supplemented by patchouli, vetiver, sandalwood and myrrh.  Often there is a rosy heart supported by geranium and clary sage, jasmine and orange blossom with top notes of lavender, rosewood, citrus, rosemary and bergamot.  There are sub-categories of floral, fresh, oriental, amber, leather and precious wood fougeres.

I'm hosting a fougere workshop in my home atelier on Saturday, July 27th.  We'll be sampling Fougere Royale, Jicky and a careful selection of fragrances by some of the botanical perfume world's best perfumers including Dawn Spencer Hurwitz, Charna Ethier, Ayala Moriel and others.  Each participant will get to create two perfumes using an assortment of oils I've collected just for the occasion.  Tonka bean, sweet clover and hay absolute will be on hand along with several lavender absolutes and essential oils.  This will be an opportunity to experiment with a few rare and precious oils like orris, ambrette, choya nak, ho wood, buddahwood and wild sweet orange.

Fougere Workshop

Saturday, July 27th

1:30 to 4:30

$130 includes all materials

Park Slope, Brooklyn

Call (718)788-6480 or send an email to info@herbalalchemy.net for more information or to register.

Sweet Woodruff

Sweet Woodruff growing in the 6/15 Green Herb Garden

About ten years ago I bought a sweet woodruff plant from the Greenmarket at Grand Army Plaza in Brooklyn.  I put it in the postage stamp garden in the front of my brownstone where it lived for a few years before I transplanted it to the newly renovated herb garden at 6/15 Green Community Garden.  The first spring that it came back in it's new spot I decided to try to make May Wine.  If memory serves I picked several blooming branches and twisted or wrung them out to bruise them and stuffed them into a bottle of German Rhine wine.  Then I recorked the bottle and let it sit for about a week before I filtered and drank it.  I remember loving it, the woodruff had added a green and sort of balsamic note to the sweet wine.

The wine was meant to be drunk on May Day and I never got the timing right again and so never made it again.  It's a shame that I denied myself all those years simply because I couldn't drink it on the actual day.  This year, with spring coming early, I had a chance to catch it in time, not to make May Wine, but to make liqueur.

Sweet Woodruff (Asperula odorata) was used as a medicine in the Middle Ages, mostly as either a poltice for cuts and wounds or a strong decoction for stomach troubles.  It is known mostly for its sweet scent due to its high coumarin content, the chemical known for giving new mown hay its distinctive odor.  Bundles and garlands of woodruff were hung around the house in the heat of summer to "attemper the air, cool and make fresh the place, to the delight and comfort of such as are therein" and is reported to "make a man merry" according to Gerard.  The dried herb may also be kept among linens to sweeten them and protect them from insects.  It was also once used to stuff beds.

Sweet Woodruff drying on parchment

I've read that the coumarins in the plant don't come out until the plant dries.  I picked a small amount and left it to dry overnight on a parchment lined rack.  Right around the 24 hour mark I noticed that the leaves had taken on the distinct smell of fresh mown hay.  It was delicate but it was there.  I thought I'd leave it another day and see if it deepened.  The following morning the leaves had lost their scent almost entirely.  I picked another bunch and kept an eye on it around the 24 hour mark and began my maceration then.  I wrung it out much like I did with the wine and poured a cup of vodka over it.  The liquid began to take on a lovely pale green which deepened to the color of good fruity olive oil.  After two days I decanted it.  It tastes and smells of grass with a honeyed hay note.  I've made three successive batches.  I'd like to try sweetening some to make liqueur, and save some to add to the herb liqueur I'd like to make from the 6/15 Herb Garden this summer.  And of course some of it will be experimented with in Cocktail Lab.  I'll run out eventually but it will be just another thing to look forward to next spring.

Three batches of Sweet Woodruff Vodka