"Playing with the Dark Side"Well, I finally got hold of a collection of natural isolates to play with...
(For those of you not in the "know" , natural isolates are the current buzz word amongst botanical /natural perfumes. They are chemicals that have been "isolated" from natural sources, usually useing fractional distilation. Because of their natural origins, these fragrance chemicals are being added to the pallette of many natural perfumes, but some feel that since they are actually isolated chemicals, rather than complex scented simple extractions such as essential oils and tinctures made directly from the plants, that they are no longer "natural" as such. For me they fall into a grey area that I haven't made up my mind about yet, hence my following musings.)
For days, I circled around them, unscrewing the lids and sniffing them suspiciously...
They make me nervous...
Essential oils I understand deeply. I know the herbs and the fruits they come from, their effect on the human body, how much I can use safely, what they do...they are my freinds and my playmates, beloved for so many years that they have become as familiar to me as the food I eat.
But these babies in their sterile little bottles, with strange chemical names i forget as soon as I have read them, are completely unknown. Wierd strangers in my happy friendly workshop full of dried herbs and tree resins.
How do I use them? What will they do to me if I spill them all over the workbench and the workshop fills with their fumes?
I go searching on the Internet, and all I can find is guidelines for the safe dilution percentages in an actual skin contact blend. Nothing more. And it reminds why I've shied away from artificial perfume ingredients for so many years...(beyond my disdain and repulsion by the actual smell of so many of them of course).
This little group of isolates form a pallette of singular scents.
Nothing as unpleasant as some of the artificial blends I have encountered, but they are very different to the essential oils and absolutes I am used to. they seem almost one dimensional, and totally missing the complexity of my usual ingredients.
Some of them are very familiar....the lollies of my childhood were obviously flavoured by "citral" and "ethyl decadionate"...and the bright purple grape flavoured bubble gum we used to beg off American Gi's from the army base next to our school was obviously given it's flourescant ultra grape flavour with the help of "methyl anthranilate".Others are completely alien and slightly repulsive to my nose, such as "phenyl ethyl alcohol" which to me just smells like plastic, and "bucco leaf" which isn't a leaf, and is one of the notes I have smelt in many noxious plants that to me just sends warning bells of "don't touch!" and "hazardous for consumption" all over the place....
Some again are obvious in their origin. "Eugenol" is the baby cousin of All spice and Cloves and probably an unobtrusive replacemnt for them if you want a weaker, less obvious spice note...and "methyl cinnamate" is actually a weak cinnamon smelling thing.
But I still don't see the reason not to use the real spices in the first place.
If I want to create a perfume that calls up the poison rings of the Italian Gibraldi family, I might find a use for the bitter almond touch of "benzaldehyde".But so far, only 3 of these new toys really tempt me to any kind of olfactory experimentation:
And of course, they are fruit notes. The only family of accords I have found missing in my extensive natural pallette have been fruity notes. I crave juicey strawberries, succulent grapes and sexy figs so much....
and here I see possibilities!
"Raspberry ketone" offers the warm deep note in the base of a fresh raspberry...it lacks the freshness and the juicy citrus aspect of the real fruit, but it is a warm fruity note that you can't find amongst the freely available citruses which form the only freely available fruit essential oils you can get."Butyl butyrate"smells of over ripe bananas to me, which gives me all kind of wild ideas of wierd and wonderful blends I may be able to create...
But so far, my cherished favourite amongst the bunch is "Strawberry fuarnone".
This baby to me speaks of caramelized strawberries.You know, the sticky stuff you end up with when you cook strawberry jam on the stove too long and the sugar caramelizes and the whole thing ends up as a rock hard lump at the bottom of the pan, enticing you to chew on it with it's sweet warm toffee smell.....
OK, so there's none of the depth and layers here that you get with strawberry jam of course, but there's enough of the warm caramel edge with a touch of fruitiness to tempt me....
So following my noses inspiriation, i set out to create jam notes, sweet, sugary and deep....
I sloshed around with some flowers and cirtus touches, and lo and behold, a very respectable apricot/peach jam accord appeared in a little bottle of sherry coloured liquid!
What made me uneasy working with it though, was that I had to literally dilute the fuck out of it to get it to a point where it didn't dominate the scent completely. And it's tenacity on the skin was a bit daunting too.I can see why this is a good thing for conventional perfumers, but for me, it's very indestructability and intensity make me wary of it's actual biological effect on the body, both for those wearing perfumes and for the perfumer working with them.
After a few weeks playing with these things, I feel....well, a bit dirty.
And it feels heady, as if I had been dabbling in forbidden fruits, drinking strong liqour laced with a coctail of heroin and speed instead of my usual organic wine, or even an honest scotch whiskey!
My workshop smells of strange, intense things, no longer just my known and trusted friends, but wierdly intense and fluorescant things.
Will I use them in my perfumes? I don't know.....
I'm tempted for sure.....but will my soul ever be the same?
Will I lose myself down the road of so many perfumers, seeking the cheap thrill of new and intense olfactory effects and end up drowning in the cheap, the artifical world of conventional perfume chemistry...
Or will I find a way to dabble just occasionaly...and give in to the drugged visions of an Ultraviolet Cheshire Cat perfume, a Grape flavoured Grin hovering over a shimmering transparent body?
I'll keep you all posted.......
