Before Laurent moved forward with the trials, he had one last question for me.

Katie,

Your feedback was very helpful. I will keep in mind that you like the aromatic note. And don’t worry about the burnt note since it is one of the key elements in the leather note. I just think it should be more refined. Regarding some other notes, I love the idea of frankincense, rich and deep, other resin like Labdanum could be interesting, myrrh, opponax, tolu, peru balsam……

Katie, what floral note do you like and what floral note do you not like? I think I’ll be ready to start once I have the answers to this question.

Thanks,

Laurent.

I wrote up what reads more like a shopping list than what is probably a helpful answer, I’m afraid. Poor Laurent – he has to wade through my rambling and then try to divine some sense out of it. It dawns on me that perhaps in addition to having both technical and artistic skills, a successful perfumer must also acquire psychic powers for reading the minds of those who place demands on him or her. In this case, there’s just me, but having to read the minds of, say, a table full of focus group people… ugh. It sounds impossible, and utterly maddening.

Laurent,

You know, that aromatic quality is something I think I’d not worry over – I tend to appreciate more the overall balance of a perfume rather than individual notes. (Which? I suddenly realize sounds awfully funny given all the talk about individual notes, heh.) And, generally, I don’t usually care for a medicinal-seeming aromatic quality in perfumes except in the Frankincense & Myrrh and in Serge Lutens’ Santal Blanc.

I think the same goes for floral notes. There are those that please me, and some that pique my interest when I read they are contained within new perfumes, but I rarely ever love a perfume solely because it has some specific floral note.

I love, and I mean REALLY love Pre de Provence’s Linden Blossom edt and soap: I think it might be the cheapest linden blossom on the market, but it’s my favorite. There are much more refined and elegant perfumes employing linden blossom in them, of course. The Pre de Provence is the one I happen to like best. It causes me to feel irrationally happy when I use in the morning.

I love the ylang ylang of J&E Atkinsons’ Cananga di Java, though I don’t find the note as compelling in other fragrances. I think I like it in that fragrance because it never interferes with the rich woodiness, it simpy rises and soars above to float across the other notes.

I do like rose, but I don’t think I’d like rose in our perfume – I don’t know why however, and can’t articulate the reason I feel that way. Maybe it’s a tad too prosaic? I really don’t care much for powdery roses. Actually, I don’t personally care for powder particularly with perfume, period. I can appreciate and enjoy powdery ones, but I don’t like it. Except in Desprez’s Debutante de Versailles, but only because it’s a powdery perfume with, uh… I don’t how to put this politely… it’s a powdery perfume with balls.

To me, one of the most relaxing scents is lily-of-the-valley, yet I don’t care for it always, and the only perfume focused on that note that I wear with any frequency is i Profumi di Firenze’s Mughetto di Primavera.

I dig Weil’s Antilope (vintage, not this newer cologne stuff, sigh) with it’s lily-of-the-valley and chamomile combination, yet weirdly I hate chamomile. I hate it in tea, I hate the scent of it in a garden, I hate in compresses, etcetera.

I like the cool, almost creamy marine-infused floral bouquets of Compagnia delle Indie’s Donna, CB I Hate Perfume’s Mr. Huilot’s Holiday, and my John Frieda Kelp Help hair conditioner, but I’d never describe myself as a fan of marine perfumes. In fact, those are the only marine scents I really like. There is something about the soft bouquet of those products that smell like a comforting hug to me.

I like gardenia every now and again, but I find it is far too oppressive to wear very often.

Hyacinth and lily are notes I can appreciate, but I don’t really like them per se.

Freesia is a tricky little bugger – while I do like the candied way the note generally comes across as used in most perfumes, I don’t want that to be in THIS perfume. The only fragrance I’ve smelled that captures a freesia flower with any accuracy is Antonia’s Flowers, and unfortunately, that particular fragrance as a whole smells like a bad hangover on me.

Sweet pea is a very pretty note, but alas, it’s a note that seems to go to die on my skin. It comes and goes within all of a minute – and that’s only a whole minute if I’m lucky.

Jasmine is one of those notes I rarely pay any mind to. Which is awful, because it’s, like, in every other perfume made. Sometimes it reads as clean on me, nearly like a laundry detergent. It’s usually in only the older vintage perfumes that jasmine comes across as something very profound on me. And even then, it’s nothing I pay much attention towards. It’s a nice note when it works in a composition, but I rarely ever seek out jasmine focused scents.

Two actual flowers that I love to catch sniffs of when walking by are rhododendrons and bridal veil, but I do not know if one could honestly translate either of their aromas into a perfume accurately. Both possess such ethereal, gently floating smells. One flower I grew (by accident, which is a whole long story) last year was the crown daisy, and the blossoms had such a fine, rather delicate scent that I deeply appreciated. They look like this:click here. But again, I do not know whether or not it is possible to authentically translate that aroma into a perfume.

The other notes you mentioned I am sure will be fine. I am mostly hoping for a very good, rather dry smelling resinous quality with the frankincense, anyhow. Just not sweet, please – I think I may be cursed with sweet-amplifying skin!

Let’s hope you can pull some common thread out of this list, because I sure can’t. Perhaps I am rather random in my tastes? GAH! I will clarify anything you would like, since I am thinking this may not contain anything of consistency or use. Although I can’t tell if I was being too specific or not specific enough…

Cheers, and thanks again,

Katie

8 Comments

  • Marina

    Oh, Katie, I had to laugh…do you really think it is harder to deal with a boardroom of corporate officials than it is with two perfume junkies like us? I don’t think so! It is easier to please those people, because their main concern is how marketable the scent would be…whilst for us, we have to LOVE the scents.

  • kuri

    Do you think the corporate officials even care what the perfume smells like? I wonder what their perfume creation process is like. My theory is that it’s more challenging but more fun to create perfume for perfume junkies, but maybe that’s just what I’d like to believe.

    Anyway,I think in the end the perfumer just goes with his or her intuition and creativity since one can’t be psychic πŸ˜€ If the perfume’s good, someone will definitely start raving about it. At some point.

    Katie – in reading your response, it doesn’t sound as if you really like any floral note in particular, other than linden blossom. But you don’t mention any that you hate, either.

  • StickyKeys

    Katie, you are an artiste! I felt like I was on a ship out to sea reading your letter! I’m way too excited about this for you, and I think the perfumers think it’s a pleasure to work with such well informed ladies.

  • Katie

    Marina, dunno, it strikes me as an impossible task either way, just with many people it sounds even more, uh, impossibler. Me with the English not so much today πŸ˜‰

    kuri, well, the thing of it is I don’t really hate anything per se, as long as the whole of the composition works. So it’s hard for me to work up any angst over any one flower versus another. It just seems like saying flatly “I hate red” and then refusing to look at any paintings that use red paint. I think your sense about perfumers’ “intuition” is probably much closer to the truth than my hyperbole that they must be psychic.

    StickyKeys, you are too kind to me, as usual. I am much closer to geek than artiste, heh!

  • scentart

    Being psychic helps..LOL

    most of us can manage intuitiv

    Custom work is the result of subtext.
    communicating in semiphores of taste and preference creates trust and positive results. After the technical issues are ironed out, the perfume can wend into deeper artistry and “getting it right”

    In my opinion only.

  • Marchlion

    But Katie, you’re killing me — what did you think of the first two samples?!?! Or is that on here and I’m too dense to find it?

  • kuri

    Laf. Perhaps Katie is taking copious notes and refining her review as we speak? I’m pretty sure it’s not up yet. She did say in the “next week or 2” so maybe another week to wait?

  • Katie

    scentart, hmm, that’s interesting what you say about subtext. I suppose reading between the lines of it all is a rarefied skill as well, though, too. And no need to say “in my opinion only,” as of course it’s your opinion, and I’m glad you shared it.

    March and kuri, I’m taking my own sweet little time about it – sorry! I just don’t want to rush to decide something and then change my mind the very next day. Sometimes I think you have to live with a scent before you can articulate your feelings about it. And there’s two! It’s very hard for me right now to think of one without comparing it to the other, and I think that would be a trap. But I’ll post about them quite soon, I promise!

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