Essence and Alchemy (17 page)

Authors: Mandy Aftel

Lime
trees are thorny, bushy evergreens with handsome dark green leaves so fragrant that they have been used to perfume the water in finger bowls. The blossoms are solvent-extracted to yield the coolly elegant middle-note linden blossom. The rind of the fruit is cold-pressed to yield a greenish liquid that captures its characteristically fresh, rich, and sweet odor. Used moderately, it is mellow and “perfumey” and is a good choice to finish off blends that are too sweet or too floral. Try blending it with angelica, nutmeg, and neroli.

Lemon
oils, as I have mentioned, are problematic for perfumery, and I prefer to use litsea cubeba when I need a lemon note. The cleaning-products industry has made synthetic versions of this scent so ubiquitous that when I present the natural essence to perfume clients, they often identify it as Pledge. Smell is uniquely connected to memory, and, like a computer disk, it can become corrupted and no longer able to accept new information.

Still, many people find the smell of lemon refreshing and clarifying. Good lemon oil is yellowish, with the light, fresh, sweet odor of the ripe peel; it has a higher odor intensity than lime or grapefruit, but it should carry no hint of harshness. It blends well with cardamom, chamomile, and ginger.

Green
top notes include spearmint, cucumber, galbanum, and wintergreen.

Spearmint
is produced by steam distillation of the flowering tops
of the plants. It is a pale oil with a warm, green, herbaceous odor, penetrating and powerful and truly reminiscent of the odor of the crushed herb. Spearmint is one of those oils that improve with ageâone-year-old oils being finer and having a more characteristic minty fragrance than those that are freshly distilled. Spearmint is stimulating and refreshing and blends well with jasmine, basil, grapefruit, and vetiver. Its cheerful scent does wonders to lift a heavy composition.

Spearmint

Calbanum
oil is steam-distilled from the soft resins of the
Ferula
family, which are used as a base note. (Several species of
Ferula
are in the parsley family.) It presents an intensely green, fresh, leafy odor that moves into a dry, woody dryout with a balsamic, barklike character. Arctander likens it to green peppers or tossed green salad. Galbanum's complicated intensity gives floral blends a leafy quality.

Fir needle
oil is derived from the needles of a true fir and has the evocative scent of a fresh Christmas tree. It is refreshingly balsamic, with a powerful pine scent and a peculiar jamlike fruity-balsamic undertone. There are many kinds of pine, fir, and spruce needle oils, but
Abies alba
is the one I prefer. I use it frequently, blending it with other pine or fir oils as well as with oakmoss, citrus, labdanum, rosemary, patchouli, and juniper berry.

Spury
top notes include black pepper, green pepper, ginger, clove, coriander, nutmeg, juniper berry, and cardamom.

Coriander
is a pale or colorless oil distilled from the seeds of the cilantro plant, but instead of the leaves' strong herbaceous smell, it has a pleasant, sweet, woody-peppery aroma. Coriander is uplifting, refreshing, and stimulating, and has the same effect on a perfume
blend; it is a good choice to provide life and lift to a heavy composition. Coriander works well with jasmine, frankincense, cinnamon, and bergamot.

Cardamom
has been in use as a spice since ancient times, and it has been distilled into an essential oil since the mid-sixteenth century. It is almost colorless at first, but gradually darkens on exposure to daylight. Cardamom greets you with a spicy odor reminiscent of eucalyptus, but softer, and evolves into a woody, balsamic, almost floral dryout. Cardamom contributes spiciness to a blend, but also a warm, sweet note that floral heart notes welcome. More tenacious than most top notes, cardamom blends well with coriander, frankincense, rose, geranium, and litsea cubeba.

Nutmeg
was highly valued by the ancient Romans, who sometimes used the whole nuts as currency. It yields a pale oil, yellowish or almost transparent, with a light, fresh, warm-spicy aroma. In good specimens, the dryout is somewhat woody but remains warm and sweet. It is useful in spicy perfumes or to bring a sweet and warm top note to any blend. Experiment blending nutmeg with black pepper, coriander, galbanum, and frankincense.

Nutmeg

Black pepper
was known to the Greeks as far back as the fourth century B.C. and was highly prized by them and other peoples of antiquity. Like gold, it was used as a medium of exchange and an article of tribute. It remains one of the most important spices for perfumery. The not-quite-ripe peppercorns are dried, crushed, and steam-distilled to produce an almost transparent oil that becomes more viscous with age. It smells like the spice, with a dry, fresh, woody, warm-spicy aroma. Its extremely high odor intensity requires a careful hand, just as in cooking. A tiny amount is all that is needed to
lend a spicy note and an edge to a blend. Black pepper is thought to stimulate the mind and to warm the indifferent heart.

Ginger
oil is produced by steam-distilling the dried and freshly ground rhizomes of the
Zingiber officinale
plant. The first whiff, which resembles coriander mixed with orange and lemon, gives way to the characteristically warm, spicy odor of the root, with a sweet and heavy undertone. Ginger blends well with bois de rose, cedarwood, coriander, rose, and neroli, but it has high odor intensity and should be used sparingly.

Flowery
top notes are mostly derived from flowers, of course, although bois de rose is an exception. Also included are lavender, mimosa, and davana, an Indian flower with a dry, bitter floral odor.

Bois de rose
, or rosewood, distilled from the chipped wood of the
Aniba rosaeodora,
has a refreshing, sweet, woody, spicy, somewhat rosy odor. It makes a good all-purpose top note that blends particularly well with coriander, geranium, sandalwood, vetiver, and frankincense.

Lavender
âwhere do I start? The essential oil is distilled from the flowering tops. Few people are unfamiliar with its fresh, sweet fragrance, which starts out herbaceous, with a hint of eucalyptus, and becomes more flowery as it evolves. True lavender oil is still unequaled as a perfume ingredient that blends well with almost any other essence. (Some varieties, however, have a harsh note and should be avoided in perfumery.) Lavender is strengthening, refreshing, and calming.

Dry
fragrances, like dry wines, lack sweetness; they are distinguished by woody notes along with grassy and ferny nuances. They include cabreuva and cedarwood.

Lavender

Cabreuva
is distilled from scraps left from processing various species of Myrocarpus trees, which grow wild in South America. It is a pale yellow, somewhat viscous oil with a complex scentâsweet, woody, and delicate, with a dry floral background. Cabreuva has greater tenacity than most top notes, but dosed with a light hand, it lends a distinct note reminiscent of sandalwood and rose.

Virginia cedarwood
is the wood used in lead pencils, and the oil is distilled from sawdust produced by pencil factories. Its scent starts out mild and pleasant, almost sweet, and somewhat balsamic, like the wood itself, then becomes drier, woodier, and less balsamic as it moves toward the dryout note. A related variety of interest to the perfumer is Atlas cedarwood from Morocco.

Note
: Although eucalyptus, tea tree, and peppermint are popular aromatherapy oils and qualify as top notes, their strong, medicinal odors make them unsuitable for perfumery. They will overwhelm any blend to which they are added.

H
ere is a set of top notes to get started with, followed by suggestions for future acquisitions.

Basic set of top notes:
Bergamot
Bitter orange	I prefer expressed or cold-pressed to distilled.
Bois de rose	Also known as rosewood.
Cedarwood	I like “Virginia” better than the “Atlas” variety.
Lime	Mexican is best. Use cold-pressed or expressed and not distilled.
Pepper, black
Second set of top notes:
Coriander
Fir	I like the species Abies alba best.
Grapefruit	White and pink grapefruit smell very different; buy pink.
Lavender	Buy real lavender, not lavandin. I prefer the French varieties.
Nutmeg
Very special third set of top notes:
Blood orange
Cabreuva
Galbanum oil

CREATING FOR CHORDS

The fugitive, evanescent top notes are the last to be added to a blend. Like late-arriving guests, they need to fit in with the already chosen elements in the perfume and avoid conflict. By temperament, this is easy for most of them except the ones with strong odor intensity. If heart notes are courtship and base notes are long-married permanence, top notes are a one-night stand. Their scent tends to stay near the top of the perfume, drifting only faintly into the middle notes, which makes them inherently easy to work with. With the major creative statements already made, however, there is less room to work and a greater chance of making a big mistake.

Schimmel & Co.'s itinerant lavender distillery

Creating a radiant top chord comes from familiarity with the nuances of each individual note. Learning to smell the evolution of a top note is akin to trying to watch flowers bloom. It is a process of subtle change that requires a meditative consciousness. Take, for example, the orange-scented notes: blood orange, bitter orange, sweet orange, tangerine, mandarin. They have more in common than not, yet the choice of one or another of them will have a subtle but definite effect upon the opening statement of the perfume. When you smell each of them, you smell for shades of difference: blood orange is the most voluptuous and rich; bitter orange is refined and slightly floral; sweet orange is just that, sweet; tangerine is warmer and rounder than mandarin, which tends to be a bit dry.

To finish Alchemy, the perfume we have been constructing, I have deliberately chosen very friendly and congenial notes that will readily marry with the base and heart notes. The citrus notes will add a light and fresh top chord to our beautiful floral heart and our powdery base. The only “difficult” ingredient is black pepper, with its high odor intensity, which should be added last. Add a drop of it, thoroughly stir it in, wait fifteen minutes, then put a drop on your skin and smell it to decide whether the blend needs another drop.

We need approximately eighteen drops of a top chord:

10 drops bergamot
6 drops bitter orange
2 drops black pepper

Drop each ingredient into the blend, making sure to smell after each new essence is added in order to comprehend the evolving changes. Pay careful attention to how the black pepper sharpens and intensifies the top notes.

Here are some other top-note chords to try. As before, the dominant note appears first.

Citrusy:
pink grapefruit, bergamot, bitter orange

Green:
fir, spearmint, lime

Spicy:
coriander, tangerine, black pepper

Flowery:
lavender, pink grapefruit, bois de rose

Dry:
cedarwood, juniper berry, coriander