this entry is probably going to be a bit of a mess because today has been one of those days. i gather mercury has just gone retrograde and while i don't put a lot of credence in astrology, i have noticed that things do seem to go haywire during these periods...
anyway, i spent this past week revising (yet again) "fire from heaven". i'd planned to add this perfume to my archetype collection in september. in fact i did a dozen bottles at the end of august all of which quickly left the gallery. this was a good perfume but something wasn't quite making me feel the way i wanted. so i put compounding more of it on hold for a bit and decided to do some more work on the formula.
incense is now and always has been a very important smell for me. perhaps it reminds me of childhood campfires but i've always loved it. as i've worked with them, i find that i prefer the classic ancient incenses best - frankincense, myrrh, opopanax, styrax, cedar, sandalwood, amber & labdanum. i remember one of the few fragrances i used to love & wear regularly was czech & speake's "frankincense & myrrh". i used to buy it at barney's back in the day (1987) but sadly it doesn't seem to exist any longer even in england. at least i've not been able to find more.
over the years, i've used a lot of frankicense in a number of my perfumes - it's actually a key ingredient in CB93 - and i've done a number of incense blends. these were all very good (especially the first version of the smoke archetype that i did back in 2004) but i wanted the new version of "fire from heaven" to be really special.
so, as i said, the version that i worked on since 2004 and finished over the summer was very nice but it was too much like a straight up "incense" for my liking. so once the intitial dozen bottles were gone and i had some feedback, i decided to rework it a bit and that's what i've been doing through much of september & october. this past week, i finally got the "smoke" scent i wanted and i think "fire from heaven" is now perfectly finished.
it begins on the skin with a dry, woody smell - one can really sense the opopanax & myrrh. it has a slightly bitter edge that i very much enjoy. but then as the perfume warms on the skin, it begins to smolder and ignite. the warm spicy slightly sweet notes of the frankincense, styrax, labdanum & amber are released and waft from the skin in a cloud. but then the fire burns out so that the last impression the perfume gives is as if one has walked into a room where incense has been regularly burned for a very long time - an ancient temple or perhaps what i would like to imagine the inside of a 4000 year old persian tomb might smell like. it's more about the ghost of the smoke...
i named this archetype after one of my favorite mary renault novels - her retelling of the early life of alexander the great. since i've always been fascinated by the ancient near eastern world, i've enjoyed all her "alexander" novels very much. obviously he was one of the more spectacular personages of that region's history...
there are a few things about this perfume that were directly inspired by renault's work and by further research i've done on his life. i've tried to limit the ingredients in the perfume to those that were used during that period. i used a great deal of opopanax - apparently alexander's favorite scent and one that i'm very fond of myself. the cedarwood i chose for the perfume is botanically related to cedar of lebanon which is now understandably protected. however in the ancient world, this wood was widely used not only because of its durability but because of its pervading scent. the palace at persepolis was roofed in cedarwood and must have smelled fantastic when alexander burned it. in some ways, i imagine that "fire from heaven" might smell like that palace a few weeks after the fire burned out...
so today (which as i mentioned has been a bit of a mess) is at least good in that i'm fairly certain "fire from heaven" is now finished. i'm going to let this morning's revision rest over night and will check it again tomorrow. if all goes well, we'll be able to compound it in the afternoon, bottle it next week and have it back on the shelves by the end of next week. at least that's what i'm hoping.