CB's Journal

Fire from Heaven

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.

Canada

well i just got back late last week from montreal. i enjoyed it so much back at the end of july, i decided to spend a little more time there before the holiday season gets into full swing here. this will be the last time until january that i'll have much time to myself...

i like montreal. it's a beautiful city full of charming people. there are plenty of things to do & see and the restaurants can be quite good if you take the time to sniff them out.

montreal is also crammed with bookshops which is right up my alley. new & old, english or french, i visited every one i passed and came away with some wonderful books. i managed to find a french copy of evelyn waugh's "vile bodies" which has long been one of my favorite novels. it was funny to read it in translation as i found that there really isn't a proper french translation for the term "bogus". still it was most enjoyable.

there was one second hand shop on the rue saint denis that i particularly enjoyed. if memory serves it was called "la librarie mona lisait" - a cute pun if one is quick at conjugating french verbs (which i am still not). it was just the kind of book shop i like most - large, airy with shelves PACKED to the ceiling. i spent quite a bit of time checking all the titles (and found a few very interesting volumes). then i noticed high behind the register, an incredibly rare monograph on the works of leonor fini which i tried unsuccessfully to buy. i gathered it wasn't for sale because the charming woman who ran the place was pretty much saving it for her retirement. disappointing for me but not surprising...

i think one of the reasons that i spent so much time in that particular shop was its smell - i noticed it the second i walked in the door. the odor was so similar to my "in the library" and yet somehow slightly different. i couldn't tell exactly why it should be but i loved it all the same. so i put the books i did buy there in zip-lock bags and have sniffed them every now and then since i got back. some day perhaps i'll figure it out...

coincidentally when i returned, i found there were orders for two new stores in canada - one shipped while i was away and the next is set to go out this week. "gravity pope" in edmonton should have my perfumes any day now and hopefully by the end of next week, "hazel" in toronto should be stocked up as well.

very nice! since i've never really been to canada much (apart from the 2 excursions to montreal) maybe visiting those stores in future will give me a good reason to see more of the country.

i'm particularly interested in visiting toronto. i've been told by numerous people that "it's just like new york" which as far as i'm concerned is NOT a selling point. however, i was also told by all & sundry that montreal was "just like paris & very european". well i can say that montreal, although marvelous in it's own right, is nothing like paris and apart from the majority speaking french, is clearly a north america city with very deep european roots. so i'd imagine that toronto, like montreal, is not simply a smaller version of somewhere else but a wonderful city with it's own unique personality.

we'll see.

Birthdays

maybe it's because i had one a little while ago but lately i've been thinking about birthdays. well specifically i've been thinking about birthday cakes.

ever since i did my first "birthday cake" scent ages ago, i've been reflecting on a perfume that's all about birthdays i've known. the main issue that's prevented me from designing such a perfume so far has been that i myself am not terribly crazy about sweet smells. so, creating a perfume that really captures the aroma of angel food cake (which has been my preferred birthday cake since i was six) has been a challenge. vanilla is not a scent i'd generally wear myself and while i love the smell on its own, i couldn't quite imagine what it could possibly blend well with.

but over the past couple of months, i've been trying certain things together and i think at long last, i've figured it out. i'm pretty sure i know now what my "birthday cake" perfume will be made of. tomorrow i'm going out to the farm for the weekend but when i'm back next week, i think i'll work on it a bit more formally...

J'ai Rentre Chez Moi

well i'm finally back from montreal.

apart from the train ride there and back (which was hell) it was a wonderful trip. i met new people, saw new things, bought a ton of books as well as a new bag to cart them all back in and in general RELAXED. i found montreal to be an enchanting city and i can't wait to go back.

i also smelled a few new smells.

it's funny but the most memorable of those was a gardenia growing in the garden of the small hotel i stayed in. it was a very pretty well planted garden and though there were many other flowers, there was only one single gardenia blossom.

now i've never liked synthetic gardenias of which i've smelled PLENTY over the years. they always smell too sharp, too sweet or simply nauseating to me for some reason. this is the prime reason i don't currently have a "gardenia" listed among my other floral accords. the real thing however is an entirely different matter...

one of the most pleasurable aspects of my trip was sitting in the garden each morning sipping coffee, reading and chatting with some of the other guests. one morning i spent my time sniffing that single gardenia flower. it's strange how my brain works - i can still smell that blossom so vividly. and with the notes i made about it, i'm pretty certain i can reproduce it hopefully soon.

in the meantime, i can smell it in my head and remember montreal...

Je Vais Aller au Montreal

well july has been quite a trip. what with cleaning up after the floods (we had two) and training new assistants on top of the general stuff that needs to be done, there really hasn't been a lot of time to do anything much but rush around. but i am not complaining. apart from the floods (which were a major drag but the cause seems to have been fixed since it bucketed this past monday but only OUTSIDE the building this time) everything has been going exceptionally well. considering that i just turned 3 here at the beginning of the month and things are swimming along as well as they are, i'm especially happy.

still, i'm tired. so tomorrow morning at the crack of dawn i am leaving to spend a week in montreal. i'm really looking forward to this trip. a) i've never been to montreal and hear it's really nice b) it will be a good opportunity to visit a lot of french bookstores (there seems to be only one in new york and it sucks) and c) i haven't really taken a proper vacation since 1998 and even that turned into a "working holiday". this time though my assistants are perfectly capable of keeping things running & i am determined not to think about perfume while i am away. or at least not much.

still i am certain i will be thinking a lot about smell. this is inevitable because if i am breathing in and out, i am noticing the scents around me and on some level i am always "working". every city i've ever visited has countless breathtaking odors from the sublime to the ridiculous and i can't help mentally cataloguing them as i wander around and then making a lot of notes. (there was a famous incident back in 97 when i stood stock still for 15 minutes in the middle of the portobello market sniffing like a bloodhound and wondering why roast chestnuts in london should smell so different from those in new york while my friends wondered if i had taken leave of my senses which indeed i had - at least all but one...)

so while i certainly plan to enjoy the sights, sounds & probably a lot that can be tasted & felt on this trip, i'm also very much looking forward to exploring the invisible city that is montreal - how it smells. i've been told the cafe au lait & the croissants are amazing and the food fantastic - plenty of olfactory opportunities there. but i also wonder how the st lawrence smells - how far inland does the odor of the river tint the air of the city? what are the odors of the vieux ville? do the old bookshops there smell different from my favorites in new york, london or san francisco? what subtle differences can be found in the scent of such a simple thing as grass? do crowds of canadians have a different aroma from the hoards in manhattan...?

well i'm going to find out and i'm sure i'll come back with plenty of notes.

Quote

Leaving the sea at evening is a death - a parting of worlds.
Molly Keane - Good Behavior

i just ran across this quotation as i was skimming through my collection this morning. it strikes me as such an appropriate summer sentiment...

Flooded

things are going to be running a bit slowly here today - maybe tomorrow as well. it's too soon to tell.

last evening, just as we were about to close, there was an enormous thunderstorm. it was pretty spectacular. i actually got caught in it as i was dashing back from the market - i had to get food for zeph who gets understandably cranky without his dinner. the storm came on very suddenly and was it bucketing so hard that i couldn't see much of anything except the biggest bolt of lightning i've ever seen in my life which definitely hit something on the river bank a block and a half ahead of me. it was like a tower of light and the thunderclap that came with it was so loud i could feel it in the air...

of course i was drenched to the skin when i got back to the gallery so i went upstairs to the studio, dried off and changed my clothes. when i got back downstairs to the gallery, my new manager (yesterday was her first day) said, "what's all this water on the floor...?"

at first i thought it was simply the runoff that i'd brought in with me. since it was like standing under a waterfall outside and i was well and truly soaked, there were puddles of water from my clothing all the way from the front door up the stairs to the closet in my studio.

unfortunately the puddle that had formed in the middle of the gallery floor was getting bigger and then we noticed that water was gushing in at floor level through a hole in the wall from the building next door. we moved some of the gallery furniture up into the workroom (which is about a foot higher than the gallery floor) and i figured that was the best we could do until the water stopped pouring in and i could get some heavy duty industrial mops. i said to elizabeth (the new manager) there wasn't much to be done and we'd simply have to clean up in the morning. then i heard water running in the storeroom...

the far back corner of the storeroom had suddenly turned into angel falls - there was already an inch of water on the floor there and more was pouring down. fortunately most of the things back there were on shelves off the floor but there was still quite a bit of miscellaneous stuff on the ground. we frantically moved as much of it as possible while the rain continued to fall right indoors were we could really enjoy it...

we did as much as could possibly be done and then called it a day. i shut the door and decided i'd just have to deal with the rest in the morning. i haven't gone in there yet so i'm not quite sure how serious the damage might be. frankly i'm dreading it. i can say though that if we had a sudden freeze, the gallery floor itself could easily be transformed into an indoor skating rink fun for all. i'm trying to imagine myself on the ground floor of an old venetian palazzo but frankly the visuals aren't quite working out for me. in reality what i have here is a tiny natural disaster area all to myself. terrific.

fortunately nothing upstairs in the studio got wet - it seems the roof of the photo studio next door (which is lower than mine but butts right up against my wall) couldn't handle the deluge so the excess water flooded into my building. lovely.

so it looks like we're going to be spending the better part of today mopping up and clearing out the stuff in the storeroom to either dry it off or trash it. and since there are quite a lot of orders to pack up and ship out i'm not sure how many we'll be able to send today. and i may have to cancel the clients i have scheduled tomorrow afternoon - we'll see how it goes...

having grown up on the banks of a river that got above itself now and then, i've been through a few major floods. i remember the cleanup vividly and today's experience is bringing those really unpleasant memories flooding back. (i just reread that last sentence and while i'm not crazy about puns, the phrase certainly seems appropriate.)

but since i grew up in the country, i've learned that the weather is the weather and you can't do anything about it except endure it and deal. so in a couple of minutes, i'm going to put on my waders, head for the hardward store to get a few large sized mops and then we'll get on with the day.

hopefully by saturday morning everything will be cleared up and normal again.

Busier...

well this past week has been even more of a trip than is usual. there was a lot to do and the days wound up being quite packed - even monday which lately (since the gallery is closed) i've actually been trying to have as a proper "day off". still there was a lot of perfume to make and until i find a congenial tribe of happy little elves to pick up the slack overnight, there's plenty to do in the daytime for the rest of us here. i also had a meeting with a possible client to work on a project, that should it come to pass, will be very exciting for all concerned. i always think it's so nice to offer people something better than they expect when they're shopping in certain stores. so we'll see what happens with that.

the evenings were fairly full as well. a few yoga classes (i find standing on one's head for a while really does help to adjust the perspective), a class i've been taking (for which i just manged to get the homework done at the last minute) and a sort of farewell cocktail party for my friend, VA, who after 3 years of working for a perfectly outrageous woman finally handed in her mitten. and good for her - as far as i'm concerned, there is no place in the office for rude & absuive behavior.

from what i hear though from those i know who have office jobs, this kind of thing sadly happens all too often. perhaps certain corporations ought to consider seminars in basic manners - don't VP's realize that more and better work gets done in a civil environment than a hostile one? or am i living in a dream world...?

the party turned out to be a lot of fun. many of the people there were designers for VA's old firm, and i really enjoy listening to those who create tangible goods - it's such a change from working with the purely invisible...

afterwards, i had a very nice dinner w VA and her old design director (who she worked for until he retired and before the advent of the outrageous woman). the food was good, the conversation terrific but suddenly my watch informed me that it was 11:35 and i had to GO. i figured, if i took the train, i'd be home around 12:15. unfortunately thanks to the new york city public transport system (i've been trying to be frugal w basic expenses the past few years) i didn't make it home until 1:45 in the thank you morning.

since there was a film crew due to arrive very early the next morning to shoot a small feature in the gallery, that meant i didn't get much sleep and required a LOT of tea the next morning in order to be at least partially coherent.

the shoot went very well though and the producer & her crew were very good to work with. fortunately i've done similar things before so i knew the drill. i am told i answered the interview questions well (and they were particularly well done). i even allowed them to film me compounding one of the perfumes which is something the general public rarely gets to see. i am also told by my assistants who were watching the monitors as the cameras rolled, that the lighting was genius and everything looked terrific. i was very glad to hear that but not surprised as this particular team worked on a brilliant show in the past - one that was exceptionally well done. i look forward to seeing the feature we shot yesterday when it airs in the fall (but since it's for a brand new show, i'm afraid i can't say more about it now...)

i do find things like that intense and exhausting though so by the end of the afternoon, i was pretty much done in and left the gallery an hour early.

still despite the week's circus, we managed to finish bottleing all five new perfumes. three of them are in the gallery right this minute (saturday morning) and the other two will be out shortly after we open this afternoon. we might have managed to do all of them yesterday, but i decided (at the last minute) to rename one of them. though "the grape harvest" is one of my absolute favorites among Colette's short stories, there was something about the name that didn't look quite right. so this morning i redid the labels and they're really much better.

so here are the five perfumes that are new:

Eternal Return (my ocean archetype)
Wild Hunt (the forest archetype and i think one of my favorites for the summer)

two that i'm adding to the Secret History collection

Greenbriar 1968 (a scent that's about memories of my grandfather)
I am a Dandelion (a lovely flower that i've been working to perfect for YEARS)

and in the Experience series,

Under The Arbor (which is all about the scent of grape vines and will be wonderful for hot summer afternoons & evenings)

i'd really hoped that all five of these would have been posted on the website by the end of this past week but unfortunately that simply wasn't possible. still, i sent the information about all of them off to jason the other day and he's been working on the new pages. and yesterday he picked up the bottles to photograph so they should all be on the website very soon - i'm going to send out one of my rare newsletters to let everyone know when they all go live.

and now my watch informs me that it's 11:26 and i have to be ready to open the gallery in 34 mintues. it's time to take Zephyr out for a walk which he'll enjoy. Zepj loves sniffing around the neighborhood much more than i do. still, it will be nice to have a little fresh air and walk in the sun before i get on with the day.

Photos

earlier this afternoon when i got to the gallery, i found a book that a photographer left for me yesterday after i'd gone for the day. i leafed through it and it's absolutely marvelous. the images are all black & white and i find them to be beautiful, ethereal and sometimes rather eerie in the best possible way.

her name is anne arden mcdonald and i've found she has a website at anneardenmcdonald.com. it's certainly worth looking at.

i'm also glad to have found her website as she didn't leave an address and now i can thank her for such a wonderful gift!

busy

the last few weeks have been action-packed - even more so than usual. this is all very good but it has meant that i haven't had much time for anything other than perfume let alone writing in my journal.

i have managed to get several new perfumes finished though, some of which i've been working on for years. two of the archetypes are now complete; Eternal Return ( Ocean ) & Wild Hunt ( Forest ). Wild Hunt has become a personal favorite - but then i've always loved the smell of the old forest in the heart of summer...

I've also finished two new Secret History scents both of which are very nice for the summer. one is based on memories of my grandfather (Greenbriar 1968) and the other smells of one of my most favorite flowers - Dandelion.

ever since i was quite small, i've always been enchated with those simplest of flowers and as i reflect on my life, i find that dandelions and i have much in common - we are both extremely resilient...

of course i've had a "dandelion" accord in my collection for a number of years now but frankly i've never been entirely happy with it. it's smell is nice but not completely accurate. for the past two springs, i've been picking dandelions, smelling them and experimenting with exactly how to capture that delicate milky smell. a few weeks ago, almost by accident, i found the "missing pieces" that bring my dandelion perfume to life. it was a very happy moment.

this past week, i've finished the labels for these four perfumes and have compounded the oils for them. tomorrow we'll begin bottling them and hopefully by the end of next week, we'll have them posted on the website.

after that, i can finish Walking In The Air and The Grape Harvest...