CB's Journal

Vanilla & The Sea...

my hands smell very strange at the moment.

i've been working since noon on preparing a few absolutes. these often arrive rock hard and need to be melted down and mixed with solvent before i can use them. so i've been very carefully boiling cistus, vanilla and honey for a few hours now - the honey is particularly tricky. together these absolutes make a very nice smell - very warm and rich and the air in the studio is full of them. and of course i inevitably wind up with traces of resin on my fingers. no matter how neat i try to be, it seems impossible not to get at least a tiny bit of whatever i'm dissolving on my hands somehow.

and a few moments ago as i was waiting for the absolutes to finish the final stage in their preparation, i checked the vial of the ocean archetype that i've been working on for the past few days and is now sitting on my desk downstairs in the workroom. i was pleased to find that it's almost done - i'm going to raise the smell of the sea just a bit this afternoon, let the perfume rest until tomorrow and check it again. but i think it's just about what it should be. if all goes well tomorrow, i can compound the perfume and it should be ready the week after next.

i've decided to name the ocean archetype after one of my favorite films written by jean cocteau - the eternal return. strangely one of the earlier versions of this perfume began with the scent of pine trees growing on the shore which gradually faded away revealing the fresh scent of the sea - the perfume was a departure.

but now this final version is just the reverse - it starts with the smell of salt air and hours later, ends with the smell of the trees - it's an arrival. there's something captivating to me about the idea of leaving (possibly because i am at the moment totally over new york) but i've decided to let "eternal return" stand as it is now. it really does capture the idea of sailing home across the ocean. and it fits with the nietzchian (and is that spelled correctly i wonder?) idea of the eternal return - we come back to where we began, the same stories unfold again and again, things are different and yet essentially the same...

for me this is what the ocean is all about.

i noticed though a few minutes ago that i managed to get a bit of "eternal return" on my fingers as well. how that happened i can't think as i don't generally slop vials around when i open and close them. still, beside the dark smoky scents of the cistus and vanilla absolutes was the clear smell of salt water.

individually these are all beautiful smells but frankly put together it's not a combination i'd recommend...

SPRING!

i think spring IS here at long last. not only with the lovely weather outside today (a balmy 64) but inside the fedex box that just arrived from grasse as well. inside were samples of two lovely jonquil absolutes that i'd been waiting for. one is a true jonquile and the other is a hyacinth type (otherwise known as "jacinthe") - both are so beautiful i could smell them all afternoon. and after the absolutely dreadful day i had yesterday and a sleepless night last night (i got some VERY bad news don't ask) that's just what i might do. a true breath of spring will do me some good...

they're a little on the expensive side though. the jacinthe costs $3000 a kilo but the jonquil is the real stunner when it comes to price - it's $12,000 a kilo which is about twice what i paid for the last lot i bought. but since i need it for "cradle of light" there's nothing to do but bite the bullet and pay forward.

still, when i smell it, i know it's worth it! it's easter in a bottle - you wouldn't believe...

March

i think spring may finally be here. early this morning when i took zeph for a walk, i noticed a particular smell in the air that always tells me it's coming or perhaps it's arrived. i noticed it yesterday as well but now it seems to have stabilized. the neighborhood is saturated with the smell of wet earth. it's hard to describe why today's smell is different from the wet sidewalk smell of last week when it was much colder and the ground was still partially covered with rather dirty snow - all i can say is that today smells like spring.

since i've lived in new york for a long time, i've come to realize that this scent is very fleeting. it lasts a few days at the most before it's once again overcome by the general smell of the city - garbage, exhaust, pollution and people. but then spring itself in new york seems to last about six minutes as well. we have a sharp spell of freezing rain or blizzards and then move right on in to the hot temperature of summer.

spring in new york always makes me a bit homesick for the country where i grew up. i remember the garden i used to have and the earliest and bravest of the flowers beginning to poke through the black earth. these early spring flowers have long been some of my favorites - crocus, jonquil, hyachinth, daffodil, narcissus and then later on lily of the valley. and of course toward the end of march, the dandelions begin to bloom and those i truly love.

suddenly the grass and many of the fields turn brilliant emerald and the forests cloud themselves in a shimmering veil of pale yellow green. here and there in the woods wild cherry trees burst like fireworks of pale pink. the air is rich with the odors of wet bark, damp moss and freshly plowed fields. of course on some days it's also redolent of newly spread fertilizer which is not so pleasant...

while there are certain scents i wear myself through the whole year, there are still a few that i prefer most in the early spring. i'm sure those remind me most of the country where i can't be as often as i'd like. this morning when i got back from my stroll with Zeph, i sprayed myself with a bit of Black March.

I did it almost without thinking - lately i've been wearing a lot of Patchouli EMPIRE. but as i sat for a moment quietly sipping a cup of tea, i realized the smell of Black March was just what i wanted today.

just a little bit more Spring...

What's Gone Is Gone

i had an absolutely maddening encounter in the gallery yesterday afternoon.

a man arrived late in the afternoon carrying a shopping bag which contained a bottle of fragrance he purchased many years ago. he told me that he loved the scent but couldn't find it any more and wanted me to "copy" it.

now i have to say requests like that make me crazy.

i have tried again and again over the years to make it politely but firmly clear, that reproducing "perfumes" is NOT what i do. EVER. under ANY circumstances. and while most of the people who contact me about reproducing much loved but discontinued fragrances are understanding when i explain why i don't do this there are always a few who belive i'll make an exception in their "very special" case. this is particularly annoying to me when they tell me that yes they have read the information on my website and yet still ask me to copy a perfume...

this guy was one of those and he would not take "no" for an answer.

i began by explaining why reproducing a perfume is technically very difficult. even a GC analysis may not reveal absolutely ever molecule in the fragrance compound. without those molecules a replicated scent will not match the original to the much more finely tuned human nose.

and even if a GC analysis reveals the majority of a perfume's odorants, there's no guarantee that those materials will be available today. the manufacturers of aromachemicals discontinue materials for many reasons. they may have developed better ones, tastes in scents may have changed or the FDA might have stepped in and said "no i'm sorry we've found that particular chemical to be toxic so no more please."

fortunately this last instance is very rare these days as fragrance manufacturers are a good deal more rigorous in their safety testing protocols than they were 30 or 40 years ago. still it does mean that very old fragrances may still contain certain chemicals that cannot be gotten now and without those, a scent will not be the same.

and if the perfume in question contains natural materials, these will have aged much like wine - they will have grown richer with time. jasmine absolute from last year's harvest will not smell the same as a harvest from 1963 and there's no way that i or the countless technicians i have worked with over the years know to match that natural process of growing old.

i also explained that acurately analyzing a perfume by process of gas chromatography is NOT an inexpensive process. it can cost several thousand dollars to run an accurate test. and since the end result of the test may reveal the unobtainable and may not reveal absolutely everything, that's a lot of money to spend on a gamble.

and few people understand that a GC profile is not an accurate formula. a perfumer would still need to spend what could be a great deal of time experimenting to find the exact proportions and fillingl in the missing pieces the chromatograph couldn't spot. i don't like to think what the bill for that amount of time might run to and rarely does anyone else.

lastly i told him that i consider that "copying" a scent no matter how old is an insult to the artist who created it originally. though perfume is a commodity and is copied with clocklike regularity, i will always consider such actions in the same light as forging a matisse and trying to pass it off as real. it is one thing to be inspired by a perfume - it is another entirely to attempt to copy it.

i told him that i did have certain private clients for whom i created custom scents in the style of a discontinued perfume they adored but could no longer buy but i refused to copy ANYTHING.

he listened quietly to all of the above and still continued to ask me to reproduce his scent and insisted that i smell it. well i did and needless to say i found it to be a dreary pedestrian fragrance made from obviously cheap entirely synthetic materials several of which make me ill (hence the "i hate perfume" portion of my program). this was not a fragrance impression i would waste a second of my time trying to recreate. the world is far better off without such olfactory horrors.

now i was raised to be polite to people (unless very very seriously provoked) and i certainly wasn't going to tell this man just what i thought of his scent - there was certainly no point in being rude. i simply said, "no i'm sorry this kind of scent is not my style at all and i'm afraid i couldn't create anything that might be similar." which i thought pretty much covered it.

i mean would one call up picasso and try to commission a painting in the style of matisse? or maybe worse yet, demand that he paint a picture of bow wearing kitties on black velevet...? i don't necessarily mean to compare myself to either of those artists but the point is we creative types all have our own way of doing things when it comes to what we make...

STILL he kept insisting. this went on for nearly half an hour. finally i realized i was very nearly on the verge of losing my temper completely and having what one of my assistants refers to as "une grande crise d'artiste" and i told this dreadful person,

"let me put this as plainly as possible: No i can't replicate this fragrance. No i WON'T replicate this fragrance and NO i DON'T know anyone who will. you will now please GO."

i understand totally how upsetting it can be to lose a scent one loves and which constantly reminds of kind hearts and gentle places. but it is necessary to understand that when these perfumes are gone, they are gone.

perfume is like life - it can last only so long and then it ends. beyond that final moment we must move on and search for something new...

Geranium

well the geranium from madagascar arrived earlier this week and yesterday i had the chance to smell it. i was very happy to find that it is very similar to the bourbon geranium that i've loved for so long and which now i can't get.

the madagascar variety has a slightly richer "green" edge to it without so much of the sharp bite of the bourbon. still it's close enough so that CB93 (which i wear all the time) will smell pretty much the same.

i think i'll still miss the bourbon though and will probably put the tiny bit i have left into storage for posterity...

Extinct

i've been having a geranium crisis.

last week one of my assistants informed me that we were running low on boubon geranium essential oil. this was not a suprise to me - i use quite a lot of it and for years this particular geranium has been one of my favorite scents.

"bourbon" geranium comes from reunion island in the indian ocean. it was called "bourbon" under the ancien regime though the name changed after the revolution. it's still a french colony. this fairly small island used to be one of the world's finest sources for certain perfume ingredients like patchouli and geranuim. i've been especially fond of bourbon geranium for years - it has a fierce green scent without the floral rosy fruity overtones often found in gernaium oils from other countries. those oils are fine and i do use them but bourbon is my favorite.

unfortunately all the houses that i routinely buy essential oils from were out of it and couldn't say when they'd have more. this was not good news as we're just getting ready to make up the spring batches of CB OUTSIDE and there's quite a bit of geranium in it. not to mention CB93...

after calling one house several times over the past few weeks, the purchasing director finally told me that reunion island was no longer producing essentail oil of geranium and there would be no more bourbon geranium from now on.

VERY sad...

i'm rushing in some geranium essential oil from madagascar which i've been told is very close in scent to that from reunion. how close though remains to be sniffed. i'm hoping for the best but i know that much like grapes used in wine, the "terrior" of a scent is everything.

well that's the way of the world. i keep reminding myself that Change is Good. certain plant materials become unobtainable but there are new ones all the time (like a green pepper i recently found or a strangely beautiful chinese magnolia).

still i'm really going to miss the fresh green breath of bourbon geranium...

Quote

Oh, life is a glorious cycle of song,
A medly of extemporanea;
And love is a thing that can never go wrong;
And I am Marie of Roumania.

Dorothy Parker - Enough Rope

Tom Twyker's "Perfume"

"perfume - the story of a murderer" opens today. i was lucky enough to see an advance screening back in early december. although i rarely do anything in the middle of the holiday madness except make perfume, sell perfume and pass out at the end of the day, i was determined to go and i'm glad i did. i enjoyed this film very much.

it looked spectacular and every scene was lush with detail. though i've been known to sit happily through the most appalling rubbish as long as it looks good ("the cell" & "streets of fire" spring to mind), the story of "perfume" was perfectly compelling as well almost from the start.

it's been a few years since i've read suskind's brilliantly bizarre novel from end to end but from what i remember the film remained quite true to his story. of course there were a few changes; some moments were made a bit more sensational and certain fascinating bits were cut altogether. this is to be expected i suppose for how does one visually translate something so completely intangible as perfume or the stunning impact of a smell...?

i met a german director a few years ago who'd done several of patrick suskind's plays in berlin. i remember asking him if he'd considered a film version of "perfume" but he said it was impossible. i couldn't agree. even then i knew that the power of scent can clearly be seen in the expression of those who encounter it.

tom twyker understands the curious emotional quality of scent implicitly and that's one of the things that makes his fim so wonderful to watch. the audience may not be truly able to smell the brilliant perfumes grenouille creates but we know ther effect. every subtle nuance is there to be read in just one look. when it comes to depicting olfactory impact, the face says it all.

i thought the cast was marvelous - especially alan rickman who pulls off one of those "angels will weep" type speeches that from the mouths of lesser actors would make me wonder if that ham had been smoked or honey-cured. i'd heard before i saw "perfume" that two of the characters had been seriously miscast - dustin hoffman & ben whishaw. i can't agree. i thought hoffman's interpretation of the aged perfumer both funny & very touching - especially in those moments when he realizes that he'll never possess the gifts of his young apprentice or ever be able to create such glorious perfumes. i'd forgotten that his character is disposed of so quickly and i found myself wishing to see more of him.

as for ben whishaw as grenouille, i didn't find him "too pretty" in the least. from what i remember, grenouille is repellent because of his unkempt filthy appearance, his perfectly apathetic demeanor and his total lack of human smell. this was one brilliant aspect of the novel that wasn't included in the film for fairly obvious reasons. even i can't imagine how to visually convey how deeply disturbing and unsettling it would be to encounter a man with no human odor. i think cutting this crucial element was my only real complaint with the film. to me grenouille's true motivation was to create a smell that would break his lifelong isolation and truly connect him with the rest of the human race. we take too much for granted the importance of our own inherent smell...

so grenouille's physical appearance wasn't important to me - he was ruined from birth and the damage was all inside. i thought whishaw created a grenouille pretty much as i imagined - intense, withdrawn and obviously driven by a consuming passion almost impossible to comprehend. unless one has a particular kind of nose which i do...

i've been compared to suskind's grenouille many times and i have to say it makes me very uncomfortable. now most of those who make this comparison are quick to add "but in a good way". i'm always happy to hear that as i have not been boiling virgins in my basement or distilling the juice from puppies and i don't intend to start. nor can i determine the emotional wellbeing of a cow by the smell of her milk and i'm not sure i could if i wanted to.

but is has been made clear to me over the years that i do experience the world that surrounds us all in a way few can understand. how many people take the time to notice the subtle differences of the mundane things we use every day? how many people can imagine a smell encountered years ago and recreate it at will? how many people recognize the smell of porcelain, glass or snow...?

well i can and i do and i confess it frightens me to think that the only other human, real or imagined, who might share this talent is a psychopathic lunatic. i think that's the aspect of "perfume" that i've always found so terrifying.

i perpetually notice smells that others don't or can't and these olfactory impressions seem to stay with me always. in fact as i was watching "perfume" i noticed a very strange sensation especially during the early parts of the film. when grenouille smelled apples, so did i. the scents of a sunlit brook swirled through my head even before the narrator described them and almost before the camera showed them. these olfactory sensations were so strong that i began to think they must have been pumping fragrance into the screening room and when the stench of dead rat nearly caused me to heave my lunch, i leant over to my friend virginia and asked her if she smelled dead rat too.

"what are you talking about??" she whispered back. it was then that i realized that these smells were all in my head and i was experiencing them from memory only. i was "seeing" the film in a kind of phantosmic odorama that sony would pay millions to patent. it was very strange...

it did turn out that some of the odorama effects weren't solely in my imagination - some of them were real. when grenouille first follows the plum girl, my nostrils caught the warm lush scent of skin. later on as baldini attempts to identify the ingredients in a competitor's perfume, a smelled a wave of jasmines. through much of "perfume" the odors of skin, jasmine, perfume or fresh flowers rose and fell and i knew they were real. at first i thought someone sitting nearby was wearing a really good fragrance and tried to sniff out who it was. eventually though i realized the scent was coming from ME. i'd put on "cradle of light" before venturing into manhattan that evening and as i watched the film, my nose caught the appropriate aspects of my own perfume - skin, jasmine, jonquil all wafted to my nose in accord with the story. this may sound a bit like bragging but i don't care - to me it was a truly delightful surprise...

before the screening started, we were told that thierry mugler had created a range of perfumes inspired by the film and that these would be presented in the lobby after the show ended. i must say i was curious to sniff one or two of them especially some of the 18th century paris notes and those that smelt of "baby" or "skin". unfortunately this was not to be. when virginia and i walked out of the screening room, one whiff of the ambient air laden with obviously fake aromachemicals told me all i needed to know. those scents were clearly not my kind of thing at all and we got the hell out of there as quickly as we could.

* * * * * * *

"perfume - the story of a murderer" wrapped me up in another world simultaneously visible and unseen. for two and a half hours, i breathed the air of another time from the sublime to the appalling. but afterwards, as we left the paramount building in times square, my nose was instantly assaulted by the stink of the new millenium: rotting garbage, stale vomit, dirty concrete, stale steam from the subway, overheated fat and the massive smell of a hundred thousand people. it's difficult to understand just how badly paris stank under the ancien regime but contemporary new york clearly has its own unique olfactory horror. civilization may be different but humanity still smells the same.

though i haven't had time to write about "perfume" until now i've been thinking a lot about it this past month and i look forward to seeing it again soon. for several years i've been experimenting with "skin" scents and smells that are undeniably human. when i heard about the perfumes created for "perfume" back in the spring, i put this project to rest for a while with the exception of CBMUSK. i think though that it's time to revive that idea and i'm going to dig those bottles out of my archive and have another sniff...

perhaps i enjoy "perfume" as only a perfumer can. it explores a world i know intimately yet a sense that most too often take for granted. our modern brains evolved from ancient olfactory organs and everything we think and feel originated in our ability to smell. the nose still tells us who we are and who we love - it fits us into family & community and without it we are lost. suskind's premise fascinates me - we may choose to ignore it but it is Smell that makes us human.

New Year

in a little while a car is coming to pick me up to take me & zephyr out to the farm for the weekend. i'm certainly looking forward to a little rest and the chance to spend a bit of time with my niece who i haven't seen since last holiday.

but before i go, i wanted to make one last entry in my journal for this year. now that the holiday rush is over, i've had a bit of time to reflect on this past year and the new one about to start.

though there were naturally a few tense moments and i took on far more projects than i should have, this past year has been a very good one. i accomplished much, met many wonderful people and have a good deal to be grateful for.

usually about this time, i begin to make a list of resolutions for the new year - a list of things i'd like to change or add to my life. french lessons, painting classes and the perennial note to work less and get out of the studio a little more have been recurring themes year to year.

but this year i'm not going to. i'm very happy with things just the way they are and have decided simply to play the cards as they're dealt. whatever will be will be and that's going to be fine.

early this morning i was going through some old photo files and i found a new year's card that i made up a number of years ago. its simple message caught my attention and i realize these are the qualities i choose to focus on and wish for everyone else.

Peace

Hope

Clarity

we can all certainly use a little of each.

very best wishes for the new year.

Cradle of Light

as i mention in my prologue to the archetype collection, these represent scents that are an intrinsic part of the human experience. they have no specific story because their true nature is so vast. but since i introduced the 12th archetype, "Cradle of Light", a few weeks ago, there's been a flurry of email and i think a bit of backstory is necessary...

initially "Cradle of Light" was a challenge for me to design because although i realize the scent of White Flowers is critically important to perfume, i've personally disliked most white floral bouquets i've previously encountered. some i thought merely unpleasant and some in fact made me quite ill.

creating this perfume became an exercise in blending the most exquisite real white floral absolutes: jasmines (5), jonquils, narcissus, white lotus & tuberose. I've come to learn over the years that synthetic versions of these flowers often bear little resemblance to their natural counterparts and can't beging to match their resounding glory.

And it was tricky working with these absolutes. not only do they need to be carefully prepared before they can be used but most of them are astronomically expensive as well - hence the significantly higher price of "Cradle of Light". the jasmines i've chosen cost $2000 - $5000 per kilo and the jonquils run more than that. one of the perfume's rarest ingredients, narcissus, recently hit more than $17,000...

"Cradle of Light" is a classic composition made in the traditional way using only the very best materials. Althought it must be a modern scent, it harkens back to what perfume was before the Age of Aromachemicals - truly magical and ever changing.

though one of the most complex ready-to-wear perfumes i've done to date (several of its individual ingredients have a great many ingredients themselves) the overall scent is clearly of beautiful white flowers. but i can't think of "Cradle of Light" as a "pretty" perfume. i am not interested in "pretty" - only in that which is beautiful. "pretty" may well delight the senses but only beauty can stir the heart.

when i first began working on the Archetype collection many years ago, i chose rather frank names for each scent. all had a number 1 - 12 and the names were straightforward: Fig Leaf was Fig Leaf and that was that. But as the 12th White Flower archetype evolved it demanded a more telling name and ultimately the perfume named itself. "Cradle of Light" is the synesthetic experience i have whenever i smell it or wear it. to experience this perfume is to enter a serene state of euphoria and find yourself wrapped in a glowing veil - i suppose that's what Nirvana is truly about and why this scent is the last in the series. it steps into the beyond.

and i'm most delighted that the perfume reveals its name and nature to others. i recently got a letter from a new client who, when first wearing it, told me,

"it IS light and it emanates from a place of subtle grounding darkness which remains visible, even in the soaring luminosity, so that we do not lose our balance or ourselves."

one of my favorite authors, Robertson Davies, often wrote of the subconscious creative matrix - he called it "the realm of the mothers". works of art truly inspired by that imaginative realm often have an undeniably profound quality - though the artist creates them, they live a life of their own. my inspiration for the archetype collection was to draw from that deep lake and to explore what i found there. i feel with "Cradle of Light" i've found something wonderful. though i certainly created the perfume myself, it seems to exist in a world of its own - a shining place that has always been and will always be.

that's the magic of perfume...