Saturday, July 31, 2010

Crazy Life

It's been a wild couple of weeks. Getting ready for the launch of our new brand Acousticjus, and finally deciding what to do for the Opening at Scentual Artistry this month. The opening last night was great. A little less foot traffic. Probably due to the recent heat and all the activities in the city. At one point I was sitting talking to Mr. Z and mentioned that I should have brought my guitar. He replied with you should bring your CD's down here and sell them. I then looked around the room. My art was on the walls, my perfumes on the counter, teas.... The only thing missing was the music and  two books of poetry. All of my life I have been making things. When I stop and look around it is overwhelming. I attribute it to an early time in my life when I was dubbed a Golden Child, with a high IQ, and put on the fast track to success. I was eleven or twelve. By fifteen I was a stick a fork in me I'm done, outta here, fed up mixed up forty year old in a teen's body. Anything they could throw at me they did, and for that short period, I had no control over anything. My parents were not equipped or prepared for any of it, so they tuned out and I was on my own. I have been on my own ever since. I never wanted for myself the things that others wanted for me. My brain is wired  in a way that allows me to create entirely in my head. Perfumes formulated down to the last drop. Recipes, poems, songs. By the time I get around to writing anything down, I have lived with it in my head for weeks, sometimes months and years. I do the same thing with science and math. Formulating theories and then trying to solidify them with the math. It's a lot of fun, and hopefully the kind of thing that stimulates my brain enough to ward of senility at some later date.
But anyway: Back to present day reality.  I was happy that so many people who came in last night had an interest in tea, and my tea display. I was able to debut my latest Soivohle Perfumed teas as well. They will be available on the website soon.
Now that I have lived with the space (Scentual Artistry) for awhile I am ready to make a few changes. Including expanding my blending station, and making it more of a focal point. For the next two or three months, instead of installations and displays I will focus specifically on the perfumes in the collections, and getting back to custom perfume work.
I am still waiting for the two Lizzy clones that I ordered. Hopefully they will arrive soon, and I can put them to work.
Today I  continue to work on Acousticjus, batching out Flamenco.  It's coming along nicely. We will launch with the Stellar Oil Parfum, Stellar Lips and Stellar Soaps. Everything heavily laden with music speak. Moving on.....

Sunday, July 25, 2010

Do The Right Thing

For the past few days I have been sitting at the computer typing ingredients labels for our new Acousticjus oil parfums. I had long ago made the decision to add more extensive ingredients lists to all of our perfumes, and decided to start with these and go on to our other brand Soivohle. As anyone who ever reads the label on a commercial bottle of perfume knows, there is usually a long list of ingredients listed. These are primarily ingredients deemed allergens etc. by the Perfume Industry Organization IFRA (International Fragrance Association). It is required that members of the IFRA comply with their guidelines, and are also adhered to by non-members with global distribution. The IFRA restrictions and guidelines on some (not all) ingredients used in perfume formulation are considered by many to be overly restrictive and sometimes biased against natural materials.  This alone is enough to give even the largest corporations headaches, as they are forever reformulating products to comply with the ever increasing restrictions and guidelines.
Now enter the Safe Cosmetics Act of 2010 H.R. 5786.  A new piece of legislation designed (in theory) to put the squeeze on cosmetics companies with even more regulations than are already in place.  But in fact if one reads the proposed bill, it is very clear that it will be the small natural products companies who will be put out of business. Legislation like this is not really geared towards fairness and common sense, or even good science, as I see no good science in anything that I read regarding this bill and others like it. The large chemical companies will survive this kind of legislation because they have the money to put enough loopholes in the final draft to protect themselves from any real harm. It is the small independent company doing the right thing, creating safe, often all natural and organic products who will suffer. Here we are in a time of great economic strife and legislators are proposing new regulations that will put thousands of honest hard working people out of  business. I think they should tell it like is is and rename it the.....
"Put small business' who make safe cosmetics out of business Act of 2010"
I don't think it matters much which side of the political fence we sit on these days. The Democrats want to over regulate everything and the Republicans want to throw all regulation out the window. Surely there is a place somewhere in the middle where common sense and solid data mean something.
But back to perfume: I am right on the edge of re-naming all of my products Altar Oils, Incense, and Linen Spray. Safe for use on skin but not recommended.  How sad is that. To be living in a world controlled by fear and mis-information. I understand that people want safe cosmetics and for the most part I think this is just what we have. As a small business owner who is creating just on the edge of this industry in perfumery, I can say with all honesty that my aim is to do the right thing. I am not out to harm folks or use materials that have legitimate claims against them.Yet at the same time I will not demonize a material or ingredient based on unsound or non-existent science.

So what are these folks going to do once they have successfully driven the safe cosmetics companies out of business. Who are they going after next. The organic farmers, the quilters, the bee keepers.

Now back to those labels............

Tuesday, July 20, 2010

Scented Chameleon

For the past few days I have been wearing I-C-U. One of the yet to be released oil parfums in the Acousticjus line. It is heavy on cigarette ash, tobacco notes black leather and a touch of sweat and earthiness. I love this sort of scent. It is my favorite kind next to stealthy green monsters.
When I woke up this a.m. I could still smell a faint whisper of the Tobacco note, Castoreum and Kephalis. The leathery notes, first phases of natural tobacco, the Choyas, Birch Tar and other natural elements had faded, but not entirely gone. There is something quite appealing to a mix like this, where heavy handed naturals, when paired with the slightest dilution of a synthetic aroma molecule (s), are able to hold their own, and bind together in a way that neither can achieve as a singular unit. The thinking (and practice) in mainstream perfuming is the total opposite. Naturals are not used so much as composing units, or for the unique and interesting things they bring to the table,  but rather as a fine tuning agent to shore up harsh synthetic compositions, round off the sharp edges or infuse a feeling of fullness, as with floral absolutes, natural woods, resins and balsams. It is much more rewarding (my opinion) to start with the natural palette.
But anyway, I have been wearing this sexy leathery parfum, and I feel a bit like bleaching my hair to a whitish platinum and buying a new pair of doc martins. My old docs have a busted sole, and my hair is.... Well I am over the hair thing. Back in March I cut my hair very short with the intention of letting it grow out. I wanted to see just how much gray hair I really have. Now that it has grown, and I have trimmed off all of the color on the tips, I am not so impressed, and at the same time am not sure which direction I want to go with color. My natural color is dark ash brown and I am not at all fond of colors with a red tinge. I have gone the red route before and It doesn't really work well with my skin color. So what to do. Blonde requires much more maintenance. Am I ready to be in the salon every three or four weeks getting a touch up. I don't know. I doubt it. And at the same time I do like the freedom of not having to do anything.  So I guess I could just get the new Docs, and wear a heavy layering of the leather parfum and call it a day. Whatever, I am sure something will come to me sooner or later.

Saturday, July 17, 2010

Thoughtful Perfuming

My original intention for this new line was two-fold. Create a non alcoholic brand of perfumes and related products, inspired in part by the perfumes I had created for young girls. And try to keep the budget down, so they would be affordable and accessible to more people. All through the process I thought about these two components. I also felt that it would be a disservice to dumb down the perfumes, regardless of the target audience, which to me is more about being young at heart, than a number or age bracket. I wore some pretty sophisticated perfumes when I was a girl, and  well into my twenties, and no doubt there are a lot of girls today with complex taste and style.  At one point I felt that I had too much cross over from what I intended for the luxe Soivohle oils, so I had to stay focused on my goal. It takes a lot more discipline to create from a brief, than it does to wing it or create from a purely personal aesthetic. I should have learned this from creating Bespoke Perfumes. But still there is something entirely different that happens when working with another person on a perfume project. Acousticjus is like my dream job, and being a pragmatic dreamer, I have upturned every stone to find the thing that makes it tick. I wish my aunt Dee were still alive, she would have loved this. Dee was what used to be known as an Old Maid, she never married, and only left home after my grandparents died. By that time she was seventy years old. She was quite intelligent, yet had a very child like way about her. She taught me to read and write long before I started going to school. By the time I was four or five, I knew how to bind, write and illustrate a story book, make jewelery out of acorns and sew dresses from maple leaves. It was a magical time, and hopefully through this new adventure that is Acousticjus, some of that original magic will shine through.

Thursday, July 1, 2010

Romancing The Brew

The artistry of scent, like all art  requires a bit of magic in the form of intangible mojo. Interjecting into the mix the emotions of desire, intention and sometimes a shameless lust to be, NOT the one outside the bottle, but the Jeanie in the bottle, the essence itself. I have been feeling that way a lot lately.
This week, as I have been on a little vacation with Mr Z being home, I am putting the finishing touches on NightJar, and Meerschaum. Nightjar is a summer floral built around a note of Mimosa Absolute, While Meerschaum is a Tobacco scent. Both are parfums for the Soivohle Naturals (soon to be renamed Signature) Collection.
 When I was a child we had a Mimosa tree in our front yard. Not the same Mimosa that the Absolute is made from, but rather the one that is covered with the big cotton candy pink blossoms in springtime. I spent a lot of time playing under that tree, and remember it well. I also remember well the sound of the Nightjar (Whippoorwill) singing its quirky evening tune. The thing that inspired me to create the scent Nightjar (aside from the Mimosa) was a strange two day event that happened about five years ago. Being in Ohio we do not have so many Nightjars, so when I heard a Whippoorwill singing one night, I went out to look for it. I imagine that I got pretty close, but never found exactly where it was. This happened two nights in a row, and then it was gone. I have continued to think about it often and eventually decided that I would dedicate a perfume to this mysterious bird that so briefly, yet profoundly crossed my path.
The Meerschaum, a tobacco scent is inspired by my Grandfathers harmonica box. Inside this beautiful wooden box he kept around five or six harmonicas, and one Meerschaum pipe. By the time I was born, my Grandpa had stopped smoking, and the pipe had been placed in permanent retirement.
For a Meerschaum the pipe was modest, with a few simple carvings. It had aged beautifully to a deep burnt sienna at the base that turned to a yellow ochre at the top of the bowl. I don't know what ever happened to the pipe. I have asked about it over the years, but no one seems to know where it went or who ended up with it.
Memories like this are the life blood of my art. Somewhat mysterious in nature. Somewhat unfinished, and hanging. Waiting for a bit of closure to round them out and send them on their way.
With scent being so closely connected to memory, it is the perfect vehicle for this kind of exploration. It is also one of the reasons why I love creating the olfactory art installations at Scentual Artistry. I can't count the times that one of the essences has put someone in touch with a memory.
Memories, the good and the bad, shape who we are, and scent is a big part of that. It is no different to me than the melody of a favorite tune or the familiar lines of a cherished poem.