Irises Revealed!

A year ago, I bought two large buckets of irises for a dollar. It was a blind buy: I was hoping for purple and strongly scented blooms. After a long wait, my flowers have been revealed:

Bearded Iris, either Perfection (1880) or Amas (1885),  Fragrant grape-like sweetness

Bearded Iris, Unknown Wine Coloured, Meduim-Short, Citrus/honeyed floral scented

I am so pleased. I can’t believe my luck in getting two different scented bearded irises. How lucky would I have to be to adopt a black or blue tall bearded next?

50 x 2 Review: Lush’s Dirty and The Breath of God

I am reviewing these together, as I am convinced they need to switch names! God’s breath should smell of rain on stones and oakmoss, and dirt smells of cedar and dry resins, right?

This smells to me like a freshly bathed child before bed: faintly minty, human, and mineral-clean.  The mint is more natural and herbal, leaning to lavender, than toothpaste. It is nearly perfect as a scent, if a bit unusual as a perfume. The oakmoss is very present and divine in its most rain-on-stone form.

Listed Notes: lavender, neroli, sandalwood, oak moss, tarragon, thyme and mint
Sillage and Longevity: Quiet due to solid perfume, Excellent
Wearability: Would wear everyday.

This was breathtakingly unusual, but fully of a persistent organic dryness from cedarwood, ritual incense and mineral soil. I find Atlas cedar very dry, with some of the musty-rich notes of yellow cedar. The incense was photo realistic temple incense, and completely without sweetness. Unapologetically of the earth.

Listed Notes: neroli, sandalwood, virginia cedar, incense, amalfi lemon, melon, rose, ylang-ylang, vetiver, grapefruit, black pepper and juniper. (All those fruit and flowers? wut?)
Sillage and Longevity: louder than many solid perfumes, OK
Wearability: Very dry and real-wood laden. A bit challenging but refreshing

Atelier Cologne Sample Whimsically Ranked and an Analysis of Notes

A few weeks ago, I got the complete Atelier Cologne sample pack. It was beautifully packaged, and contained very generous 2ml samples.I was intending to draw out my testing and review them all, but I was far too excited to wait! There were some fabulous surprises I never would have selected if I had not done the full set. I am going to really delve into the ones that liked, and maybe review later.

I have also found that wearing samples I didn’t pick has really helped solidify my understanding of my palette.  I thought of myself as a cool green person, but the warm amber bases are lighting my fire.

Here they are, by my whim, from most to least loved as of 10pm on a Sunday. Ask me tomorrow and I might have a whole other order:

1. Blanche Immortelle
2. Rose Anonyme
3. Gold Leather
4. Santal Carmin
5. Mistral Patchoulie
6. Vanille Insensée
7. Ambre Nue
8. Orange Sanguine
9. Mandarine Glacial
10. Rendezvous
11. Trèfle Pur
12. Pomelo Paradis
13. Cédrat Enivrant
14. Silver Iris
15. Grand Neroli
16. Sous le Toit de Paris
17. Magnolia Sud
18. Cèdre Atlas
19. Vetiver Fatal
20. Bois Blond
21. Figuire Ardent
22. Oolang Infini

Unexpected love: Amber Nue
Strong Mixed emotions: Silver Iris, Pomelo Paradis
My Most Loved Notes: labdanum (AN), sandalwood, spice, immortelle, cassis (SI), anise, vetiver (MG/SC), vanilla
Awesome Openers: All the citruses! The oranges were so edible! Unusally for me, I found most of the samples had great openings notes.
My Least loved notes: iso-super-e effect, the cool manmade ‘fig’ scents (stenone?), white musk (these are so overwhleming to be I might be hyper sensitive, as my perception really didn’t match other reviews.)
Curious Absence of: My good pal galbanum,  jasmine

Serge Lutens: Sa Majesté la Rose

Sa Majesté la Rose smells of decadent naturals from bright galbanum and Turkish rose start to  warm spiced end. She’s not a single rose, but the journey from the verdant rose garden, to the vase in the honeyed kitchen, and finally the deep dried rose in a faint spicy attar. Exquisite, interesting, and alive.

Gender: Perfectly fitted skinny jeans and a scarlet silk blouse
Listed Notes: rose, gaiac wood, clove, honey, musk
Sillage and Longevity: moderately big and very very long lasting.
Rose Reference: Valentines day at the florist (I was once a florist’s assistant. I de-thorned 1000 roses one V-day! Don’t dethorn your roses. )
Verisimilitude: 9/10

50 Word Review: Serge Lutens Gris Clair

Gris Clair starts with the grey of the sky before a cool spring sunrise, bright with pure herbal lavender and sharp green galbanum. The powerful realist lavender slowly softens and warms into a lightly hay-sweetened spicy incense. The dry down is sex in the daytime: clean, warm, and inviting with hints of tonka sweetness.

Gender: A white crew neck t-shirt, worn once under a chambray button-down and hung neatly over an oak chair
Listed Notes: Lavender, incense, freedom
Sillage and longevity: personal but present; 8-12 hours, the lavender ends long before the spice and tonka
Worth it: yes.

50 Word Review: Atelier Cologne’s Santal Carmin

This is an ode to distinctive maple-cream New Caladonian sandalwood sharpened up with, to my nose, Haitian vetiver and cedarwood. The opening limette-tinged sugar rush fades to a luxurious maple warmth sparkling with woody notes. Dry-down is rich sandalwood heaven , sweet and close to the skin.

Gender:  A hand-tailored cashmere suit jacket in the library, red silk handkerchief
Listed Notes: bergamot, limette, saffron, sandalwood (New Caledonia), gaiac, white musc, papyrus, cedarwood (Texas), vanilla
Sillage and longevity: Moderate fading to professional; eternal (at least 24 hours on my skin, weeks on clothing)
Packaging and design: The gold bottle is gorgeous and decadent, if a bit ridiculous. While I find Atelier’s label design a bit meh, the leather sleeve and engraving font are modern and elegant. The travel bottle has a nice geometry.

50 Word Review: Guerlain Aqua Allegoria Herba Fresca

Herba Fresca promises all of my most precious summer memories with a kiss of lemon, and delivers them in a dewy bundle. A  faint but clear detergent note disrupts the reverie. Mint, familiar cut greens (chicory? alfalfa?), and newly blossomed lily of the valley turn from a crisp dream into a spring day’s drying rack full of clean white dishes. At the sixth hour, I need to rinse them.

Gender: Rolled up shirtsleeves
Listed Notes: Clover, lemon, mint, green tea, lily of the valley, cyclamen, pear flower
Sillage and longevity: Quiet, 15 minutes of green and hours of soap
Deadringers: A bag of groceries from the farmers’ market, natural dish soaps

Readings: Antifungal Properties of Essentials Oils

This isn’t me doing science, as I am not a scientist.  At least, not this kind of scientist. I can, however, read research and data, and I am very curious about scientific research versus folk knowledge. I have a lot of respect for folk knowledge, but many people saying an oil cures cancers or herpes doesn’t mean it is so. Sometime a good double blind study is in order.

I am interested in safer biological fungicides for use in a variety of balms and creams, notable those used on feet. Socks in work boots create a warm wet environment highly conducive to fungal growth. I think you know what I mean, so I won’t go into great detail. While fungus is indeed natural, and the source of my blog name, fungus growth often occurs because we humans are so good at isolating heat and moisture. Ironically, the ability to seal a vessel, building, garment, or footwear contributes to the likelihood it will grow some nice molds.

Ingredients List: Orris Root (Nice Things are Really Nice)

Sometimes ‘Fancy’ things are a little nicer than regular things. Sometimes they are a little too rich or obtuse to take in. Now and then, they are really really nice. Orris root is one of the latter.

Orris root butter is extracted from the aged roots of sweet irises, primarily Iris Palladia. While some sources say that orris smells nothing like the iris flower, I have to disagree. Irises, like many highly cultivated flowers, come in a fairly wide range of scents. The most common scented irises are very floral-grape Popsicle. The pale blue/lavender irises of my mothers garden long ago, I swear, were the icy-cool wood violet scent of skin-warmed orris root.

Orris root is more than a violet smell-alike.  It is icy, still, calm, and utterly ethereal. White most fragrances reference the garden on the sunniest days, orris is the perfect moment when clouds cover the sky on a fresh spring day.

Orris was cultivated in medieval Italy. It is referenced as an agent used to make ‘sweet clothes’ by boiling one’s underwear with orris roots. This must have smelled amazing.

Orris was also a major ingredient in cosmetics, as it retains moisture. For people of an older, or classier, generation, orris would have been a ‘makeup’ scent.

Of all the classic perfumery ingredients, orris and sandalwood wrestle as my favorites. The butter is damned expensive, thought. I think I’ll try to keep it as a major note in a single perfume to highlight its beauty rather than spread it through everything. Specifically, the coolness reminds me of a library or archive. I am going to experiment with pairing it with Virginia cedarwood (Ticonderoga pencils) and a tea note  for a quiet scent.

Or maybe I’ll go nuts and make a flower extravaganza. Either way, I am wearing an unmixed dilution to bed tonight after writing this (made with a wee dusting on the tip of a needle and a drop of oil!)

Chantrelles, Osmanthus, and Other Olfactory Twins

Mushroom picking, more than any other foraging, is serious business. Before putting anything in one’s mouth, or doing any collection for eating, a picker learns each mushroom one at a time. What do the gills look like? how do they join the stem? What is the colour range? Is there a distinct gill print? How do look alike species differ? Is there anything else remarkable about the species? When the mushroom is learned, a picker often develops a shorthand crosscheck to ‘proof’ a species. Hedgehog mushrooms, for instance, have distinctive icicle shaped gills.  Chicken-of-the-Woods only grow on dead wood. I have picked a good number of mushrooms, but my favorite has always been the golden chanterelle.  While it is a distinctive species, I am a cautious picker. My two checks are gills connected to stem and scent. If the scent is not there, I don’t eat the mushrooms. After picking, the scent does fade, to it also becomes a good means of checking age in store bought mushrooms. When I learned how to pick, the telltale scent of chanterelles was described to me as sweet apricots  or floral apricots. Neither was quite accurate, as the scent was fruity yet lacked a sugar backing. The instant I smelled a pure osmanthus absolute, I had a new referent. Chanterelle mushrooms smell like osmanthus extract. And it is one of the most beautiful scents in the world.

Ornamental Cherry Blossoms Begin!

This tree is right outside my window. I took advantage of this unexpected less-than-cloudy break to get a photo. In a few days, these will be full force. For those of you from elsewhere, Vancouver has blocks and blocks lined with these trees. It’s amazing.

It’s Raining Again

Yes, that is my yard. I live in a wet wet place. Big pink ornamental cherry blossom bloom all over East Vancouver is 2-4 days off and the forecast is nothing but rain. I’m more distressed about this than the obvious upset of my outdoor Easter egg hunt plan for tomorrow.

Observations: The Five Best Scents of the Week

I love lists. It think this has to do with my lack of love for creative writing. Lists write themselves, which is really what I want. This first list is the five best scents of the week. I could do this all spring and early summer, as the West Coast really does smell amazing when it’s not raining.

1) Joss sticks and plum blossoms at Forest Lawn Cemetery in Burnaby

Many of North Burnaby’s Asian and Greek Orthodox residents visit the graves of their ancestors and loved ones on Sunday. They burn joss stick, paper offerings, and leave flowers. The lerge cemetery, where my grandparents rest, is full of willows and blossoming plum trees.

2) Hot, dying daffodils on my table

No really- the heat and the slight decay make them smell almost edible, like something I would want to bake into a cake.

3) Bee Balm (bergamot mint)  new growth at my garden

Bee balm is  one of my favorite herbs to crush between my fingers. It smells so beautiful and bright. The new grow is especially pungent. This year’s shoots are coming up rosy and violet right now, and will turn green in a month.

4) Scented violets in our lawn

Most of the violets in our lawn are unscented, but over near the old water access point I found a patch of scented ones. They are like little purple candies hidden in the grass. I fear they are not long for this world, as our landlord loves to mow.

5) Giant magnolia Petals all over the sidewalk on upper Victoria drive

Otherworldly large and delicately scented petals coat sections of sidewalks all through Southeast Vancouver

Ingredients List: Vetiver

Vetiver is among my prime examples of an odd and wonderful scent one might reject at first brush and whose descriptions do it no justice. Give it one sniff and it is weird, smokey, and damp. Give it five minutes and it is absolutely gorgeous. It is a root extract from a tropical grass, and maintains that fragrant earth note. Although the earthiness and vegetative notes are ever present, Vetiver has a number of  distinctive regional scents, with Haitian being the brightest and Indian the smokiest.

 

If I were to describe or compare, I would say something between sphagnum, sweetgrass, grass in a fire, and good cold  patchouli.

If you’ve never burned grass, I highly recommend it. If you’ve nevered burned sweetgrass, you have my condolences.

Outside of its oil, vetiver is an amazing plant. It has a massive root system and very rapid growth, making it ideal for erosion control. The hybrid pictured beside doesn’t spread laterally or by seed, making it easier to contain the spread of the plant.

It is non-toxic to livestock and humans, making it safe to use in traditional agricultural areas. This is important as many areas in developing tropical nations are in need of cheap, fast, and lasting erosion erosion control.

Vetiver isn’t the perfect plant, but it may come close.

 

Ingredients List: Rose Otto

Turkish winter rose, Cappadocia. Jenn Laing 2012.

I’ve always had a thing for wild roses. I was born in June and was told very early on that they were my flower. I took that to heart and made them so. As a child, I would eat handfuls of petal to absorb their lovely powers. Still today, I find it hard not to nibble or pluck a few when wild roses are plentiful.

Rose otto smells exactly like pink, red and wild roses taste. Green, sharp, Clear, bright, and crisply floral. There is little honey or creme: this is a champagne sweetness. There is also nothing powdery or pollinate about most Turkish Rose otto, just brightness and the taste of flowers.

Blending notes: green, pink, and bright. Low to medium endurance. Low sweetness. Drys down to an almost resinous glowing spice rose.

Ingredients list: Sandalwood

“Sandalwood perfumes even the axe that hurls it down! The more we rub sandalwood against a stone, the more its fragrance spreads. Burn it, and it wafts its glory through the entire neighbourhood. Such is the enchanting beauty of forgiveness in life.”- Chinmayananda Saraswati

Good sandalwood is one of the best smells ever. It is glowing, soft, warm, deep, sweet, and enduring. It clings to florals and makes them balm-like and sun drenched. I didn’t know that about sandalwood until recently, because like amber and patchouli, I associated it with both harsh woody oils sold in new age shops and dollar store incense.  True sandalwood is elegant and doesn’t have a harsh note or edge in it.

Apparently there are a few species which contain the key fragrant chemicals that give sandalwood its scent. The best known sandalwood, Santalum album, is a small tree from India which has been mismanaged and over-harvested to the point of near extinction in the wild.  It is now heavily cultivated, with some co-operative and fair trade options. Two Hawaiian Sandalwoods, Santalum ellipticum and Santalum freycinetianum, share the same story.

So what to do? The best, most special and tenacious ingredient that makes all other ingredients awesome comes from endangered species. I am of the opinion that buying sustainably cultivated sandalwood with a clear lineage is still sustainable. Australia manages its industry carefully, and so for now that’s what I’ll try.

Observation: Warm Wet Soil

Last night I prepped soil plugs for starting kale and beans. To soak the potting soil, which had been sitting open on the porch for a while, I poured hot water over the plugs. The scent was massive, deep and powerful. Like a face full of sweet, rich earth short through with red cedar chips. It is something you could bury your fingers in, something you could sleep on.

I love spring.

Native Plants: Skunk Cabbage

Confession: I love skunk cabbage. You’ll never trust me again, will you, dear reader?  Skunk Cabbage is so much more beautiful than its name. A traditional famine food of usually well-provisioned coastal peoples, the heady and enormous yellow flowers are a feast of colour in early spring forest. It’s skunky, yes, but not in an animalistic way. It’s skunky like beautiful oil rich plants are skunky.  I associate it with spring and early summer, cool dark places, and red cedar forests.

Native Plants: Salmonberry (Flowering Stage)

Salmonberries are delicious herbal, delicate, and sweet caviar-like berries which appear in the early to mid summer all down the coast of BC. They can be juiced, jellied, tinctured, brewed, and baked, but all of that is for later.

Now, in early spring, we have the delicate crepe-paper flowers. These are some of the first hints of brightness in the bushes along trails and roadsides.

Scent Reflection: Spring in the City

It’s early spring in Vancouver, and that means a riot of every kind of blossom. Apple, cherry, Magnolia, and Plum. While some are softly scented, others are rich and creamy, like waking through pollen. Plum blossoms are almost fruity sweet. Apple, like the feral apple above, are delicate and ephemerally sweet with more pollen than anything. There is a vine-like bush with the best blossoms of all. I’m going to make a point of remembering where they are so I can ID it when the leaves come out. It is absolutely blossom heaven.

Most of all, I love the way the blossoms mix with wet moss, soil, and the fresh new greeness of the spring.