Oakmoss

There are few ingredients that play a more important role in the history of perfumery than oakmoss. 

True oakmoss is a lichen that grows on oak trees. When it is extracted with a hydrocarbon solvent (usually petroleum ether or benzene) and the solvent evaporated off, there remains a concrete. When this concrete is extracted with alcohol and the alcohol evaporated off (preferably under vacuum) there remains the absolute. It’s hard to say that the absolute smells like moss (who knows what moss smells like?), but it does have a characteristic aroma that ends up being called “mossy” for lack of a better description. It is earthy and a little bit reminiscent of hay. It ranges from dark brown to dark green although decolorized versions are much lighter.

Oakmoss absolute is fundamental to chypre perfumes, which are based on oakmoss with jasmin and bergamot. It can also be added to any number of perfume creations, particularly fougères and “moss” perfumes to improve tenacity and add complexity. I also use it to add base notes to florals.

There is, however, one big problem. Oakmoss, in anything other than derisory concentrations, is forbidden by IFRA, the organization responsible for consumer safety in the European Union. Fortunately, rather than having to abandon such perfumes as chypres that rely on oakmoss, a number of manufacturers have come up with oakmoss versions with the offending toxin taken out. Because none of these (expensive) interpretations captures the total aroma and feeling of authentic oakmoss, I have combined them with each other and with some celery seed essential oil to round out their aroma and create the feeling of the authentic product. 

Now that I have a workable and legal oakmoss mixture, I’m going to set out to make a chypre and to experiment adding my oakmoss mixture to any number of perfume experiments. 

Dirt

Anyone who gardens is keenly aware of the smell of soil. And while it doesn’t occur to most of us to eat dirt, the smell is compelling and can be profoundly nostalgic.

As Swedish scientists have discovered, this strange and pheromonic scent, geosmin, comes about because of the interrelation of an insect (springtails) and bacteria. Apparently, humans are more sensitive to the smell of geosmin than sharks are to the smell of blood. It is said that one drop is enough to scent an Olympic-size swimming pool. It also turns out that the stuff is used in perfumes, provided it is used in strengths of the magnitude of .001%. That means my one milliliter purchase of geosmin 100% will make a thousand liters of tincture. I keep mind stronger—about .01%--so it maintains its strength when diluted with other ingredients.

I like to pair geosmin with other compounds that evoke water, air, or ozone.

Black Iris and the Odor Effects Diagram

While I admit to deep skepticism about this whole odor effects thing, as I’ve been experimenting, it seems to pan out.

I want to make Black Iris work in the same way as Coty’s Chypre. I don’t mean to make it smell the same, but I want it to be both sultry and exalting. Black Iris now includes floral aspects (narcotic) and woody/spicy notes (stimulating), creating tension as these two are directly opposed on the Odor Effects Diagram. It needs erogenic notes and anti-erogenic notes as well as notes that occur between poles, namely sultry and exalting fragrances.

To create the sultry effect, shown on the line between narcotic and erogenic, I added costausol, a substitute for costus root. Costus root smells like wet dogs and, while it doesn’t appeal to me, I appreciate how it provides a useful animalic note. It also has a peculiar root-like aspect that goes well with iris. Unfortunately, it’s banned in places, including the E.U. So, costausol, a costus-like synthetic, it is.

The costausol energized the perfume and gave it depth. I added a trace of coriander (stimulating) which stretched some of the iris character into the top notes. Iso-eugenol, which smells like cloves, also came to mind. I added a trace.

I added ambergris, which gives vibrancy and finesse and adds another erogenic note.

Thinking of an aldehyde to add sparkle, I referred to Poucher (in my new acquisition, the second edition (1925) of Perfumes Cosmetics & Soaps) who says that aldehyde C-10—which he lists as erogenous--is the best for iris compounds.

Components of Green Iris

Jellinek, lists few exalting substances, several aldehydes, two aroma chemicals, and three naturals. Given the paucity of such ingredients, the best approach is to build up the erogenic and spicy elements to create the exalting effect.

As progress has been made, I’ve changed from Black Iris to Green Iris because the character of the perfume is so bright and green. Here is the odor effects diagram with some of the ingredients used in Green Iris.

Black Iris V

While I want to remain true to iris and replicate its lovely rooty, earthy, and floral aroma, I haven’t just promised iris, I’ve promised black iris. Since few people know what iris roots smell like and far fewer, if any, know the aroma of black iris, I’m allowed a bit of fantasy.

Instead of getting the black and the iris to function together, I’ve decided to get them to present at different times during the dry-down. In other words, the perfume will start out like iris and get darker and blacker in tone as the iris fades and my faux natural musk moves to the forefront. The iris will go from purple to black. It worked as predicted, without the musk fixating the rest of the fragrance. The musk does persist, undetectable during the first whiffs of the iris, gradually revealing itself as time goes on. While the approach worked, I still wanted the iris aspects to last longer.

I may have made a helpful discovery. Older perfume formulas often call for concretes. A concrete is an extract, usually a solid, and an interim product when making an absolute. Typically, concretes contain large amounts of waxes and other high-boiling-point materials, so the obvious thing was to track down some iris concrete. Few people use concretes and they’re rarely sold. After my tiny sample of iris concrete arrived in the mail, I added some to the formula and it worked like a charm. The perfume smells great, projects reasonably well, and, most of all, lasts for hours on the skin. There is only one problem: iris concrete is expensive. Have I made the perfume exorbitant? Whether people will pay for this loveliness, I don’t know.

My next step is some number crunching.

Black Iris IV: Power and Presence

Sometimes, my experiments don’t project enough, or fade too soon, or don’t have enough power. I get discouraged, but my recent seminar with Andy Aftel has given me pause. For her, the sensual interplay of complex natural ingredients is more important than the ability of a perfume to fill a room. Her scents are discrete and may need close inspection to reveal their secrets, but they are no less beautiful, no less effective. 

There is a difference between “power” and “presence.” Mandy’s perfumes have psychological power. They have presence, nobility, and terroir.  

The other night, I showed my young friend, Ricky, the latest iterations of Black Iris. Ricky, in his mid twenties, has been gifted with an extraordinary nose. I had deconstructed the perfume into three test tubes, containing the perfume’s top, middle, and base accords. When we got to the base-note complex, Ricky yelled, “This is it!” I smelled the accord again and more carefully. The complex is almost of violets, except with orris’s ineffable depth, of roots, fungus, and loam. The perfume is discrete. It doesn’t project very far. It doesn’t last for many hours. But it has beauty and it has presence.

It is the orris I’ve been looking for.

What do I do now? Dare I release a perfume, an expensive one at that, that doesn’t hit you like a dose of Poison? I must ask myself whom is the scent is for? A cluster at a cocktail party? A lover? One’s self?

There is much left to be done. I must track the accord’s aroma during all phases of evaporation to be sure that at no point it smells weird or unpleasant. And, it must project and last at least somewhat.

Orris is a divine thing I have wanted to share with many people. Perhaps, though, this is not its nature. It may lie in a sphere of the ineffable, of the evanescent. After all, it is orris.

A Hiatus: perfumeexplorations.com

I took a hiatus of a few months to sit back, give my burnt-out nose a rest and regain objectivity. Going back to the perfumes after this break has given me new insights into what I have been up to.

Happily, six out of seven of my perfumes were just right: Musk, distinctly animalic, very strong; Sandalwood, fresh, with strong hints of vetiver; Oud, as oudy as ever with its undertones of rutting animals; and Amber, even more intense than I had remembered it. Green Iris is hard to resist—it makes you want to take a swig--but I made a few tweaks to increase longevity. Ambergris opens like an oyster, but after a minute, a deep marine aspect rises up from seaweed and oarweed absolutes. I’m still delighted with it.

Magnolia, while inviting, richly floral, and complex with a slight note of decay so typical of magnolia, had a problem. Fifteen minutes after putting it on, it became sickly sweet and started to cloy. It needs something bitter, austere and possibly marine. A stiff dose of cedramber and maybe some calone will hopefully do the trick. For the time being I’m no longer offering it.

As much as I continue to revel in BPC’s eaux fraîches, they cost too much to make. I have a small stock of each, but when that’s gone, that will be that. I used pure drinking alcohol when I could have used a cheaper version of ethanol. Vetiver Eau Fraîche contains nothing but ethyl alcohol and Ruh Khus, an Indian green vetiver that is now so expensive I can no longer afford to use it in any fragrance. Neroli Eau Fraîche is made with real neroli (at $450/ounce), distilled from orange blossoms, not what everyone else uses, petitgrain, made from branches.

I would be less than candid if I didn’t admit to being somewhat discouraged. The art is changing and many lovely substances that drew me into perfumery are now forbidden. The International Fragrance Association (IFRA) and the EU dictate what’s allowed and in what amounts. The restrictions have become so onerous that classic fundamental ingredients such as many essential oils and oakmoss are now no longer permitted. How does one make a chypre without oakmoss? Now, there is discussion of banning all essential oils, meaning that virtually all perfumes will be synthetic. Many synthetics are also now prohibited, including one of my favorites, nonadienol, which I used as a green note. Then there are those substances that, being precursors to various illegal drugs, are no longer sold. No more heliotropin (except at perfumeexplorations.com) or benzyl phenylacetate.

While I have no objection to synthetics per se, and, in fact, rely on them for many different functions, my emphasis is on naturals. I don’t want to be restricted to the few synthetics that are neither taboo nor “captive.” “Captives” are aromatic molecules patented by perfume houses and available only to them. It is not difficult to see how IFRA’s (draconian?) rules and the availability of captives to large industrial perfume manufacturers and not to the rest of us, tilts the equation away from small niche perfume companies who are more likely to rely on the forbidden products.

The most profound question I’ve asked myself is: What is perfume? A perfume is not simply a mixture of good-smelling substances, even if the combination smells absolutely lovely. Might not BPC’s “Perfumes” be perfumes? They certainly have many of the characteristics of perfume. They can excite a lover or bring a room to life; they contain musks (artificial ones), ambergris, rare floral absolutes, sandalwood and even oud; they have an identity all their own. And yet.

Perfumery has followed a distinct path and, like all the arts, has its own dialectic such that we see identifiable trends, traditions, and styles. It has context, evolved over more than a century. Whether BPC’s fragrances are perfumes, depends upon where you draw the line, but, in any case, they are outsider art. They don’t conform to the rules of a distinct tradition. People sometimes describe them as “outside the box.” I have a friend in Paris who wore Amber one evening and most everyone at the gathering asked what she was wearing that smelled so good. I asked her why she doesn’t wear it more often, but she was either being overly polite or unsure herself.

Virtually anyone who makes perfumes claims that their perfumes draw the opposite (or same) sex. Modesty aside, three of my perfumes really are pheromonic and aphrodisiacal in a way I only perceive in vintage perfumes made with natural musk and/or civet. Musk, Oud, and Amber are distinctly sexual. One influential critic said there were two aphrodisiacs in his life: the smell of his wife and BPC’s Oud. Once, when wearing Musk, I was asked if I were wearing some kind of “attractant.” There were other commentaries about Amber, one woman commenting “if someone smelled like that, I’d wrap my thighs around him so fast…”

What I have realized, and have stated elsewhere, that having had rather extravagant expectations, I have too much stuff. So, I’m having a house cleaning of sorts to offer various rarities including tinctures, aroma chemicals, essential oils, absolutes, ouds and books. The tinctures will allow people to work with real ambergris, civet and castoreum. The ouds are extraordinary and comprise many of the great classics from Ensar Oud. Many of the books are rare and difficult to find. And, of course, I’m offering my own perfumes from Brooklyn Perfume Company.

The site, perfumeexplorations.com, has also offered me the opportunity to share this blog, originally written for Brooklyn Perfume Company.

B.O.

Most of us assume that perfumes mask b.o. Anyone who has been trapped in a taxi, and breathed in the aromas from the rear-view mirror air freshener and those of sweat and cologne, may appreciate that eaux de cologne, unlike perfumes, are, in fact, designed to mask our odors rather than accentuate them.

While I wouldn’t want the cab driver’s scent to be magnified, there are times when we need such smells to be carefully introduced. What we usually call perfume—extraits, eaux de parfum, and eaux de toilette—contain much more than the fresh smelling and so-called anti-erogenic compounds in cologne. Remember the clock diagram? It has refreshing anti-erogenic odors at 12 o’clock; stimulating, often spicy, aromas at 3 o’clock; erogenic animal smells at 6 o’clock; and narcotic aromas, usually florals, at 9 o’clock. In the classic French tradition, examples of each of these should be included in a finished perfume.

            To put this all rather bluntly, we’re attracted to B.O. It is the various odors of the human body—usually when undetected—that are responsible for erotic stimulus.

            Classic perfumers, including my favorite perfume author Paul Jellinek, describe several kinds of erogenic smells. First, there are aromas (often aldehydes) that are reminiscent of sweat. Second, are smells released from the urogenital region and the anus (not a fecal smell, but of an almost-odorless lubricant), and third, is the smell of the scalp. These smells are usually evoked with animal ingredients such as ambergris, musk, castoreum and civet. Ideally a classic perfume should contain smells of the sweaty regions, the scalp, and the urinal/genital/anal nuances. All this stuff must, of course, be disguised

My Favorite Books VI

An Introduction to Perfumery dedicates an individual page to a wide selection of naturals and synthetics.

Each page starts with a measure of “Odor Intensity” which is on a scale of zero to six. In the center of the page is a big diagram of the molecule. To the right, is a column with a list of smells. At the top of this column is the “primary odor”, that which strikes us first, followed by “secondary odor.” Below that, we find the base notes. Last in this column, are “Odor Characteristics.” These are qualities, such as diffusiveness, that describe characteristics of the scent that aren’t smells in themselves.

Last is a list: First is “Appearance,” which describes the ingredient’s consistency, color, and clarity. “Storage” tells of precautions we must take such as using tightly-sealed lids or refrigeration; “Stability” tells us how the compound will hold up; “IFRA” lists any restrictions on use; “Applications” describes how the ingredient is used in compositions. This might include comments such as “used in fougères, in green perfumes”; “Occurrence” tells us where the compound is found in nature and where it is likely to be found in perfumes. What I find most exciting, is the small section, at the bottom, titled “Experiments.” Here we see suggestions for experiments we can perform to better familiarize ourselves with a substance, such as combining it with specific ingredients, combinations, and accords.

I’ve been using the book to help me with Black Iris. The big bummer is the IFRA section (I’ll go into this in a future post) which tells me I can only use oak moss at a .1% in the final fragrance. This is at most a tenth of what I typically use. Opoponax is also restricted to .6% in a final fragrance. This poses less of a problem, but I still need to watch it.

My Favorite Books V

First published in 1994, An Introduction to Perfumery by Tony Curtis and David Williams, is a perfumer’s classic. Much of the large volume (778 pages) is dedicated to the business of large perfume companies. This holds little interest for me since Brooklyn Perfume Company is hardly on that level. But there’s plenty of interesting other stuff.

The book starts with a section about the chemistry of fragrances. I find it helpful--I have a background in chemistry—and think anyone can figure it out. It helps olfactory memory because there are generic characteristics of such things as alcohols, aldehydes, esters, and ethers. One, first example, might recognize the fruitiness of an ester or the harshness of an aldehyde, important hints as to the compound at play.

The two most important chapters for the perfumer are Aroma Chemicals and Materials of Natural Origin. There’s a rather lengthy introduction to these sections that explains the abbreviations used to describe smell.

Another favorite are the lists of ingredients and how they function in a perfume. For example, the entry for Amylcinnamic aldehyde gives its odor strength on a scale of zero to six (it gets a two); shows an image of the molecule; lists its principle, secondary and background notes; describes its appearance; rates its stability; and shows where it occurs. Each entry discusses how and when the compound should be used.

What may be most useful for the conscientious beginner are the descriptions of experiments that can be performed with an aroma compound or natural. For example, under “Mimosa Absolute,” we find a suggestion for experimenting with equal parts Lyral and l-citronellol. Further projects are designed to train the nose of the beginning perfumer.

The authors also included a section of floral “bases,” which are lessons in themselves and provide starting points for other interpretations.

There follows a section, The Applications of Perfumes, that includes a section on emulsification—very useful if your scents contain water—and surfactants used to keep solutions clear. This whole section has been helpful for keeping BPC’s Eaux Fraîches, which contain water, from turning cloudy. The book also addresses skin-care products, lotions, creams and soaps.

Very soon, we’ll dig deeper into this fascinating tome.

My Favorite Books IV

Dr. Jellinek leads us into a description of 14 aroma chemicals. Some are less important than others—they are familiar compounds and have been much written about—but I did find a couple of interesting comments.

One entry is about l-citronellol. Citronellol is a classic ingredient in rose perfumes, but many perfumers don’t recognize the importance of l-citronellol versus d-citronellol. (These two are mirror images of each other; the first one rotates light to the left, the other, to the right.) Our doctor recommends using “cheap d-citronellol” to make soaps and for other utilitarian uses, but, l-citronellol, he considers “one of the most important components of natural rose perfumes.” For those who have worked with rhodinol, he insists that rhodinol isn’t a compound unto itself, but rather a combination of geraniol and l-citronellol.

Methyl anthranilate is a chemical that smells to me, exactly like Concord grapes, the kind used to make Welch’s grape juice. I sometimes use it in floral blends when I want a fruity note, but Jellinek mentions something new. He insists that methyl anthranilate, along with alcohols (which end in –ol) and esters (which end in –ate, -ite, or ‘-ide), is narcotic. But this is the line that caught my eye: “…a high indole content is always accompanied by a high content of methyl anthranilate.” So, of course, I had to try it out on Black Iris, which contains indole. First, I added too much, not realizing how strong it was, and the perfume smelled tutti fruiti. When I backed off a bit, I noticed the methyl anthranilate brought out the floral aspects of the perfume and gave them a slightly orange blossom quality; it seemed to make them more diffusive. I’m not including it, though, because I want to bring out the rooty aspects of Black Iris rather than the floral ones.

It’s something to think about. In a day or two, I’m talking about An Introduction to Perfumery by Tony Curtis and David Williams. It’s one of my favorites.