King of Perfume

A fun Twitter marketing scheme by Aqua Design Group caught my attention yesterday: the general idea is each week the twitter community are given 12 hours to self nominate for "King of" or "Queen of" their industry - those selected are announced as winners at the end of the period.  As it happened when I spotted it I was just in the process of preparing for the launch of two new fragrances in the 1953 range by Pell Wall , which are based on coronation oil.  That evidently struck a chord and I won!  So now I'm officially:

The above badge is an original design by Aqua for the purpose too: how cool is that?  So if you think you're King of your business, look up #KingOf on Twitter and join in.

Green Carnation by Pell Wall

Green Carnation

                        Eau de Parfum

Green Carnation by Pell Wall

Top-notes of cut grass, green mandarin and clove are fresh and clean.

 Quickly followed by a soft, powdery carnation scent with green notes of galbanum. 

The base notes are a very complex amber and floral musk blend with olibanum and a prominent note of oakmoss.

Capturing the concept of the carnation more than imitating the scent it is immediately recognisable nevertheless.

A great fragrance to bring out the wit and bon vivant in you.

“The only way to deal with a temptation is to yeild to it”

                                         Oscar Wilde

If you have tried Green Carnation and would like to comment on it, please do so here. If not, why not buy some?

Orange Spice by Pell Wall

Orange Spice

This is a bright, clean, long-lasting fragrance suited to both men and women.  

It opens with the orangy-citrus you’d expect supported with precious neroli, mandarin and tangerine.  

At its heart are exotic spices, dark orange flower, petitgrain and a lasting fruity orange note.

The base notes are a sophisticated blend of ambergris, frankincense, sandalwood and vetiver with a subtle note of leathery castoreum bolstering the dry-down.


If you have tried Orange Spice and would like to comment on it, please do so here.  If not, why not buy some?

Haiku - a hypoallergenic fragrance by Pell Wall

Hypoallergenic Fragrances 

Some of the materials used in perfume can cause allergic or sensitising reactions in a small number of people. For those who suffer with such allergy wearing a perfume can be difficult, so I've set out to design perfumes with the minimum allergen content. It is of course impossible to be certain that any material will not cause a reaction in someone, but this is designed to give the minimum possible risk. 

Haiku by Pell Wall

Haiku 

My first hypoallergenic perfume is also an unusual and interesting scent. Rich with tropical fruit and precious woods it is as distinctive as it is useful. 

Haiku is designed to provide a light, fresh, clean and lasting, unisex scent with dominant fruity and woody notes and enough complexity to maintain interest without including ingredients liable to cause skin irritation even in those with very sensitive skins. 

A scent for those who usually can't wear cologne or perfume. 

If you have tried Haiku and would like to comment on it, please do so here. If not, why not buy some?

Perfume Making Evening in Shropshire

If you are in or near Shropshire in June, how do you fancy an evening of making your own perfume?  I'm running a gently educational, but mostly fun evening putting together your own fragrance on Tuesday 11^th June from 6pm.

At the Craft Café

2, Wellington Road,

Newport, Shropshire

With the Pell Wall Perfumer

Three and a half hours of tuition and practice plus you get to take home a bottle of perfume you have designed yourself.

£45 per person – price includes all the materials, an atomizer of your completed perfume and a glass of wine to enhance creativity.

Bring along a snack of your own to keep you going: it’s quite a long evening!

11^th June 2013

6pm to 9.30pm

Booking is essential: you can either buy your place here or book at the Craft Café in person.  If the event does not make the minimum numbers (4) or has to be cancelled for any other reason, you will get a full refund.

Ambergris substitutes - clarification of terms.

I've written already about natural ambergris (also called Ambra) and mentioned there that most perfumery uses synthetic substitutes.

Here I'm setting out some of those substitutes (mainly synthetic, but including some naturals) and trying to sort out some of the confusion resulting from the fact that there are so many different products with very similar names.


The ambreine produced from labdanum, also sometimes confusingly called Cistus oil, is a steam distilled product from Cistus ladaniferus.  I have been told by a leading producer of both labdanum absolute and cistus essential oil that the difference between the two products is as follows: Cistus oils are produced by steam distillation of the entire top-growth (twigs, leaves, stems and flowers) of the Cistus ladaniferus plant - a cistus absolute is sometimes also produced from the top-growth.  Labdanum products, by contrast,  are produced from a gum-resin found on the roots of the plant, which are first washed and then mechanically agitated to separate the gum from the rest of the roots, an essential oil, absolute and resinoid of labdanum are all produced from this gum-resin.

Ambrarome (from Synarome) and Ambrain (from IFF) are similarly extracted by proprietary processes from the labdanum resin (referred to as gum-labdanum sometimes though I think incorrectly - see details in this post for definitions). These are highly animalic in smell and designed as plant-based alternatives to the traditional animal components of perfumery.

Ambrox is a term usually used to mean Ambrox DL or one of it's synonyms: quite different from the labdanum based materials because it's a brand name for a single synthetic molecule (though a mixture of isomers) which replicates one of the components of natural ambergris.  The term ambrox is sometimes used to mean any of a range of similar products, in particular Ambroxan / Ambrofix / Orcanox that are brand names for chiral isomers [specifically (-)-Ambroxide], which though similar, are not quite the same. In my work I mainly use Ambrofix, which is made by Givaudan from a natural starting material, though I do use some of the others too.

Just to confuse matters further there is also Ambrein which is the waxy substance that is the majority component of natural ambergris, the breakdown products of which give the precious scented molecules of ambroxide and others that have been replicated by the various brand-named products above.  When pure, ambrein is odourless.  Bo Jensen provides a good description of what's going on (scroll down to the text just below the whale pictures).  I also use several of the other substitutes mentioned by Bo Jensen in his article for particular purposes.

Further confusion often arises between Ambergris (Ambra) products and Amber - a term that in perfumery is sometimes used to refer to a product made from the fossil amber by destructive distillation of the waste and low-grade amber left over form the jewellery trade.  This is described by Arctander as having a "smoky, tarlike, resinous" odour "with a distinct resemblance to the smell of tanned leather".  He mentions that there is also a rectified version of this oil, which has been steam distilled as well, but he says that this is "very little used in perfumery".

More often however amber refers to a blend of ingredients intended to give an warm scent reminiscent of both ambergris and the appearance of fossil amber (which in its raw state has virtually no odour).  Such blends normally include labdanum, vanilla, benzoin and other ingredients; are are often used as fixatives.  Some of the products named in the first paragraph fall into this category, but many perfumery houses and others will have their own blend.

Home Fragrances by Pell Wall

Peaches & Cream

Room Spray and Reed Diffuser

Fine, fruity and luxuriously warm

The new home fragrance from Pell Wall, available in room spray and reed diffuser forms; this is a lovely fresh, fruity and exotic fragrance.  Dominated by peach there are elements of raspberry, mango and pineapple here too all backed up with creamy, warm and slightly spicy elements that will refresh and soothe.

In reed diffuser form it will provide a gentle, clear background scent for 2 months filling a large room with steady fragrance. As a room spray you can use it to cover malodours quickly and it will still be detectable hours later.

Woodsmoke

Room Spray*

Ruggedly unusual, perfect if you can’t have an open fire

A rich, sweet, smoky scent evoking the scented smoke of aromatic woods burning outdoors and drifting in through open windows on a summer’s evening.  The woody smoke note is dominant but there is a touch of incense and a fresh-air note in the background too that makes this fragrance surprisingly versatile.

If you have a smoker in the house or a smoking area just outside, this is ideal to cover the stale tobacco odour.

*also safe to spray on skin

Grapefruit & Cedarwood

Room Spray and Reed Diffuser

Fresh, sophisticated citrus and cedar

This is bright, refreshing scent with the sharpness of the grapefruit offset by the softness of cedar and a gentle ambered background.

Very sophisticated and luxurious it is ideal for hallways and main living areas of the house.

In reed diffuser form it’s an upmarket background scent that isn’t too forward. The room spray gives it a more immediate lift and can also be used to effectively cover off-odours whenever necessary.

Minted Mornings

Room Spray

Clean bright & minty with a fresh-air background

A classy room fragrance designed to freshen up in the morning, giving you a light minty-fresh lift at the start of the day.

When you return later in the day though, the mintiness might no-longer be desirable - fear not, it will have faded away leaving a soft, warm, mellow scent to welcome you home.

The top-notes include several varieties of mint, tea-tree and juniper to give you that bright start in the morning.

Hidden beneath these, waiting for later are frankincense, sandalwood and light musk.

KitchIncense

Room Spray

Sharp lemon & lime with lasting incense

Specially designed to cut through heavy cooking smells this is the perfect freshener to keep on hand in the kitchen to freshen up after a fishy fry-up or clean the air after a curry.

It’s made extra-strong and very sharp to give you an immediate effect but with a nice sophisticated incense note that lingers long after.

Lavender Garden

Room Spray and Reed Diffuser

Clean, calm, cool and collected 

A very fresh, soothing and pervasive scent, pefectly suited to bedrooms and bathrooms.

The scent features two varieties of lavender, thyme, rose, bergamot and a hint of vanilla.