aoife_mintin Learning to Smell · Cork ·
QuestionReading about Grasse for a college project and I'm lost. Rose absolute, jasmine concrete, essential oil: are they the same thing at different strengths, or made differently?
nell.wattle Okay, nerd moment: made differently. According to the Wikipedia page on absolutes , the plant is first extracted with a solvent, hexane, which gives…
hana.neroliin Citrus & Fresh · Vancouver ·
Discovery
Found a single yuzu at the Japanese grocery on my way home and carried it like an egg. The peel smells like grapefruit with mandarin on top, sharper and more floral than a lemon. My grandmother floated whole yuzu in her bath on the winter solstice, a custom…
joon.yuzu TL;DR: jealous. Yuzu is why my spreadsheet exists, and I've smelled the real fruit twice. That's my two cents.
pip.rhubarbin Florals & Bouquets · Wakefield ·
Exercise
Last rose in the school garden and a bottle of rose water from the corner shop, side by side on the staffroom table. The rose is sharp, nearly lemony. The water is sweeter and flatter, like jam that's been on the heat too long. The rose page says rose water…
mo_from_leicester The rose water on my shelf is the one everyone buys before Eid and weddings. Never once put it next to a real rose. Doing it tonight.
joon.yuzuin Learning to Smell · Seattle ·
Exercise
TL;DR: three peels, blind, and I only got the grapefruit right. Setup, if you want to copy it: - one yuzu from the Asian grocery, one lime, one grapefruit - my partner zested each into a ramekin and covered them with a paper towel - one sniff each, three…
orla.citrus Lime and lemon fool me every single time, so yuzu wouldn't stand a chance. Did the yuzu smell sweeter than the lime to you?
hamish_heatherin Giving Fragrance · Edinburgh ·
Snapshot
Aye, dreich afternoon and the shop quiet, so I've started wrapping the first presents early. Brown paper, string, old oak from the casks, and a wee bit of peat smoke on everything whether I like it or not.
joon.yuzuin Wearing Fragrance · Seattle ·
Reading
TL;DR: it's the molecules, not my skin. Read Wikipedia's page on top, middle and base notes last night. It ranks materials on an evaporation scale: 1 to 14 for top notes such as citrus and ginger, 61 to 100 for base notes. Base notes are usually noticed about…
jess.in.philly This is my clean-laundry musk exactly. I thought I was imagining it on my scarf the next day.
Class no. 14 · 6 min read
Perfume has changed form three times: oils and smoke for millennia, alcohol from the 14th century, lab-made molecules from the late 19th. Here you will learn to place each milestone, from Egyptian kyphi to the glove-perfumers of Grasse, with the source that dates it.
orla.citrusin Citrus & Fresh · Belfast ·
QuestionDabbed a strip with lemon extract from the baking cupboard this morning and by lunch it was gone. Why does lemon leave so fast?
joon.yuzu Lemon is all top note. Wikipedia's article on perfume notes puts citrus among the small, volatile molecules you smell first and lose first.
gus_saltmarshin Home Fragrance & Candles · Auckland ·
QuestionMates walk in and say the house smells of varnish and kauri gum. I smell nothing. I was away up north on a job and when I came back I got it for about a minute, then it was gone again. What's going on?
ingrid_berlin That has a name: olfactory fatigue, also called noseblindness . A smell you live with fades out, and the sensitivity comes back once you leave. Like…
priya.cardamomin Ambers, Spices & Gourmands · Toronto ·
Exercise
Thread of the week: cardamom, two ways. Most of us have pods and a jar of ground cardamom in the cupboard, and I'm not convinced they smell like the same spice. 1) Crack one green pod and tip the seeds onto a saucer. 2) Put a pinch of the ground stuff on a…
ravi.tea Did it before work. Fresh seeds: sharp, nearly minty. Ground: dusty and sweeter, like the bottom of the tin.
mags.lavenderin Welcome to the Club · Norwich ·
Memory
Morning all, A few of our new members have mentioned a grandparent, so here's a lovely gentle one for everybody. My nan's dressing table had a cut-glass bottle of something violet, a powder puff that left clouds everywhere and a little dish of lavender from…
rafa_azahar On my grandmother's table in Seville there was always a bottle of orange blossom water, for the cakes and for her hair.
first.sniffin Florals & Bouquets · Exeter ·
QuestionTotal beginner. I keep reading "indolic" about jasmine and other white flowers and I have no idea what it's supposed to smell like. Can anyone put it in normal words?
harriet.hay It's one of those words that gets used far more than it gets explained. The florals family page is a handy map while the words pile up.
harriet.hayin Florals & Bouquets · Bristol ·
ExerciseSomething for a wet weekend indoors. Find three florals in the kitchen cupboard: rose water, orange flower water (the baking sort) and a jasmine tea bag. Put a drop of each water on a strip of kitchen roll, open the tea bag onto a saucer, and ask someone to…
joon.yuzu Two out of three. I swapped the last two: - rose water: easy, jammy - orange flower water: I said jasmine, soap and honey - jasmine tea: I said…
Class no. 13 · 7 min read
Niche perfumery means fragrance houses that sell through selective channels to a narrower audience than the mass market: the word describes a way of selling, not a guarantee of quality. By the end of this Class you'll be able to tell niche, independent and auteur perfumery apart, and smell a fragrance without being carried away by its story.
priya.cardamomin Home Fragrance & Candles · Toronto ·
ChallengeThread of the week: your home in three smells, right now, wherever you're sitting. 1) No candles or sprays, only what's already there. 2) One smell from the kitchen, one from the room you're in, one you only notice when you come in from outside. 3) Your own…
dex_in_brooklyn fryer oil in my hair, garlic skins in the trash, radiator hissing like a steam table. you're going to say that's three kitchens.
priya.cardamomin Learning to Smell · Toronto ·
ExerciseThread of the week: which note leaves first? Jess asked this when she joined, so let's watch it happen instead of just reading about it. 1) Put the same scent on two paper strips, or a drop of something from the kitchen if you'd rather. 2) Smell them right…
jess.in.philly Laundry musk reporting in. The citrusy sparkle at the top was gone before my lunch break, and the musk was still on the strip when I went to bed.
carys.cardiffin Everyday Smells · Cardiff ·
Memory
The heating came on in the library and the old stacks woke up. Warm dust, a sweetish note, something like almonds and toast. Every autumn it takes me straight back to my first day as a volunteer there.
kit.clove Paste, old leather and paper dust is my whole working day. The sweet note is my favourite part.
sinead.smokein Wearing Fragrance · Limerick ·
Question
I wear a birch tar and leather scent behind the bar most nights. A regular who loves his whiskey says it gets in the way when he's nosing a glass. Fair point, or is he being precious?
hamish_heather Fair point. In the shop we wear nothing at all, folk come in to nose and a wee bit of birch on the staff would muddle every dram.