Checking in

I’ve been too busy to work on gardenia for about a week, but I left off at an interesting point and just picked it up again tonight. I’m always amazed how much good it does to put something down for a week after intensely working on it for many days — it really wakes up your nose and helps you smell it fresh.

Over the weekend I tried the lavender formula in the new lotion; I’m hoping to put the lotion on the site this weekend. I also made some 5 ml tester sprays to have here, and I’m wondering if these black 5 ml purse sprays would be a good idea for the site during the holidays. Two fit perfectly in one of the black perfume boxes, so a set of two (in different scents) might make a nice option. I’ll post a photo of them soon and will ask for some opinions.

I thought this was an interesting post on achieving harmony in fragrance:

http://1000fragrances.blogspot.com/2009/09/sonata-form-and-art-of-fragrances.html

When people are new to fragrance, they need time to learn how notes evaporate and reveal the next layer underneath, and how each phase needs to harmonize as the scent evolves, and how the phases themselves need to form a cohesive picture.  I always hope people will give scents a little time to develop and not judge by the first 10 minutes.  I was helping someone just recently and was worried because she wanted to pick a scent just by sniffing them from the vials and they change too much after wearing them to make that an effective method.  This post by Octavian brings up some interesting things to consider about the way scents evolve as you wear them and how perfumers can achieve harmonious compositions.