Nightshade

Heady and exotic

I love making perfume, it's something that brings me a lot of peace.  I experiment as much as I can with the natural essential oils that I have and every now and then I come across a blend which I think is successful.

Of course, it is all subjective, what is strange and compelling to me might be repellant to another, but I don't mind that.

When I put together the Nightshade blend, I knew instantly that this was one of the successful ones.  It smoothly combined a number of elements, elevated the scents I wanted to feature and produced an evocative perfume that I'm proud to have made.

Not for everyone, Nightshade is heady.  It's a late summer's night in Acapulco, a midnight tryst in a winter hothouse or it's the lingering memory of the first time you saw your love.  Nightshade is blended to highlight that most beautiful and exotic of scents, tuberose, with a supporting caste of cocoa and black pepper.  

Nightshade takes its place with One Fine Summer and Sleepy Lagoon in the current range of Shanghai Lil & The Scarlet Fez's all-natural, vegan eau de parfums.  

Nightshade

A new perfume by Shanghai Lil & The Scarlet Fez

I am pleased to release a new fragrance, Nightshade, which will debut at That Dapper Market this coming Saturday.  Nightshade is a beautifully rich and mysterious blend of essential oils, absolutes and resins but the shining stars in this all-natural, vegan fragrance are cocoa and tuberose.  It is heady and would be described as an 'oriental' with a fine sillage and good staying power.  Just in time for winter.

It is always difficult to describe a fragrance, but I can tell you my thoughts on this one.   The floral notes are intense and suggest hot-house rather than meadow.  It is tropical, but out of season, like an orchid delivered in a white box full of tissue in the dead of winter.  It is other-worldly - a visitor from far away, sophisticated and alluring.  The cocoa and the resins underlying the floral notes bring warmth and softness, which is the reason why I think Nightshade is more of a cooler season fragrance than one for a summer release.

Come and sample Nightshade at That Dapper Market and say hello!

Immortal Violet

Creating a new scent

I am currently formulating a new scent based on violet leaf essential oil.  This has proved quite a challenge for me.  I love the scent of violets; the flower and the leaves, and I wanted to capture something of the violet's complex green, earthy and sweet nature.

Starting with a resin base, to anchor the florals, I chose to include helichrysum (immortelle) in the base, as I am mildly obsessed with this scent at the moment. Of course, I added violet leaf and a touch of rose.  I wanted to ground the sweetness of the violet with a smokiness, reminiscent of the autumn air early in the morning, so I added a touch of cade.  The blend is heady, but I think it may prove to be successful once it has matured for a couple of weeks.  I'll see...

The New Melancholy

Autumn, Aspire and Annuals

I know it is stating the obvious, but autumn is here.  It seems to be a bit early, the leaves are well under way to their new colours, there are dahlias out, it smells smokey at night, it's cooler and now, daylight savings is over.  As much as I really don't like (I'm being mild here) the very hot weather, it is sad to see the summer go.  Sad in a melancholy way.  

But I love the small rituals of a change of season.  The decision to pack away the linen and pastel coloured argyle socks, switching from rose scented tea to chai, dusting off the Balmoral boots, raking leaves, ordering violets and looking through bulb catalogues, moving from citrus and herbal scents to woods and resins.   They are small and personal things - I'm certainly not a 'no white shoes after labor day' type of person - but each one is a rediscovery of things forgotten (if only for 6 months), and an anticipation of cool days ahead, rugged up and cosy.

Here's a flower.  A dahlia from our garden, no less, and I see we aren't the only ones keen to have a piece of this:

I was very proud during the week to have picked up a copy of Aspire Magazine, a free publication circulated at various venues around Adelaide, because I am in it!   Well, it wasn't about me in my gracious living room (a la "Hello" magazine), but there was a small article about Shanghai Lil & The Scarlet Fez soaps!  I was very happy about it and I'm chuffed to be in this new, very smart, magazine.   Here's the article, but I recommend reading the whole magazine, of course!

And finally, I am at the Wattle Street market in Fullarton on 12 April 2014, and Pop up at Prospect (Prospect Road) on 26 April 2014.   Come by and say hello and smell the soaps, bath salts, room sprays and perfumes I have on offer!

Vintage Perfume Ingredient Catalogue

Junk shop find

(Extracts from 'Perfumes', a catalogue published by the Societe Chimique des Usines du Rhone, probably in the early 1920s.  From my private collection.)
 
I love reading the 'Perfumes' catalogue.   It contains a descriptive list of a wide range of synthetic perfumes, their benefits over natural essential oils (usually cost and potency), a few recipes for perfumes and a series of photographs of the factories that produced the chemicals.   It's full of possibilities!

I've been thinking for some time about making my own perfumes.   I am ambivalent about synthetic perfumes like the ones listed in the catalogue.  On the one hand, I would prefer to avoid the use of synthetic chemicals as I generally prefer keeping things as natural as possible.  I certainly stick to natural ingredients in the soaps I make. But I'm also aware of the advantages of using alternatives to natural products, particularly where there might be a dwindling or limited supply (like rosewood essential oil). 

I've tried researching various essential oils to check whether the production of the oils are in any way  detrimental to either the environment or the people who live near the resource.  The more expensive oils seem to be obtained from specifically grown crops.  Otherwise, it might be wise if I'm concerned about a particular oil to at least try to source an organic version, or one that is locally produced.

In any event, I still find the catalogue inspiring; it's like looking in a well illustrated cook book that makes you rush out and buy far too many vegetables.  And here's something else I find inspiring - a Holga pic of begonias in glorious late summer colours:

 

As a second thought, below is an extract from 'Perfume' of a perfume recipe for 'Bouquet of Moss Rose':

Firstly, you need to make 'rose spirit' as follows;

"Grain spirit of 94% strength without odour or flavour is reduced to 70% strength by adding Rose water, and then dissolving Rhodinol in this alcohol in the following proportions:

Rhodinol I   20gr

Alcohol 70% 1 litre."

This is the 'rose spirit'.  So, the recipe is:

"Rose Spirit.....................660cc
Extract of Orange flowers....240cc
Tincture of Ambergris........30cc
Tincture of Musk..............25cc
Tincture of Vanilla.............45cc

These ingredients are mixed, shaken and left for 15 days in a well closed bottle at a temperature of 25 degrees to 30 degrees C; it is then allowed to cool, filtered and put into bottles for sale."

I am pleased to say that Shanghai Lil and The Scarlet Fez perfumes will be all-natural and vegan!

A Glorious Day

Guess what I'm doing?

Well, I'm doing a few things, but this is one of them:

 

Otherwise, on this wonderfully sunny and springy public holiday, I'm making a new soap, a new perfume and listening to bossa nova while catching up with some reading.  Perfect, yes?!  I hope your day is as relaxing!

A Side Project - Perfume

When making cold process soap, there are some essential oils that just won't work.  They either disappear and you can't smell them at all, they do strange curdly things to the soap or they just cost a million dollars to use.  Experimenting with soap has led to a collection of essential oils that I know I won't use in soapmaking.  

So, I thought about making a perfume.  I respect the perfumer's art and so I knew that it would be no easy task creating something that might be wearable.  I have, in fact, created some horrors.  It can be very dispiriting to use your precious essential oils on a batch of perfume that, no matter how much you believe it should be otherwise, just smells like fermenting fruit. 

But I have had some luck.  I have made a wonderful uplifting floral, very simple but, I think, wearable.  Tenacity (the lack of) is probably an issue with natural perfumes, but frankly, I think the issue really is the tenacity (the abundance of) in commercial perfumes.  Some people wear perfume in a manner that reminds me of those young kids who drive through the city with their music doof doofing.  But, each to their own.

It is also nice to have simple combinations, like bay and lemongrass, made into a light spritz.  It's not heady, it doesn't invade the environment around you, and it's a refreshing pick-me-up.  So, I'm happy with some of my creations so far.

Last week, I made a batch in which I wanted to feature violet leaf oil.  I started with a spicy warm base, added the violet leaf and a couple of other florals, including honeysuckle.  I added carrot seed oil to bring it down to earth a bit and finished with clementine.  Perhaps I overdid the carrot seed oil - it's a lot stronger than I gave it credit for, but I'm ok with that.  

Trying it out now, it is, as you might expect, a spicy floral.  It's very boozy at the moment, but time will settle that.  What I find surprising is how long the floral notes stick around.  I think I have a base that has worked well and has anchored the florals.  I think I need to work on the top notes.   I thought top notes would be easy - they're all the fun oils, the citrus and herbs that are so uplifting but don't hang around for long.  But, as I said before, it's hard to avoid the fermenting fruit thing.  Ugh. 

I don't know where this will take me.  I enjoy the process and I enjoy giving away my experiments, which, I'll have you know, have so far been received well!  It did cross my mind that I'm the equivalent of the relative who gives giant macrame owl wall hangings to you for Christmas, but I feel safe that my selected recipients wouldn't let me get away with that!