Vert 12

No preambles… except to say welcome to the blog if you’ve only just got here. The plan is for this to be a space where I chronicle my attempts to make fine fragrances and to share my views on those made by others. To business…

Yesterday, I tried fiddling around with the green fragrance formula I created on Tuesday night (which is currently being called Vert, just for the sake of convenience, you understand). Tuesday’s effort – Vert 10 – ended up hissing a far a too strident violet leaf note about half-way through its development, so I tried a couple of things to rectify that. The new scent, Vert 12, certainly prevented the dominance of the violet leaf, but it wasn’t terribly green and it came across as far too coconut-y, which was no doubt caused by the inclusion of gamma-Nonalactone, although I was careful to add what I thought wasn’t an excessive amount of the stuff. We live and learn: clearly, even a minute dose of gamma-N can send your frag into the land of biscuit tins. Still, the reason I included it was because, on its own, somewhere on the edge of the coconut, it displays a certain green-ness. Maybe it does still have a place in Vert.

Of course, the other issue I’m battling with is that I’ve currently got only 27 ingredients at my disposal, which, when you consider that a professional perfumer has over 1000, is pretty pathetic. But then, obtaining more ingredients means spending more money, and I’ve got even less of that right now. Is it possible to make a green fragrance out of ingredients which were purchased mainly with the intention of making woody orientals? Probably not. But I’m going to keep trying.