the first morning hour is usually mine. The earlier the more it is mine, and the better: in the morning I write the posts of the day and come up with weird thoughts. And get used to the idea that another day waits with e-mails, although I spenTd an evening answering so many of them.
It is an endless flow of communication that has something very comforting.
It is in the morning that I use photoshop and draw its and bits. This morning, I was putting the sketch of yesterday into a more readable form.
Sketch of the eau d'épices structure.
The sketch looks like that.
This is -if you want- the shape of the perfume, in some detail, showing some of the complexity. I will need to add two or three components, though.
If you want, you may scan from top to bottom to get a pyramid kind of description. But the sketch misses the light, the color. And -as a commenter lately rightfully said- the sum is more than the individual ingredients…. Tricky…(here is the link to the same picture in higher resolution)
But at least it gives you an impression of COMPLEXITY and how I think, if I do.
Beautifully, intriguing and I pending to smell it!
Probably, does not suffice a little to see an approximate percentage parity:)
It’s very interesting how sense impressions correspond and interact. In particular, many different types of impressions seem to respond to a certain colour. To a friend of mine pears taste blue. The letters of the alphabet is one such subject where people often have a very strong sense of connection between a certainletter and a certain colour. Some letters have a stronger tie than other at least to me. B is yellow, G is orange, S is black, Y is dark purple…
Do you have any scents that correspond more strongly than others with a certain colour Andy? I’d also imagine a more complex impression consisting of many parts could correspond to a colour scheme or set rather than a single colour.
Wow! Just when I’ve got guests and can’t give my full attention to your blog, you go and publish these super-technical posts.
I’m going to have lost of enjoyable Tauer reading this weekend when Maison Persolaise is empty again…
In many cases certain scents can trigger intense feelings, emotions, memories.
It’s not stated here, but this is one of many types of Synesthesia.
Hi Andy, Thank you for this sketch; I’ve printed it out and had a good look at it. There is no doubt that a black and white sketch will not show the ultimate complexity of a perfume, BUT I applaud you for being (most likely) the first perfumer to try to convey in “lay terms” how you perceive the structure of Eau d’epices. This in itself is invaluable to those of us who do not create perfumes but are interested in the perfumers vision of how they are created. And having coumarin listed towards the “wood” family is something that I have learned from your blog. i.e. coumarin comes from tonka beans and coumarin is a woody element in a perfume. (I hope I got that correct). Thank you for this.
Actually, Jen, thank you! and a correction: coumarin CAN, in the right context add to a woody element. It is also sweet, a bit creamy, foody (vanilla), and smells a bit like hay (foin coupé). In the context of vetiverol and ambreine, there is indeed a woody line that builds up.
Good morning Pär
Thank you for your detailed comment!
Actually, there was a time when I was -also- trying to visualize some of my perfume’s constructions by colors, trying to figure out why it does not work, optimizing the color….
Here we go: Rose absolute is dark red, rose oil is dirty silver, C12 aldehyde is clear silver, ambergris is white with a hint grey, Iso Super E is ocher, but more towards the red….I could go on for a while like that.
Dear Persolaise
you won’t miss a bit! I am entering the comic age
this sketch is interesting! its so difficult to describe/show the depth of the smell on flat paper!