creating scentsTableau de Parfums

cocoa brightened up

There is a thing with extracts of cocoa that makes them sometimes difficult to use in perfumes. They are mostly dark. But there are qualities that are different. I would like to continue exploring a fragrance that I created a while ago and that sits in the fridge waiting to be put into some flacons, and to be shipped in a while; in the framework of a special set of activities.  More details will unfold in the coming days. Today, let us just focus on another ingredient: natural cocoa.

Actually, this scent has a lot of it in it.

I got a quality that is colorless. I got it from Ventos. It is a creamy, quite viscous liquid at 20C and although it lost its dark color, it did not loose its soul. It is bitter sweet, with this unique cacao vibe. Again, there is something mysterious in this ingredient, a “noir” quality. Thus, do not get me wrong: The cocoa extract maybe colorless, but the fragrance where I put it in is a dark scent. Cocoa is in its heart, central and present, adding a roasted heart of bitterness with hints of tobacco: In my nose, there is a line of tobacco in cocoa. Expensive cigar tobacco. Add this to the fine line of birchtar and you get a leathery smoky line that reaches out from the head into the heart.

And then, of course, cocoa is quite gourmand. Here, again no mistakes: I did not want the scent to enter into yummie territory. But its natural sweetness softens harsher components, airy woody rooty ingredients that we will discuss in the coming days.

Today’s picture with its newspaper aesthetics  brings us one step closer to the inspiration and base of this fragrance: dark films of the past.