Caraway - Soup

Caraway essence is one of the raw materials that are widely used to create sparkling top notes for perfumes. Although it's characteristic scent is considered too herbal and sharp to create a perfume only dedicated to this spice, you could find it very often at a mild dose in most of the new perfume releases. We usually work with it in 10 % solution, and only add 0,03 grams over 1 kg of perfume concentration. The distinct scent matches really nicely Hay absolute, White Pepper oil and Ginger essence among others.

The herb ( carum carvi ) originated in Asia, but now is cultivated mainly in Africa, Norther and Eastern Europe.

Also known as Meadow Cumin, it is a very old and well known spice, commonly used as early as Stone Age. Caraway Seeds are very popular in our days as well, particularly in Eastern Europe and in the Indian subcontinent. On research, so many medicinal properties of the seeds have been narrated that it is said to be the cure for nearly all diseases!

The greatest benefit of Caraway oil lie in its calming and soothing effect on the nerves and the digestive system, it also helps with respiratory problems, in fighting urinary infections and about a dozen skin-related problems. On the top of that, it makes the skin bright and fair if added to your body lotion!

You can benefit from its healing properties by inhaling caraway oil with the help of a vaporizer or a burner, or even by just simply diluting a few drops in the bath. In order to keep your stomach healthy, and maximize the miraculous advantages of caraway, it is the best to eat it either raw, on scrambled eggs e.g. or by preparing the following traditional Hungarian soup, which softens the taste of caraway seeds, and is a great idea to serve as an entrée with crunchy bread pieces.

Ingredients:

- 3 table spoon of oil

- 4 table spoon of flour

- 2 coffee spoon of caraway seeds

- 2 coffee spoon of paprika

- 1 onion

- 1 liter of water

- salt, according to your taste ( I usually put 2 coffee spoon. )

You make the "roux" from the oil and flower, when it is of golden color already, you add the caraway seeds and you stir the whole mix for a minute or two. Then, you take the cooking-pot away from the stove, leaving it to cool for ca. 2 mins. Once it is cooled, you add the paprika, you place the cooking-pot back to the fire only when paprika is mixed already well with the roux and the seeds. You pour 1 liter of water, then add salt and a peeled onion inside the soup in full, no need to cut it in, you will take this out at the end, before serving. Starting from boiling, you will need 15 mins for your soup to be ready to eat.

Enjoy the unique taste and its marvelous medicinal effects!

I heart Mate absolute

I am working on a tea composition series that will be applied in candles, a Japanese client ordered 10 different tea notes, such as black tea, green tea, red tea, white tea, fruit tea, tea with rose and a few infusions with tea notes, like mint and thyme, etc.

To start with a nice and stable tea note in a candle, you need mate absolute, which is though extremely expensive, enough to dose it small to have the effect ( and the greenish color ) of tea.

So I took a massive amount of mate, placed it in a glass jar and put all that into a hot water bath for a few minutes to be able to use it in a more liquid form. You are only supposed to heat it a little bit and always at very moderate temperature ( 50 degree Celsius at max ), it is the common rule for all the natural raw materials that are waxy, creamy or solid on room temperature.

In the meantime I went to my Maître to show him my passion fruit accord ( passion fruit is apparently the new big hit! ). Discussing the perfect passion fruit scent got brutally interrupted by me smelling burned mate from 3 offices away ( mine ).

I forgot that yesterday I left the perfumer stove on its maximum ( 200 degree Celsius ) for sterilizing my metallic spatulas.

I tried to save some of the mate, but as I touched the boiling material with a wooden stick, a splash of it directly landed on my shoulder. I was really shocked  (= I was swearing in all languages possible... ) but simultaneously felt grateful due to the fact that it didn't come on my face.

Just recently I am thinking on getting a perfumery-related tattoo, the expression of "nice ink" keeps echoing in my head. I was more into Latin names of raw materials, but the little rose heart-shaped burn on my shoulder, caused by mate overheat, will do just for now...

Olfactive Flashback VI.

Chestnut squash, after you took out its seeds, smells exactly like my father's skin. It is earthy, somewhat sweet and there is a tiny fruity note hiding right "behind" the earty note.

Olfactive Flashback V.

I arrived home after a long day of work. In my head, there are still thousands of variations of raw materials chasing each other, I need to find the perfect balance between blackberry absolute and osmanthus oil, in oder to recreate the scent of "apricot jam made by grandma" as one of the clients requested. Although I am wearing gloves for making samples, the common "perfumery laboratory" scent is ingrained to my hair and clothes. I am trying to put my car to the middle of the tiny parking place, takes me more than 4 trials to get it right. I hate raining. I hate umbrellas.

I step out of my car, hoping this time there won't be any dog poor around. Before the door would close behind me, I have a vision of me at the age of 6 with my family, sitting on the stairs of the veranda of my grandmother's house. It takes a bit of time, until I realize that it is a scent that my brain reacts to. I smell aquatic. Sure, it is the rain. But I also smell sweet. I smell light red too, if it makes any sense at all. No, not pink, it's light red. And I feel exactly how I felt back on the veranda surrounded with my family. Security. Careless. Playful. Eager. Greedy.

My brain is quicker than my nose, and the answer comes in a form of a picture again, I see myself spitting little black tear-shaped seeds around the stairs. Watermelon.

I can smell a wonderfully ripe, juicy watermelon around at 7 pm in my open air parking lot, in the middle of March.

I want to find the source. A big part of the juicy-green scent would come from the rain, but there is something extra to it. Something that just turns a natural early spring shower to a perfect imitation of a real fruit that is not available in this region until mid-May earliest.

I sniff around like a hunting dog, hoping that no neighbors are coming by and that cute fellow perfumer guy, who lives across the parking, wouldn't look out of his window accidentally. Just a few meters away, around the corner, opposite to the direction of the entrance door, here she is, the ripe watermelon.... in the form of a Mimosa tree. In full bloom. It's aquatic scent multiplied by a thousand due to the raining. As I get close to it the watermelon fades away and it gives it's place to the concentrated powderiness. It's fragile branches are bending over me as if golden rain would fall on me at any time. The watermelon scent is like an aura around the tree, from 5 to 15 meters. I wish I could just take notes. I wish my nose would automatically translate all the isolates and aromatic compounds into a formula and I could have access to this scent anytime, anywhere. I miss my family. Plus I am craving watermelon now.

Before I could note anything in my head apart from helional, the wind takes away the scent leaving only my memories and my sweet-sour mood.

A few things perfumers should avoid

It is a continuous debate if perfumers should avoid smoking or not necessarily.

Some say that in order to keep your olfactory system at its best, you have to restrain yourself from not only smoking, but eating fatty or spicy things too. Also, everybody living in Grasse heard already about a certain perfumer who refuses to fill her car's tank because -allegedly- she is afraid that the fuel vapor would damage her olfactory capabilities.

As for me, I am no regular smoker. Not a social one, either. A few times per week, I feel like having a cigarette. It's not its taste. It's not the movement. It's not the nicotine.

Call me stuck in the oral-stage fixation, but I enjoy the thick smoke pressed out from my mouth just to blend unhurriedly with air.

(I think, I do have a blending fetish thing going on: I can look for hours to the concentrated perfume mixing up lazily with the alcohol. I love to see my tea merging with milk, etc )

That blending really worths the risks. And so far, my olfactory capabilities are just getting better and better with time. On the top of that, my Maître Parfumeur is a chain-smoker but he could smell a single drop of the faintest musk from 10 meters far. So, I am not worried about that.

On the other hand, I did realize that eating spicy food alters temporarily my nose's senses. It's more about sharp spices, like cumin and thyme. Any forms of pepper passes perfectly, I even think it actually wakes up my nose a bit!

I was trying to make a research about the alleged harmfulness of fuel on smelling, but so far I didn't find anything scientific, apart from the fact that gasoline vapor -generally speaking- is quite dangerous. If anybody have access to a credible source of information concerning the topic, please let me know.

Illuminated

I am not a big drinker, I don't really like the taste of alcohol, it is more its effect that keeps me having it from time to time.

We started with red wines, and he was updating me on the different projects he has worked on recently.

I met him last year on the World Perfumery Congress, where I asked him for a job. Instead of hiring me as a perfumer, I was more or less his escort for the rest of the exhibition. Although he is quite a bit older than me, we got on really well. He introduced me to the right people, invited me for private parties of the congress and for exchange I would listen to his childhood memories in Eastern Europe. After the congress, we would meet up for a drink, every few months, when he comes from NYC to Grasse for work. I think of him as my mentor, and he thinks of me as a refreshing distraction from those "New York perfumers" or those "old school Grasse perfumers".

When I got to the bar, he was already there waiting for me. I thought his look had changed a lot. He aged a few years in the last few months I haven't seen him. He tells me how he misses Grasse and how he has a huge stress on working on a numerous important briefs on the same time. He nags a bit about good old times of perfumery, when legislation didn't count each drops of Italian Bergamot in the creations and the use of Yugoslavian Oakmoss wasn't banned for good.

After the first bottle of wine, I asked what inspires him to create perfumes. I could see I touched a nerve there. He wouldn't mind sharing wild gossips with me "straight from the White House of Perfumery" or even showing his creations without their appearance for the public, but asking him about inspiration to make perfumes clearly got him uncomfortable. He changed the topic to quickly and I didn't insist. After a few glasses of wine though, he went back to the topic by himself.

His first brief winning perfume was based on the memory of his first girlfriend. The taste of his first kiss is now immortalized as raspberry top notes of one of the 90's bestselling perfumes. And the examples went on and on. He was always a ladies' man, but little did I know about his creations being directly linked with his actual partners.

After the second bottle of wine, he told me about realizing that most of his colleagues are "creating" strictly based on already existing perfume's formulas. He first despised it, but soon, he realized that he is running out of inspirations, in spite of his lifestyle as a playboy. He needed continuous stimulation. He told me how the hunt for inspiration ruined all his relationships. He told me how he went on drugs, from being a social marijuana smoker to a cocaine addict, when women were not fulfilling anymore his desire to experience new flashes.

However, he would often come up with unusual perfume ideas, while being high. He admitted creating some of his famous creations under the effect of drugs.

After years of self destruction, finally his company would oblige him to go to rehab, not long after he talked to the national television about his newest fragrance release with dilated pupils.

I wish he didn't share. I wish I didn't know about that. Is one of the idols of modern perfumery completely lacks inspiration for a over a decade now? His latest creations are clearly flankers of his early works and the frustration blocks his creativity.

I took him home. He tried to kiss me at least 3 times, while I helped him up to the hall of his building. Expected, turned it off with a smile. While I was still in Paris, working my ass of to get enough money for the perfumery school, I did fantasize about him kissing me. The only thing I felt now was sorry. Perfumers are pushed by the business to create olfactory innovations all the time, although the majority of the possible combinations of the present accords have been already played by now.

I needed a cigarette. In front of his fancy house on the Croisette in Cannes, alone in the dark, foggy, wet night, I wondered if being alcoholic is better than being on drugs.

Obsession

I have heard about him well before he was announced to join our company; he is one of the most celebrated perfumer specialized in custom made fragrances. He left one of the biggest perfume creation house to join us, partly for the rumoured "times 50" salary increase he was about to get here, and partly the rumoured take-over of our Maître Perfumer's position, who takes his retirement soon.

He was recently referred in the press as the "enfant terrible" of niche perfumery, he literally has fans, there is a big hype around him. He is truly talented, his creations that went public were real game-changers, but he is also so obviously full of himself that I have decided that unlike every women at work, I am not going to be charmed by the less than average looking, openly egocentric man in his early 40s.

Though I was excited to start working with him, I didn't join the others in welcoming him collectively during the first coffee break. Mostly, because I am still working on those delicious sweets projects, and partly because I just really doesn't want to be among my female colleagues in their 50s behaving like teenagers.

This whole mess about his arrival, which turned into a extreme high level of excitement in the company got me overdosed before even meeting him for the first time.

(It's like the movie 'Titanic'. I refused to see that movie just cause all my friends were whining about Leonardo DiCaprio for months before the premiere, extensive promotion usually has inverse effect on me. )

Little did I know about him turning my world upside down starting just about hearing him talking to me the first time.

I have seen him passing by at lunch break, and he caught me looking at him. Great, now he thinks I am stupefied by him, but really I was just wondering how weirdly is his nose shaped, how small his lips are and that I expected somebody with less wrinkles and less sick looking eyes.

As I went back from lunch to my office, he was already outside smoking with some of the raw material buyers. I looked at his worn-out clothes, and wondered if he was really so much underpaid or simply doesn't have a taste for apparels.

I was in the middle of adding the final cristallized sugar scent to my crumble accord, when he came into my office with the Maître Parfumeur. My boss introduced us to each other, and while shaking my hand, he casually said 'how are you, love'? I knew I was lost. It took him not less than 4 words to have me among his fans. He had the sexiest English accent I have ever heard in my life. Not the posh one from Oxford, but more of the Southern London, hooligan-style.

I felt lust climbing up on my spine to my brain. What the heck is going on? Since when I am dreadfully attracted to this accent?!

He asked me something which I had hardly understood, and than a few seconds later, my Maître asked me to show on what I am working on right now. I was going to take the sample's bottle from my desk, but he got my hand, and said he could smell it on me. I like to try my creations on my skin, so I have put on my wrist a few drops from Crumble, but how would he know that?! Seconds later, he was smelling my wrist as if that was the most natural thing on an average Monday afternoon. He mentioned the few ingredients, corrected my formula orally and added that my skin smells like sweet pea.

Then he left. My Maitre after him, with a rather confused look.

I needed to sit down. How did he enchanted me in less than 3 mins? I am addicted to this man. I am back to 13 when I was painfully in love with some movie stars. Why he has to have that beautiful voice and why he has to talk me with his green eyes sparkling? Why he had to touch me? Why his touch felt like the pleasantest thunder striking me? How on earth I am supposed to concentrate on my job now?