January 2010

The year of the Hydrosol

Sleeping with Flowers

Daphne

I may have a cooold bedroom but when I am reminded of the flowers that have come to bloom for me up there, I can bear it. The whole south wall being glass turns this space into a winter residence for plants that either would not appreciate the unheated greenhouse or for plants that I chose to pamper a bit to bring them into bloom sooner and/or closer. After over a month of Lemon Blossoms, it's now Daphne's turn. It's been a good many years since my nose has been treated to this delight, and I'm thinking I could do with a cold bedroom forever to have her so close. The flowers are tiny, waxy and in dense clusters; throwing out top notes of Lemon Chiffon Dessert. I know she has more to her song, but really, her particular take on the lemon is so exquisite that I stop there. More lemon than the lemon tree. Adding to her punch is her timing; not many plants will bloom in the dark of the year!

If I treat her 'just right' I am rewarded with scent anytime I climb upstairs. But I appreciate this most when she sings through the night and I become aware of her every time I surface to consciousness. My dreams are richer and more profound on those nights a flower is singing. Perhaps a 'live' fragrance has the ability to reach down into my soul and unlatch a few doors I had hidden from myself, and retrieve to me more healing puzzle pieces. All is not honey and sweet; one night I fell asleep with a Brunfelsia Jamaicensis beside me; just one bloom. The phone rang it was time to drive into town to pick up my son. I started hallucinating as soon as I stood up and probably should not have been on the road!

Daphne has a finicky reputation; rightly earned. As Dirr says "Daphne culture is akin to voodoo medicine"..... I have not learned all her secrets but I have learned the hard way (by losing a grand specimen) not to keep her feet wet! Easy on the sun. Neutral to acidic soil. Offerings to the gods. All this plus the whole plant is poisonous! Ahhh, but just inhale that fragrance once and you'll see why Daphne has a cult following.

The Gardenia and Plumeria are downstairs in the subtropics.  Upstairs I am also over wintering a Crinum Lily and the Jasmine Sambac; as I do not want Jas. warm enough to start setting buds yet. I have brought over one of the Lily of the Valleys from the greenhouse, to get it moving into spring sooner. To give you and idea of the temperatures that keep these plants happy; we're talking 50s range. If it gets any colder than this, I don't need to know.

New Perfumes

a new crème perfume  for the Arabian Nights of your Valentine holiday!

From the sultry realm of labdanum & other sweet resins smoothed with vanilla & caramel simmered with the opulent spices of ancient royalty decadently drizzled with honey... Tantalizing! Amberleah Creme brass case $55.00 cutie pot $15.00

New For Him
Spruce Walker

Evergreens & Woods enlightened with Mint
Let HIM smell great all day the Natural way!

click to experience

briefcase size/ 5 mls. $12.

give roses that won't wilt
and chocolate without the calories!
with dabney rose Hydrosols!
1 oz each Rose & Cacao Hydrosol - set  $15

offer expires Feb 15 / while suplies last / newsletter special only!

Raspberry & Vanilla / Raisin

2 oz each / set $22

offer expires Feb 15 / while suplies last / newsletter special only!

Shelley Waddington... The Carmel Perfumer

When I first came across Shelley Waddington's blog entries about Ethnobotanical Perfume, I felt like I had stumbled upon a completely new creature. I was fascinated by her concept and wanted to explore it, like I had explored slowly wandering creek beds as a young girl; layer by layer. Shelley was very approachable and in short time I was experiencing her EDGE OF THE WORLD perfume. It immediately got me outside, but not in Arkansas! I was standing in a salt marsh, with sea birds screeing overhead and the wind off the ocean. Shelley did indeed help me go out and smell her world!

Dabney: I am very captivated with your concept of 'ethno botanical perfume' and would love to know how you define that!

Shelley: Let’s start by saying for the record that I’m first a perfumer, and then an
ethno-botanical perfumer. So the answer to your request is two-fold:

On Perfume:
No one needs my help to go out and smell the world. For perfumes to have any meaning at all, they must exceed being reproductions of actual smells such as new car leather, a wet dog, or a field of opium poppies.

Part of my job is to capture an organoleptic experience in a way that emotionally transports a person back to living moments of personal history - or to a meaningful historical moment they know through literature, archaeology, or visual art.

To illustrate; Photography, painting, sculpture, literature, are all, like perfume, useful
examples of distilled essences.

We all see and experience life – that is the existential given. The artist is able to distill the existential down to the essence, the phenomenon. By eliminating the clutter of the mundane, the artist brings forth only those elements that touch the human heart in a universal way.

This is why I describe my style as minimalist, why I describe myself as a sculptor of air molecules, an interpreter and an impressionist. My training and background as an
existential-phenomenological psychologist influences me in these ways. I capture experience and bottle it.

On Ethnobotany:
As you know, ethnobotany is the study of the relationships that existed between aboriginal people and plants.

“Edge of the World” is a perfume that resulted from my curiosity to see how far back I could go into the cultural history of my home town of Carmel, California.

The botanicals which the oldest inhabitants, the Rumsen Ohlone Tribe used for food, medicine, textiles, and ornaments emerged from my historical research. With an understanding their lifestyle and historical setting, I was able to locate the actual plants they used, and combined them with other representative geological and animal elements to produce a fragrance impression of what a tribe member, living in what is now Carmel, would have experienced at that time.

I simply wanted to bring that experience to the modern world.

EDGE OF THE WORLD...The name was derived from one of the only existing fragments of a native song and inspired by Carmel poet Elliot Ruchowitz-Roberts’ Dancing on the Brink of the World: Selected Poems of Point Lobos.

Notes from Shelley's Blog...

"Per the previous post, the following Notes de Base were determined:

*Artemisia douglasiana – mugwort
*Cupressus macrocarpa - Monterey cypress
Navarretia squarrosa - skunkweed
*Pinus radiata - Monterey pine
*Salix lasiolepis - arroyo willow
*Salix scouleriana - Scouler willow
*Salvia mellifera - black sage
Salvia microphylla - smalled-leaved sage
Sequoia sempervirens - coast redwood
Additional environmental fragrances:
Smoke
Hot rocks and seashells
Tree moss
Seaweed
Loam, earth
Rain on earth
Willow branches, bark and foliage
Deerskin
Sweat
Skunk
Mushrooms

These notes point to the beginnings of a green, woody leather chypre.

Summary: Green, natural and outdoors scents of pine, sage, redwood, artemesia and cypress are supported and deepened with fragrances earth and woody leather, mushroom and tree moss.

I will be returning to my blending studio on Friday to experiment with mixing these materials, and will record and evaluate the outcome as an update to this post."

....................http://carmelperfume.com/
................http://carmelperfume.blogspot.com/

The Skin Care Fairy sezz...

Winter is So mean on skin. Here are some tips to help us through till spring...

Keep drinking more water; more even.
Even more.
Make it fun; add some hydrosols..1 teaspoon will jazz up a boring pint.
Warm water is best this time of year.

Drag out that humidifier and fill it up.
This is more of that more water thing; sneaky, huh.
But aren't we tired of walking around like alligators?
This will also make everything else feel better; sinuses, lungs, hair, houseplants.

Indulge in more oils, inside and out.
Moisturizing is still good but we need more protection on the outside.
A lot of that comes through the skin.
EFA's! And sure, hemp oil can go on the outside too.

Ease up on the exfoliants and peels. We need oilier skin right now! Save these for hot weather when we are sweating more and actually pushing more toxins through the skin.

Do you take a glass of water into the bedroom to keep up with the water you lose during the night? At the least, first thing in the morning, drink a goodly portion to regain your internal ratio.

It's all the more harder to go for that walk around the block but OXYGEN is still vital to healthy skin. Think of it as walking for 'that glow'.

For more Skin Care Fairy tips..click the magic lamp.

With as much authority as I can make up
I hereby declare
2010 THE YEAR OF THE HYDROSOL

Thank you, we have enjoyed visiting with you!

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