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Correcting commercial fragrances with animal pheromones

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pheromone_research_kit

The kit of the practical Phero-researcher

From a research made with Basenoters with Hyraceum, Castoreum., Civet musk and Honey bee’s wax

Eule:

Bal a Versailles –  This scent defies classification for me.  Powdery, musky, animalic, yes.  But as far as naming notes?  No.  I can’t do that.  Hyraceum turned it into an abstract work of art.  Throughout its development, everything from sweet to salty to leathery, the hyraceum added another interesting facet, one that was more distinctly sexy.  What’s more, I noticed that “floralizing†effect that Eule experienced with Kouros.  There was an increase in the sweet florals at the beginning.  I recommend this combination.  Read more

Tri-dimensional and Spiritual Perfumes

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By AbdesSalaam Attar on Basenotes

animal-scents-perfume

It is a mystery why modern men and women, so obsessed with erasing their own bodily smells, are nevertheless so attracted to the animal scents in perfumes that they will consistently prefer fragrances containing “animalic†ingredients to those made of pure botanical ingredients.

In times when these rare materials were still used in commercial perfumes, the purpose was, first of all, to get fragrances sold, and it worked so well that they were deemed indispensable in fine perfumery. Today, the use of animal scents is a very hard path to tread, because of prohibitively high prices, the difficulty of sourcing the materials and ethical dilemmas.

Apart from a few “politically incorrect†indie natural perfumers, the use of real animal ingredients has been abandoned. An interesting exception has been a French nose who rediscovered a strange south African animal raw material, Hyraceum.

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Perfumer’s perversion

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I just received from South Africa a new essence that is not yet available on the international market of raw material for perfumers.

The bottle had leaked a bit and the wrapping of the parcel was perfumed.

The power of this essential oil is incredible.

Since 2 days my work place and the next room have been invaded by the fragrance of this strange mix of bubble gum and cat’s pee, although I have cleaned everything and thrown out far away the empty package and the inside wrapping.

Do you have present when you enter a room and say: I can smell a mouse?

This is the smell of the pheromone that these animals leave with their urine. It is very close to the smell of cats urine as well.

The only essence of the perfumer’s palette which has a similar note is a good and real Black current absolute, although much more fruity in body.

This olfactory pollution of my working place has had the good result of allowing me to understand better the smell because from the bottle it is so powerful that it stuns the nose.

It has a definite undertone of Clary sage, which is as well a hormonal essence whose structure is similar to a pheromone.
It also has a slight tobacco note and understanding all this gave me an idea about how to start working (playing) with it.
Although I know that this will not please my wife and co workers who always criticize my “perverted attraction†for all animal scents and for some of the “strange stinking†botanical raw materials.
Every profession has its perversion, said yesterday my right hand man, yours is about these stinking stuff.
My wife said also: “Do you really like them or is it just for joking? Your eyes start shining and you look always so exited when you discover one of these stinking things”.
Who will understand the nose of a perfumer? It smells much more than odors. A perfumer in some ways thinks with his nose, he can conceptualize smells and build with them coherent constructions that appeal to the emotional memories and imagination of others.
It is just a question of training and education, not a great deal in fact, but it is mysterious and with the aura of sacredness to all but him (or her, of course, seeing that most of the new generation are women).
Well, this Betuline essence is really something, I could smell that not only with my perfumer training but also with my Aromatherapist nose.
It is difficult to believe it for most people, but a person used to cure with essential oils is able to understand many properties of an essence he never knew before just by smelling it.
Before asking to the producer information about the traditional use of the plant in South Africa I googled it and, not at all surprisingly I discovered that Betuline cats pee smell is used traditionally to increase urine production, to cure kidneys and bladder, and to heal the urinary track.
I shall now research about the hormonal effect, probably for women problems.
Next news about Betuline when I start making a perfume out of it.

Tri-dimensional Perfumery

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muskdeer-pods

My search for the real musk deer scent has carried me in some of the farthest spots of the Hindu Kush but at last I found it from its fount.

I fully understand the need of all perfumers for a sustainable musk scent substitute, but the point maybe is rather about the use of an animal note in our botanical scents, such as Ambergris, Civet, Hyraceum or Castoreum, in order to obtain a perfume with a third dimension.

Like the small machines resembling binoculars through which you look in order to watch 3 dimensional photographs, there are only 2 images in the machine but the vision is truly tri-dimensional.

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