Adventures In Scent At 4160 Tuesdays: Day 2, A Chypre Perfume Making Workshop

 The archetype, Coty's long gone Chypre

I was lucky. Not only had I made it to a scent making day, but I’d made without catching a nose immobilizing cold. February half term is often spent with whatever virus has been troubling the students at my school since Christmas. I work with kids who aren’t proficient at the ‘hand over mouth during sneeze’ routine.

And so, nose on top form, I joined my fellow (and significantly more sophisticated) students to be taught about the form of chypres by the highly engaging Sarah McCartney of 4160 Tuesdays. Our mixed cohort included a keen novice fumie, two long term fumies, an admirable obsessive with a vast collection and myself (insert your assessment of compulsion here).

We began with an introduction to the structure of the chypre. The chypre genre is widely acknowledged to be ‘perfumey perfume’, characterised by a distinctly classic French feel and a slightly snooty dry temperament. I love them, possibly because I’m not snooty. Possessing a more ‘dappy spaniel’ character, I like the fact that a chypre transforms me into a  ‘graceful greyhound’. They are the polar opposite of a warm-hearted oriental or a cheerful fruity floral.

Sarah delves into a vintage Eau Sauvage for our sniffing pleasure

The Queens of the genre could be said to be Guerlain’s Mitsouko and Dior’s Diorella. Both of which Sarah proffered for a sniffing from astoundingly well preserved vintage bottles. As we sat around the grand desk together, we amassed hoards of smelling strips, studiously comparing variations on the theme. With the majority of the examples dating from a time pre- IFRA regulations, we smelt the real thing. My favourite of which was The Edmond Roudnitska creation for Rochas – Mousseline. I’d never heard of it before, but this heart breakingly cool madame was the mossiest thing I’d ever smelt, aside from actual moss, which doesn’t smell of much unless it’s been raining and you have stuck your face to the ground in a wood (I have of course done this, as I imagine have some of you). To add to it’s appeal, it was packaged in a beautifully minimal and art deco reminiscent yellow box. Although it was created later than the deco period (in 1946), it both smelt of and looked like the liberated masculine habits of those women lucky enough to be wealthy and socially mobile in the 1930s. A round of golf chaps?

The marvelous Mousseline

Another Roudnitska marvel was passed around, the citrusy classic Dior masculine – Eau Sauvage. Chypres marketed at men tend to incorporate abundant citrus and herbal notes, making them hugely appealing to my personal taste. I successfully wore Chanel’s Pour Monsieur, another classic citrus chypre with a soapy accord, for some years without growing a moustache or a fondness for football.

After sampling some classic chypres came the table-top scientist part, about which I was wobbly with excitement.  Time to smell some ingredients.

Sarah’s first offer was oakmoss, the ‘bones’ of the chypre, which we smelt at a 20% dilution. It was symphonic. By this, I mean that there was a multitude of sensations to associate with it’s scent. As I look back to my notes, I see that I wrote; multifaceted, woody, earthy, whole. It was utterly whole, indeed I wish I’d have ‘made’ a perfume containing solely oakmoss, such was it’s complexity. I’d imagined it to be an olfactory challenge as natural notes often are (white birch on it’s own can tear my nose to broken pieces) but it wasn’t. It was everything I love about the outdoors bottled, delivered with sensitivity and gentleness.

We went on to sample the other natural chypre bones; patchouli, cistus labdanum and bergamot, each familiar to anyone who’s dabbled in aromatherapy and regularly haunts the isles of Holland and Barret. This was followed by less familiar synthetic smells, a real treat for hardcore fumies; Exaltolide and Fixolide (two musks, the first of which smelt like Body Shop - White Musk), ISO E Super (wood for wizards), Hedione (used to bring radiance to florals and citrus, used heavily in Van Cleef & Arpels – First, smells to me disgustingly like Cystitis salts – Cystopurin-a-go-go), Suederal (a beautiful soft leather) and several others including a peculiar crème brulee plus strawberry note used to great effect in Sarah’s own ‘The Great Randello’. I was most bewitched by two synthetic violet notes – Alpha Ionone and Ionone Beta, the first of which radiated the rubbery tyres and sugar side of violets that was instantly recognisable in BVLGARI Black and Midnight In Paris. The second presented a more woody interpretation.

Brilliant stuff to play with in bottles

The final smell of the morning was Sarah’s curious ‘seaside’ accord, a mixture of Calone (melon/cucumber/water) and Verimoss (moss, akin to seaweed) which smelt unerringly like the beaches of my childhood holidays in North Wales.

Tired noses headed off to a local café for lunchtime resuscitation.

Upon our return we had about four hours in which to become perfumers. You’d think this would be a laughable amount of time in which to create our personal desires but one of the students was markedly thrilled by his creation which he deemed complete in far less time. For me, it was more difficult.

Wrists soaked, I move progressively up my arm for a skin test

Before the day I vowed to keep an open mind about my ingredients, and focus upon the never before smelt synthetics which are really hard to get access to if you’re an amateur enthusiast. The studio at 4160 Tuesdays was chock full of bottles to play with but I found myself drawn back to the leather and violet notes that I sampled in the morning. My initial mixture contained oakmoss, both violets, Exaltolide musk and Suederol (which dominated the blend). This excited me. I planned to later brighten it with citrus in a kind of homage to Cartier’s Eau de Cartier Essence du Bois. The studio however was filled with scent and a ‘used smelling strip mountain’ so upon Sarah’s advice I took it outside to experience it in the open air. It smelt overtly powdery and smothering. A rethink was required.

Whilst I’d been outside Sarah had produced refreshments of delicious blackcurrant and coffee cordial. This aromatic drink spurred me into pursuit of another of my favourite themes – the hedgerow. Sarah talked me through a few relevant ingredients, this time three picturesque natural accords – raspberry leaf absolute (curiously jammy and tart), cassis (astringent green blackcurrant, bordering on cat pee but unfeasibly beautiful) and buchu (a heady and herbal feeling blackcurrant). With just five students, she had plentiful time to assist each of us, helpfully delving into the stash of materials to find potential interpretations of our olfactory ideas.

Notes a-plenty

I combined my berries with small amounts of other naturals (see the photo of recipe), a great mass of oakmoss and ISO E Super. The unscientific measurement is listed on my recipe as ‘shed loads’ of ISO E Super. Roudnitska would have been appalled.

The process of creation involved using tiny drops of our selected notes and building it up judging quantity by nose alone, an intuitive process that required methodical recording and a fair bit of maths. My records were (typically for me) a little slapdash and I found myself losing count. Care is required. As I peruse my notes tonight I can still smell the lovely patches of accidental drips, a souvenir of the day.

My final creation is without doubt, a hedgerow bordering on a forest. Only six days old, it still needs time to continue to mature but I like it. It’s hints at a drier, leafier version of YSL’s In Love Again (although obviously nowhere near as professional). The 4160 Tuesday’s brand is all about conjuring places and memories, olfactory experiences rather than perfumey perfume. With this in mind, I’m pleased that I made something that echoes the character of the brand. I am unlikely to wear my perfume regularly but I am sure that I will lie in bed on drizzly urban nights and let it transport me to the countryside of my youth.

My finished creation, entitled "Could It Be Mossier?"

What I gained from the event was more than just the creation of a bespoke perfume. It was more significantly about the fun and camaraderie of the day. As you’d expect, we fumies talked each other to death and eagerly absorbed Sarah’s chypre education with delight. As a true perfume geek, I already knew a lot about the genre but I learnt a great deal of fresh information, with the exploration of ingredients being of particular interest to me. This combined with the opportunity to smelt unknown pleasures such as the Mousseline and Miss Dior as it was intended to be, was in itself worth the trip to London. Sarah is an enigmatic teacher. Warm, witty and hugely knowledgeable. She manages to pull off a serious olfactory presentation with a friendly informal atmosphere. Instruction is personally tailored and given frequently or you can withdraw into your own world of pipette heaven and suit yourself. It would be unlikely for a newbie to feel out of place.

The day closed with a sprawl on the sofas with lemon cake and champagne. A chance for us to ponder our creations and a much needed rest for our exhausted conks.

Sarah’s perfume making workshops run once a month throughout the year. Upcoming genre themes include such treats as florals, citrus, watercolours (think Jean Claude Ellena for Hermes) ambers and abstracts (the last of which I imagine it will be tres Comme De Garcons). For more information, take a look here: http://www.4160tuesdays.com/4160tuesdaysscentshop/prod_2846362-Perfume-Days.html

Thank you Sarah for a truly wonderful couple of days at the perfumery. In suitably Northern style I can only say – It was bloomin brilliant!

Adventures In Scent At 4160 Tuesdays: Day 1, The Magnificent Wall Of Wonders

Last weekend I ventured to London to visit my first real life perfumery, the multi-coloured abode of indie brand 4160 Tuesdays.

I was familiar with 4160 Tuesdays after featuring it’s (more or less) self taught perfumer, Sarah McCartney in a feature exploring the spirit of British perfumery last summer. You can read it by clicking here.

I was primarily visiting to attend a Saturday workshop on the chypre genre, but Sarah kindly allowed me to call in the day prior to have a nosey around with my camera.  I fully intended to shoot a fantastic batch of photos, with my best camera in hand (rather than my ‘travelling light’ camera phone) that would beautifully illustrate the nature of a perfumery - a pictorial treat for my readers. What actually happened was this:

I arrived, we had a fine natter on her mum’s vintage sofa over some top notch coffee, said hello to her assistant Agnieszka who was urgently bottling by hand and then I was let loose upstairs.

I was immediately faced with ‘The Wall of Scent’.

A small section of the wall featuring citrus and Vanilla scents

Imagine that you are faced with EVERY scent that you’ve heard about but never tried, the vintage mythical ‘scent unicorns’ that have long since been discontinued, those which you have curiously stalked on ebay and never quite got round to blind buying, the hoards of rare bottles that you found in a scent shop in Mallorca but couldn’t spend enough time with because your partner had started sighing with boredom half an hour ago, the historical wonders that Turin and Sanchez raved about. It was all there.

The top shelf of the vintage section (there is a huge cabinet full underneath that I forget to photograph in my state of shock, my journalistic abilities having been smacked in the face after confrontation with YSL's In Love Again.

I dumped my camera on the floor and stuck my greedy hands into the vintage section of the wall, in fact a sliding glass windowed cabinet. Had it not slid smoothly I’d likely have smashed it with my bare hands. I lost my ability to speak and made a sort of whispery “unnnhh” as I picked up a perfectly preserved bottle of Givenchy lll. Close by sat a teeny bottle of Schiaparelli’s Shocking “wooah”, Dior’s original Eau Suavage “wow” and Houbigant’s Chantilly “ooohee”. It was difficult to allot a proper sniff at these grand elderly ladies and gentlemen because I was transfixed by what was behind them – very old Guerlain boxes. You’ll recognise the squiggly geometric lines in the picture. But take a closer look and regard the misty blue box, yup, 1930s L’Heure Bleue! You’d imagine that by now it would be reduced to the scent of nail varnish but this Goliath bottle was unsealed by Sarah herself and smelt like L’Heure Bleue on steroids, an enormous wet vat of history, perfectly preserved. Shockingly, her 1930s bottle of Mitsouko EDT smelt almost identical to today’s formulation, who’d have thought it?

Sarah McCartney pictured with her beloved treasure - L' Heure Bleue

Also nestling among the mythical Guerlains was a beautiful blue crystal flacon of Guet Apens, the impossibly rare discontinued chypre that brings unfeasible amounts of moolah on Ebay.

Somewhere around the time that I saw the Guet Apens, I became overwhelmingly hot and had to de-robe. My cardigan and silk scarf were thrown to join my forgotten camera on the floor and a sip of water allowed me to continue.

Atop of the vintage section was a little tray of samples, recognisably 4160 Tuesdays, some with names that I had not heard of. I enquired about ‘A midsummer Night’s Breeze’.

“What’s this Sarah?”

“Oh, it failed IFRA completely. You can have it.”

Stunned and grateful, I took a whiff and pocketed the little bottle of the distinctly ‘breezy’ and outdoorsy scent. My feelings of excitement were more than the fume junkie’s standard “I’ve got perfume, woohoo!”. They were increased by the fact that I had been gifted a unique scent that violated IFRA regulations ‘completely’.  This made me happy.

Although there are many delightful reasons to sign up for a day of making perfume at 4160 Tuesdays, massively violating IFRA is one of the most seductive. As Sarah said, IFRA allow just a minuscule 0.07% concentration of Oakmoss to be included in a scent. This is because 1 to 3% of perfume users develop (get ready to be worried), eeek, a rash! As Oakmoss is the essential base to what we know as a chypre perfume, this restriction is a bore. But if you are making it for your personal use, you can include as much as you damn well like. I discovered that I can apply a whopping 20% concentration of Oakmoss on my skin without it giving me a rash/the plague.

Oakmoss, apparently dangerous enough you a slight rash

After spending around an hour ogling the vintage section of The Wall Of Scent, I pondered how much of the rest of it I wouldn’t experience on that day. There’s simply too much to take in. I estimate that I smelt about 1/8^th of the collection. I wasn’t concerned that I’d miss out on smelling plentiful bottles of niche brands, that’s an easily possible activity that you can undertake at Les Senteurs, Bloom and Roullier White. For me, the ‘must smells’ were the recent and ancient popular scents that we simply can’t test anywhere because they are not currently stocked in mainstream department stores or indie shops, such as Laura Biagotti’s Roma or the Lagerfeld Kapsule scents. 

Sarah offers afternoon group sessions to explore The Wall of Scent, priced at £60. This includes your choice of a 30ml bottle of 4160 Tuesday’s scent (worth £40), a guided tour through the various genres and notes, leisurely sniffing and the devoted camaraderie of other obsessive fumies. This is all topped off with a glass of fizz and cakes whilst lounging around on some funky vintage sofas.

Who would I recommend it for?

Newbies can learn a great deal about the history of scent and gain a clear idea of their personal preferences. They’ll get chance to do this in a friendly, relaxed environment without the pressure of sales assistants. Hardcore fumies will get to see and smell some scents that they’ve only heard and read about and may experience dizziness and a sense of euphoria. They’ll probably make an enormous list of things to buy on Ebay. Vintage fans will possibly offer up prayers to the ancient perfume gods and weep quietly into their Liberty print handkerchiefs in admiration.

Here’s a link if you want to join in: http://www.4160tuesdays.com/4160tuesdaysscentshop/prod_2831585-The-Wall-of-Scent.html

A report on day 2 of my scent adventure will be posted later this week where I’ll be discussing Saturday’s adventures in creating my own chypre. I apologise for my rubbish photographs, as you can imagine, I was distracted!

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Make Your Own Scent - The Magnificent Perfume Making Experiment! Part 1

I’ve a damn good nose. Or so I think..

Having always been utterly obsessed by the scent of things and places, I imagine that given the chance, I could be a perfumer. This is a dream shared by so many of us, especially after the BBC televised a three part series about the industry several years ago. One episode in particular was enthralling, as Jean Claude Elena was shadowed at work with his fortunate apprentices. No one could forget the sight of this strikingly handsome fellow with his nose pressed to the metallic edge of his patio doors, inhaling deeply and speaking of the conceptual scent of ‘cold and smooth’ in his mellifluous French accent.

JCE at work, sniffing an asthma inhaler?

When researching my article ‘The Scent of British Spirit Part 3’ (click here to read it), I encountered Sarah McCartney of 4160 Tuesdays. As a more or less self taught perfumer, Sarah creates a splendid range of quirky but wearable niche fragrances that prove that you don’t need an extraordinary amount of scientific knowledge or years as an apprentice churning out flavours for laundry detergents, to create a fragrant delight.

Think about your existing knowledge, if you’ve been using Fragrantica and Basenotes for years you’ll already know many of the notes that form the top to base structure of a perfume. If you use aromatherapy essential oils at home you’ll have experience of which fragrances blend together harmoniously. The experience of years of sample smelling will have taught you what works and what doesn’t, both in terms of personal taste and generic success.

If we assume that we have a little talent, what we are really only lacking is access to the enormous range of ingredients that make up the ‘perfumer’s organ’ (which appeals enormously to my puerile sense of humour..), the masses of money that pays for endless revisions to our experiments and minutely accurate scientific measuring equipment. There is no way around any of these immense problems so we’ll just have to accept it and try to make something less complex than the professionals.

So, I’ve decided to have a go at making my own scent. As I’m hugely impatient, slapdash and overly optimistic, this could be a pit-falled adventure. It’s already gone dreadfully wrong with the spillage of a little aldehyde C11 on my fingers, queue copious gagging at the extraordinarily tenacious scent of undiluted plasticky whiffed torment!

I’ll be updating you about this adventure roughly once a fortnight as the experiment progress, but for now here’s how I’ve started:

 1) Last year I bought a tiny bottle of Agmark Mysore sandalwood essential oil and a bottle of perfumer’s alcohol. I used it to make a pure ‘authentic’ sandalwood scent. This arose out of discussions about the death of ‘real, i.e. Mysore’ sandalwood in perfumery. Priced out of possibility, manufacturers began to replace it with cheaper species from Australia. The blend was magnificent and possessed all the creamy, unctuous, softly wooded qualities that I remembered in Sandalwood scents of years ago. It felt like meditation in a bottle and fuelled my enthusiasm to create more.

 2) A few weeks ago I ordered a plentiful wodge of essential oils and absolutes from Neat Wholesale (see listing and link under the ‘shopping tips’ page). I couldn’t afford to buy any expensive florals (though I’d loved to have tried their Champaca and undiluted Rose and Neroli) so I stuck to a few that I have used and loved before such as Rose Geranium and Rosewood and a few small quantities of things I’ve never smelt before such Roasted Coffee and White birch. The sensation of smelling their Lavender Absolute (the purest concentration of Lavender) was extraordinary. This bright emerald green liquid contains so very many notes within itself that it was a stand alone perfume, lavender bright with a musky, mossy warm undertone that I’ve smelt in By Kilian’s Taste of Heaven and Caron’s Pour un Homme.

Some of my little bottles of EOs from Neat

3) I also made an order for synthetics with Plush Folly (again see the shopping tips page) who specialise in ingredients for making perfumes, candles, cosmetics etc. I ordered three types of aldehyde, a sample pack of animalic notes, some ISO e Super (of eccentric molecules fame), a musky ambrettia base and some perfumer’s alcohol. The box arrived at my work address and upon opening, stank out our tiny office. It obviously provoked disparaging glances and wrinkled noses from my co-workers as I ran to open the window. I think a little of the aforementioned Aldehyde C11 might have leaked. It wasn’t pleasant.

Tiny curious bottles of Plush Folly's synthetics

Upon arriving home, I started to mix small amounts of the synthetics with perfumer’s alcohol, to enable me to smell then without overpowering my olfactory sensors. The most exciting of these ingredients were the two musks – Castoreum and Civet. I handed them to my partner for his thought’s.

“This is civet, what can you smell?”

“It’s piss. Defintely piss, and erm.. that one we smelt in Selfridges, the brown one”

“The Francis Kurkdijan? Absolue Pour Le Soir?”

“Yup, think so”

“This is castoreum, what can you smell here?”

“Piss, piss and cowpats”

It was a fairly accurate description of the notorious ‘skank’ note that we enthuse over in it’s purest form. This maybe a revolting association but I imagine that either of these notes would beef up a soppy floral or add some quirk to a strong oriental base. I was impressed.

I was also mightily impressed by the Ambrettia base. My curiosity for this ingredient was sparked by my love of the ambrette note (derived from a plant called the musk mallow) that appears in my beloved Annick Goutal’s Musc Nomade. In actuality, the Ambrettia potion is both enlivening (bright, optimistic, sparkly, slightly floral) and grounding (depth, strength, powder). I’m looking forward to making something with a ‘vintage’ feel with this one.

Of the aldehydes, numbers one and two were marvellous, projecting an airy bright opulence, each with a distinct character. I imagine that these will ‘lift’ compositions beautifully if used sparingly. Aldehyde C11 upset my sensibilities so much that it went immediately in the bin, double bagged for the safety of never smelling again. I surprised myself in that I can cope with the smell of, in Andy’s words ‘piss’, but can’t cope with the smell of ‘plasticky ironing’.

4) I’ve made a beginning with the bases of two scents. The first (a coffee and woods combo) smells so good that for now, I’m keeping it a secret (sorry!). I’ll be splitting the base and fiddling with top notes over the next few days.

In the making of the second scent I’ll be revealing every step and ingredient in upcoming posts here at Odiferess, telling you of the successes and failures that will make this either a good quality, wearable scent or complete bin fodder. We’ll see..

Make sure you check back in regularly over the next few months to follow my adventure.  

The Scent of British Spirit Part 3: The Indie Kids, 4160 Tuesdays and Ruth Mastenbroek

Several weeks ago I began exploring the British perfume industry to attempt to discover a definitive spirit. This journey resulted in a 3 part article of which you are now reading part 3 – The Indie Kids. To read parts 1 and 2, scroll down the page for an irreverent look at how heritage and royalty have influenced the Great Brits - Penhaligon’s, Floris and Grossmith.
 

Britain is famous for it’s indie culture. By ‘indie’, I mean independent, the creation of something that a person or small group of people make without the backing of a big investor or parent company. Essentially, innovation without major finance.

 

Some of our greatest indie Brits are famous for innovation in the worlds of music and fashion. Think of the fabulously unconventional fashion designer Vivienne Westwood, who in the early 1970s  partnered up (romantically and in business terms) with avant-garde music producer Malcolm McLaren, quit her job as a primary school teacher and created ‘Let It Rock’ a London based clothes shop. Let It Rock evolved rapidly, schizophrenically changing names and design themes, as the pair kicked off the sub-cultural music and fashion scenes of punk and new wave. Soon, London’s youth sported sado-masochist influenced bondage trousers and vertiginous Mohican hair taking alternative into the mainstream.

 

  Westwood and McLaren

 

During my teenage years in the late 1980s, I followed Manchester’s famous ‘Madchester’ music scene where bands such as The Inspiral Carpets (think – psychedelic Hammond organs combined with guitars strummed at full tilt and huge walls of noise) formed their own record label rather than seek a signing from a major, ultimately allowing complete creative control and gaining cult status amongst fans. The weekly arrival of my subscription to Melody Maker magazine saw me scouring listings for obscure gigs that would inevitably lead me and my friends to sleeping rough in Manchester’s Piccadilly Plaza after we missed our last train home. The satisfaction of an extraordinary night in undergound haunts such as the legendary Hacienda would keep us warm amongst our collected bin bags of shredded paper waste that offices would leave on their doorsteps for the bin men (surprisingly comfortable).

What Vivienne Westwood and The Inspiral Carpet’s shared, was a ‘Do It Yourself’ attitude. Why bother seeking the backing of a major investor or working for someone else when you can launch your own mini empire in your own makeshift way? DIY is the basis of indie victory.

The Inspiral Carpets in their youth

 

Essential oils, absolutes, alcohols and synthetic bases are widely available to buy online and (with a little research) it’s easily possible to make something unique and quirky. So why aren’t there a proliferation of indie perfumers?

 

One explanation could be the bureaucratic toil that is required to obtain a European safety certificate, i.e. a document that certifies that your perfume isn’t going to poison anybody and will allow you to trade your fumes to the public in a shop. This is both pricey and complex.  Another explanation is that there is an expectation that a perfumer holds a high level scientific qualification and has undergone extensive training within the employ of Givaudin, Firmenich etc before becoming what we know as ‘a nose’. 

 

One entrepreneurial spirit who has negotiated the EU rules and successfully created a range of superbly quirky whiffs is Sarah McCartney. Sarah launched her company 4160 Tuesdays with minimal formal training, learning just enough to ensure that her products performed as a perfume successfully. Sarah’s real ‘training’ was a life long adoration of fragrance and the depth of knowledge that comes with years of reading and writing about perfume. Sarah says of her company:

 

“The 4160Tuesdays project is about being creative: mindful observation, nerd-like fascination, endless exploration and - fingers crossed - mixing it all up and having good ideas. At least once a week. If we can't be bright and brilliant every day, at least let's have a crack at making Tuesdays interesting.” 4160tuesdays.com

 

This statement thoroughly embodies the indie spirit, it’s not about creating a luxury product for a label hungry consumer. It’s about exploring what can happen when she pursues an idea, the creation of a perfume that might capture a concept, place or memory rather than simply ‘something that smells nice’.

Sarah mixes fumes in a home made lab

 

As I write, I’m wearing a sample of ‘The Dark Heart of Old Havana’ a scent inspired by her travels to Cuba. Sarah says of the Cuban capital:

“They have tobacco, sugar, rum and fruit. They don’t have much of anything else. And there’s ingenuity, humour, fatalism and sweltering heat. And this is the way I remember it smelled, walking through Old Havana to the Caseón del Tango at night.”

 

And dark it smells. Our noses are trained to recognise vanillic smells as sugary and comforting, with associations of ice cream, cakes and all things ‘sweet’. Now and again someone will mix it with some patchouli and spice and call it ‘noire’, but it’s never that dark, merely a little more adult. In the case of Sarah’s Dark Heart of Old Havana, she has created a literal interpretation of her experiences off the tourist trail and reproduced both the edgy atmosphere and intoxicating smells of Havana.

L’ Artisan Parfumeur released a fragrance called Havana Vanille, which promised a combination of rum and vanilla mixed up with spices and tobacco. To my nose it smelt of vanilla and pepper and little else, it left me uninspired. Sarah’s Havana Vanilla doesn’t. It makes me excited. It’s the rarest form of vanilla fragrance in that it actually smells huge and symphonic, casting notes of dark leathery labdanum, over-ripe fruits and a curious burnt toffee sensation into the air. Whilst vanilla scents often smell ‘flat’, this one seems to radiate upwards and outwards with a lot of energy. I can almost smell Sarah’s energetic mission to learn how to Tango on her travels! Yes it’s dark in that smells of strong booze, smoky cigars and filthy fruit pulp leftovers at the end of a market day in sweltering heat but it’s also bright and optimistic, a triumph of very clever perfumery.

Sarah’s scents are sold in small scale distribution, with an online shop at the 4160 Tuesdays website, Les Senteurs and a posh knicker shop in Camden. I’m glad about this, I don’t want to see it in Harrods. I’d hate to hear a passionless sales assistant try to sell her memories.

In the process of communicating with Sarah during my research process I was struck by how much I personally liked her. Wit, intelligence, informality and a slighty daft sense of humour underpinned her emails, which really sums up the spirit of her perfumes. They are a reflection of her eccentric character and as such are delightful.

Another route into indie perfumery is to leave your career as a nose for the big guys and set up on your own. Ruth Mastenbroek has mighty credentials, in possession of a chemistry degree from Oxford and a lengthy International career creating a multitude of perfumes and aromas under the security of contracts with large companies, she is the polar opposite of Sarah McCartney. In fact, Ruth even holds the title of President of the British Society of Perfumers.

Ruth launched her own signature fragrance, RM for women, independently in 2010. There must be a huge amount of pressure involved with the release of your ‘signature’ perfume. What if it isn’t as successful as your past creations for other companies? How do you, as an industry expert, deliver a concoction that ultimately signifies your personal taste, gives away a little of your character, and bears your name as an emblem of what you believe to be your own idea of the sublime idyll within perfumery?

Of her inspiration for RM, Ruth says:

 

“Our sense of smell is a powerful reminder of precious memories. Memories have inspired me, influencing the complex ‘chypre’ fragrance that is Ruth Mastenbroek.

Memories of childhood: gingerbread, fresh earth, blackberries... Memories of my life in England and abroad: Japanese jasmine, cherry blossom, lotus, and green tea; Dutch lilies, narcissus, hyacinth, and salt sea air; French orchids, roses, and wild flowers...

Memories of travels to exotic places, the spices and oils of Morroco, Sri Lanka, Italy and Thailand.

This palette has been my playground, my refuge, my source of inspiration. From it I have created a scent that stands out above all others, one that I can truly call me. “

Ruth created a contemporary floral chypre, with a strident blackcurrant note and abundant jasmine. It isn’t quirky, it’s very likeable to a mass audience as well as those with a nose for niche florals.

Ruth's signature fragrance

When I first applied it I was surprised. To some extent I was disappointed that it wasn’t very unusual. I’d expected to smell an innovation, perhaps with a challenging aspect that could only be appreciated by a perfume junkie such as the cold camphor in Tubereuse Criminelle or curious curry in Eau Noire. RM could have easily been released by Givenchy, Lancome or Dior and appreciated by millions. As I pondered it’s mood over several wearings I started to understand the point of RM. It’s not supposed to be quirky. It’s supposed to be a culmination of years of expertise and life experience, a summary of her career and a statement of elegant femininity. It wasn’t meant to be for me, with my penchant for edgy music, flat shoes, masculine colognes, handmade art school dresses and jasminophobia.

So why is RM in my indie article? Because I love the idea of Ruth creatively beating the giants at their own game. RM is amongst the most mainstream smelling perfumes on the shelves of legendary indie fume shop - Les Senteurs. It’s what the huge cosmetics houses would love to release under their own name if only they could. It’s a Goliath perfume, a high end fruity floral chypre with enormous longevity and strength that would sells millions of bottles to millions of women if you could buy it at Debenhams. Only you can’t. You can only buy it directly from Ruth’s web boutique and from a number of small indie retailers. For that reason, it’s downsized, DIY Dior. It smells as if Ruth wanted to create her masterwork as ‘the greatest popular floral in the world’ without the restrictions of designing it for a big house to make it actually become the greatest popular floral in the world. No clients to please and appease, no marketing folk to deliver a definitive brief, no tight restrictions on a materials budget and no corporate nonsense. A J’Adore created during a period of freedom. For this I admire her as much as I admire Sarah McCartney’s delightful eccentricity.

As I ponder the close of my research into ‘The Scent of British Spirit’ I still wonder why we as an industry are still deemed to be less commercially successful and innovative than the French? I can only summarise that it ultimately might come down to production and distribution, we simply don’t make perfume by the truck load or market it with glamourous gusto to the masses.

Perhaps it’s just who we are, a nation who will always be the slightly eccentric underdog. Essentially creative but not overly concerned with winning a commercial competition. After all, there is joy in the hidden, being part of the alternative, we do it our own way. 

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