Wednesday, 16 February 2011

Perfume and Fragrance Blogs and Websites

It seems a bit pedantic blogging about blogs but I have been immersed in some very good blogs and websites about all things olafactory lately. Here are two of my favourites -


I must say I find it difficult articulating fragrances - they are so personal and empathetic. But Bois de Jamine  is very very good this is from her blog:

"About Victoria, the Editor and WriterI grew up in a family of chemical engineers, and while my early background has revolved more around aldehydes themselves rather than Chanel No. 5, my interest in chemistry shaped my passion for perfumery. I have been collecting and studying essential oils and synthetic materials for several years. At the same time, this quest has led to a fascination with the history of perfumery, resulting in a large library of vintage fragrances.
In May of 2005, while working on my Ph.D., I decided to create a website that would offer a tribute to everything I find fascinating about perfume: the people who are responsible for creating fragrances; the materials that are woven into accords and then into the resulting compositions; and the very essence of the process that leads to the finished composition. While the perfume writing started as a hobby, it quickly turned into a full-time job, which has been very rewarding. Besides Bois de Jasmin, my writing appeared on the pages of Perfumer and Flavorist Magazine and Financial Times Magazine How to Spend It."

So inspiring to read the comments of such a knowledgeable person.

My other aweinspringwebsite is White Lotus Aromatics such in depth first hand knowledge and historical/cultural references is something to be celebrated. I have always wanted to explore the north west coast of the USA and Canada and Christopher and Suzanne have definately encouraged to make a visit. This is from their blog:
"White Lotus Aromatics is located in beautiful Port Angeles, WA "where the mountains greet the sea."


White Lotus evolved as a natural adjunct to the Fragrant Harvest Project, which commenced in India in 1996. Since then Christopher has made numerous trips to India, traveling throughout the country to meet with farmers, distillers and extractors,and research scientists working on aromatic crops and their natural distillates and extraction. These journeys paved the way for offering pure essential oils, CO2 extracts, traditional attars, absolutes, carrier oils and, most recently, incense to the fragrance community. The hunt for the highest quality oils led naturally to expanding our interactions with distilleries and extraction units to countries outside of India and now we are directly procuring natural essences from Bulgaria, Madagascar, South Africa, Ethiopia, Hungary, France, Italy, Bosnia and several other countries.


We focus our attention on a select number of organic and wild harvested essential oils, hydrodistilled essences, CO2 extracts, attars, ruhs, and absolutes.We have done our best to select only the highest quality, purest oils available from our distilling and extracting colleagues around the world and hope that our customers, old and new, will find in our aromatic palette precious essences that will serve their needs.


Suzanne and Christopher McMahon handle all the operations of White Lotus Aromatics--sourcing, ordering, invoicing, packing. Managing the business ourselves allows us to maintain a direct relationship with our customers while moving forward with the creative projects the interest and inspire us."

 

Wednesday, 19 January 2011

Best of 2010

Its official - our Sweet Orange, Geranium and Frankincense natural fragrance blend is our customers' favourite.  Not only in our shop but with our business customers including the Goodwood Members' Club, Glorious Goodwood, Mr Underhill's Michelin starred restaurant with rooms in Ludlow and the Griffin Inn in Fletching, East Sussex.
All three essential oils are now certified organic, ensuring high quality and best practice towards the producers. Our Sweet Orange Oil is rare orange oil made from the rind of Shamouti oranges - quite difficult to source but well worth it as it has a much deeper, spicier fragrance than more available oils. This combines beautifully with our Frankincense oil gathered and processed by nomads in Somalia.

Monday, 3 January 2011

The National Trust

We are very pleased that Artful Teasing products our now available in National Trust Shops in the South East.
Currently we are in the gift shops in Petworth House, Polesden Lacey, Nymans Gardens, Batemans, Alfriston Clergy House, Canterbury, Morden Hall and Chichester. It is very satisfying to know that the sales of our lotions and potions are helping to maintain such lovely properties.
The entrance to Petworth House from the town

Second Place in Christmas Live Window Competition

Huarrah, my lovely mermaid delighted the judges winning us second place in Petworth's Christmas Live Window competition.  It is becoming a bit of a tradition in Petworth on the first Saturday of December that retailers have live people or animals in their windows. It's great fun and I was surprised to get a place as the competition in fierce. My cheeky friend Julie just loved stopping the traffic and waving to passers by. Thank you Julie, and thanks to Becky at Twenty (a fantastic designer boutique round the corner) who gave me the idea. Needless to say, she came first with her beautiful ballerina.

Wednesday, 28 July 2010

Cinnamon Oil

I don't tend to use a lot of cinnamon oil in my essential oil blends, it is incredibly strong and can be overpowering and irritating. But I do use it for Christmas candles along with orange, clove and nutmeg.
Cinnamon is a small tree that grows mainly in Indonesia, Sri Lanka and China. We use the the inner bark rolled into quills for cooking and you can obtain essentil oil from it. But you can also use the leaves to produce cinnamon leaf oil.
One cosmetic use of cinnamon oil is in lip plumping products. The oil irritates the lips making them swell slightly so that you think the product is doing something!

Friday, 23 July 2010

Petworth Festival

It's this time of year again. Wonderful artists from all over the world come to our little town to give concerts in St Mary's Church or Bignor Park. This year one of the events will be in Petworth House. In fact I'm going to see it this evening.
I somehow managed to get 'highly commended' in the window competition with the theme of world music. I got one of my kimono dressing gowns to play a chinese flute and made fans and bright pink flowers out of tissue paper. You can see me being presented with a bottle of Nyetimber champagne here - page 2, ninth picture along. The eighth picture is of Niki and Jackie outside Tiffins Tea Room. They won the competition with a very clever Teddy and the Tempests spoof about a group of teddies on a world tour (The Tempest is one of the Festival treats this year). The seventh photo is of John Bird outside his antique shop. He came second with his vuvuzela playing statue in a musical bikini!
The Festival opened with a free open air concert at the end of the annual Fete in the Park. As usual it was heralded around the by our town crier Mike Hubbard.

Wednesday, 21 July 2010

Veuve Clicquot Gold Cup

On Sunday 18th July we took our products to the final of the Veuve Clicquot Polo Gold Cup at Cowdray, Midhurst. We wanted to promote the shop and the website and so gave out lots of free hotel-size samples of bath & shower gel and body lotion. We had a great time seeing the reactions of people to the essential oil fragrances; sweet orange, geranium and frankincense was the favourite followed by pink grapefruit, geranium and lemongrass. We had a prize draw for a hamper of our products worth £100 and handed out our new pull out 'peel and reveal' card which has two perfume strips to smell.

We managed to take it in turns to look at the polo which is very exciting and very dangerous! I love looking at beautiful thoroughbred horses but am a bit reticent about how they are used in racing and polo. However I suppose they would not exist if these sports did not support them.



One of my favourite paintings is Whistlejacket by Stubbs. I don't know why I love horses so much as I am terrified at the thought of riding them or crossing a field with them in!
http://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/george-stubbs-whistlejacket