Perfume Secrets: DIY Enfleurage

Enfleurage or How the scent of flowers and scented leaves is captured in fat and transferred to alcohol

Enfleurage DIY Esperessence

Last summer I took a short online Facebook course, given by Dabney Rose, on how to do your own enfleurage. Dabney Rose promotes real fragrance from real flowers and makes her life growing a perfume garden, employing gentle methods of extraction and teaching about this to others.

The enfleurage course was one which you could easily do at your own pace and ask for help if you needed to through a special Facebook group. My aim was to learn more about this ancient and  gentile way of extraction in perfumery.

Enfleurage DIY Esperessence

As I did not have any scented flowers I used scented tomato leaves, as I had a few tomato plants. My idea was inspired by Hilde Soliani Stecca, a fragrance which to me smells exactly like tomato leaves. Others from the course did use scented flowers like roses, tuberoses, violets or jonquils.

Enfleurage Dabney Rose

The course was very inspiring. We had to put scented flowers or leaves into a Pyrex tray of coconut fat and change them every x hours depending on the flowers or leaves. The coconut fat remained the same so it could absorb the fragrance of the leaves during a longer period of time.

I learned enfleurage takes a lot of patience, although I did not change the leaves as much as I should have. At times it was too warm so the fat melted and sometimes small parts of the leaves remained in the fat as you can see on one photograph.

Enfleurage Dabney Rose

Another thing I learned was that every kind of tomato plant smells differently and thus I connected on a deeper level to plants as well. I had three different kinds of tomato plants to use. It was quite meditative in a way to do this and magical, slowly at your own pace, leaf by leaf.

After the process of changing the leaves or flowers for a period of time you had to scrape the coconut fat, put it in a jar and add some alcohol. Then you had to leave it and shake it from time to time. After a while the alcohol absorbs the scent from the fat.

Enfleurage DIY Esperessence

My tomato leaf coconut fat is still in a jar, waiting to be used. I made it more for the experience than for its fragrance but we shall see how it turns out and what I will use it for.

I asked Dabney Rose if she wanted to explain more about enfleurage in a short interview. This interview will be published very soon on this website. Dabney Rose will be offering her online course in a few months.

If you want to experience the process of enfleurage I could recommend this course to you. It was fun, magical and interesting to do.


 

Special thanks go to Shelley Waddington for helping with finding more information about enfleurage and Dabney Rose for all her help with the process of enfleurage as well.

Disclaimer: the course was paid by me, I did not get any compensation to write about this course

All photographs: made by me

4160 Tuesdays Midnight in the Palace Garden and Advent Calendar Review

 

Alhambra 4160 Tuesdays Midnight in THE Palace Garden

The 4160 Tuesdays Advent Calendar 2015
During the last advent Christmas period I tested 25 different fragrances made by 4160 Tuesdays London based perfumer Sarah McCartney. 4160 Tuesdays had offered an Advent box with a different daily fragrance for 75 pounds. Generous 2,5 ml edp or extrait sprays were wrapped in beautiful coloured envelopes. It was a joyful and playfull way to experience a large part of the 4160 Tuesdays perfume collection. I missed the surprise of opening a new envelop with a different fragrance and tweeting about it at end of the Advent Box on December 25th. Sarah McCartney reacted daily to the tweets which was quite nice as well.

4160 Tuesdays Advent Box

Why writing about it now, after Christmas ?
At the beginning of December and the Advent period, I started blogging everyday about her fragrances but I needed more time to test her fragrances and not all were my personal taste. So I decided to test all of them and afterwards write about the ones I liked and enjoy, starting with Midnight in The Palace Garden (shortly: Midnight) from the Crimes of Passion series.

An honest remark about 4160 Tuesdays fragrances
Before I start with Midnight I have to be honest, most of the 4160 Tuesdays fragrance were not my personal taste. They were either too sweet or too edgy. But they are quite different from all other fragrances I have tried before. The perfume names at times are very funny and I love all the colors Sarah McCartney uses in her collection.

My Four 4160 Tuesdays Favorites
From the whole collection I liked four fragrances, Midnight in the Palace Garden, Centrepiece, Doe in the Snow and Paradox. I will start reviewing Midnight and might review the others another time.

Midnight in The Palace Garden Extrait Review
When I first scented Midnight, it reminded me of the Alhambra Palace in Granada. This could be due to its name or the accompanying story on the 4160 Tuesdays official website:

“Picture a moonlit courtyard, scented with white flowers and orange trees; there’s a fountain, a low table with coffee and sweets, a silk- upolstered divan and the scent of warm skin after a calm hot day.”

Notes: (from official 4160 Tuesdays website)
Atlas cedarwood and skin notes, frangipani, jasmine and neroli, sandalwood, cedarwood, 20th century wood-like modern molecules, blood orange, vanilla and coffee

Orange blossom in Jerez de la Frontera

Orange blossom in Jerez de la Frontera

Midnight starts off at my skin with very sweet oranges, as if you are drenched in oranges in a bath. Shortly afterwards  sweet orange candies with a semi liquid orange filling and sweet flowery orange peel appear. To be followed after some minutes by beautiful orange blossom flowers. This is my favorite part of Midnight. After half an hour what remains are the sweets. I did not get any coffee only a slight tobacco idea note at the start. Midnight changes over time but not surprisingly. For a pure extrait, Midnight had some projection, giving the impression of an eau de parfum as more modern extraits do. It lasted about 4 to 5 hours on my skin.

Bottomline: I liked Midnight and I have to admit I like everything from the orange tree from its blossom, twigs, leaves to its fruit. But I wish Midnight was a tad less sweet. The orange blossom note in Midnight is beautiful. If you like orange or orange blossom fragrances give Midnight a try, if you don’t, stay away from it.

Did you try any 4160 Tuesdays fragrances? If so, which was your favorite?

Disclaimer: the Advent Calendar was bought by me

photographs: 1 and 2 : made by me, 4: made by Jerez de La Frontera

Alhambra