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SmellyBlog

Autumn Aromas & Fall Flavours - The Western Galilee Edition

Rocky and wild #betzetbeach #perfumeryonthemove

I'm emerging from what has been one of the most challenging months of my life (and this is pretty much what I've been experiencing with every month since May of last year). Three days ago, we moved into my mom's yurt (a sort of a not-so-temporary dwelling originating in Mongolia) and after one day of total hell (predictable with major change with anyone, but particularly for autistic people) my daughter is adjusting surprisingly well to the new arrangement. So to break the doom and gloom of silence that's been hovering over this blog, I've decided to assemble an illustrated collage of scents that I've been enjoying since arriving here in Israel. It's those little things that keep me going and bring comfort in the midst of total chaos and displacement.

And what better place to begin than the beach? It's the one and only constant in our lives since leaving Vancouver (besides basic activities such as brushing teeth and eating breakfast). The north coast of Israel is fascinating with wild life and the terrain is not as monotonously sandy as the south (although this has its charm as well). Lagoons, rocks and  ancient port cities and fishing villages lace the shores, as well as remains of an ancient factory for red dye from certain sea snails.  Beach culture here is also vibrant and goes year around, with diving and surfing bringing in people who would normally complain that the water is too cold in the winter.

Beach lily on the dunes
And as if the beach is not wonderful enough just for its warm, azure blue water - there are also some amazing wild plants growing near it. These wild beach lilies are almost as large as the madonna lilies, and just as fragrant. But their aroma is a little different - a sultry mix of salicilates (which are typical for lilies, as well as present in ylang ylang) and hyacinth's heady green. Add to that the fact warmth from the Mediterranean sun, which beats the dewiness out of it completely - and you get a scent of slightly-cooked bulb flowers.


Carissa macrocarpa
Carissa (AKA Natal Plum) is another beach phenomenon, but cultivated. It can be found as a hedge plant in many coastal cities here. This plant originates in South Africa, where its oblong, bright red fruit provides an important source of food (I personally find it too astringent). The flower is what I'm more fond of, as it has shape like frangipani or tiare, and a smell that is gardenia-like, but more subtle.

Anona #custardfruit #anona #beach #picnic
I've dedicated an entire post to guavas,  so I won't mention them again. But they are not the only remarkable fruit this season. Anona (AKA cherimoya, custard fruit or custard apple) are lovely-tasting fruit that look oddly like pine cones (especially after they get overripe and their peel hardens and completely blackens). The inside flesh has a flaky structure, similar to cooked fish, but melts in the mouth like custard. The aroma is very mild and appealing. This fruit is quite expensive, and always brings me fond memories of when my daughter was born, because my mom brought me many of them as a treat.

Quisqualis indica אלמון הודי. Smells like fragrant King Jade oolong.
Quisqualis indica (AKA Chinese Honeysuckle or Rangoon Creeper) greets you as you enter the veranda at my brother's house. Incidentally, this is a similar scenario to the entrance at his in-laws home. The scent is intoxicating, especially at night. Floral (vaguely jasmine-smabac-like) and heady but not overwhelmingly so, as it is balanced with green notes and overall smells like a good oolong tea, xing qin to be exact (also called King Jade).

#Jasmine
Jasmine blossoms are alive and well in this part of the world, and early morning is the best time to enjoy them. By night time most of their scent has evaporated in the sun. Sitting next to one of these bushes, with or without a cup of herbal tea (coming soon) is a most delightful way to start the day and remind me why I came here. I've been enjoying the ones near my brother's home (we've stayer with him for a month), and my own bush, planted 20 years ago, is still alive and well. There are also jasmine sambac bushes growing on my mom's property. What's fantastic is that they have no problem surviving the winters here, and can grow to be impressively large bushes with thick trunks, and they bloom many times throughout the year.

#Lemongrass #light
Fragrant herbs, especially lemon scented ones, are one of the things I missed the most about my home village. Nothing compares the taste of freshly brewed tisane from lemon verbena and lemon grass that you've just picked from the garden a few minutes ago. The flavour is so full of life and so refreshing. We like to open and close each day with this brew, sit down with family and relax; and also that's how we greet most visitors. For out of owners this is the epitome of luxury.

#tobacco #leaf #curing. #tarshiha
In one of my visits to the nearby town of Tarshiha, I spotted a tobacco curing joint on the roof of one of the houses. Tobacco leaves are usually harvested at the end of the summer, and can be left to cure outdoors in this climate, as the first rains won't begin till October (and sometimes even later). The scent of tobacco leaves wafted through the cobblestone lanes and many leaves that fell of the clusters on the roof could be found on the ground.
Syrian maple #fall #autumn
These are leaves of Syrian maple that I spotted in a creek nearby. They don't have any notable scent, but are significant in a symbolic way, because the season is called fall, after all. Likewise, the acorns pictured below are not particularly fragrant, but illustrious of the season's unique sights.

Acorns בלוטים
The acorns, I'm told, can be roasted and ground into a flour and used as a source of food. I'm going to try it this year... And serve acorn pudding from teeny tiny acorn cups. 

שיח אברהם/ירנך Abraham's bush (smells like #Indigo perfume( https://ayalamoriel.com/products/indigo
The flowers of Vitex agnus-castus AKA Abraham's Bush, Abraham's Balm or Yarnakh, appear in clusters like lilac, only that they are pointing upwards. They have a distinctive perfume that I can't describe. The best way to experience it outside the wild habitat is uncork a vial of my Indigo perfume.
Green mandarin #greenmandarin #autumnaromas #fallflavours
The first mandarins are ripe from the inside but still green on the outside. Nostalgic scent for me, as we'd pack them for the first days of school and they marked not only the beginning of the new school year, but also the many citrus fruit that will continue to ripen and provide us with vitamin C throughout the abrupt and rather stormy Israeli winter.

#מסיק #oliveharvest

The olive harvest season is now, and the rain wouldn't arrive to wash the dust off the olives. It was a very weak year for this crop, and many families including mine decided to not even bother picking them. My mom insisted and we helped her pluck enough olives to fill two sacks, which surprisingly yielded an entire can of oil (probably around 2 gallons). The experience was a tactile torture as there is nothing I hate more than chalky dust all over my fingers, toes and clothes. The first rain finally arrived in a short but violent outburst first thing in the morning of November 1st, so maybe now I will be more inclined to pick the remaining olives. I much prefer the smell of petrichor and olive foliage to that of dust accompanied by scorching sun.


Jasmine & Lavender

Bright Lavender

Last month was dedicated to jasmine, and in this coming month SmellyBlog will be paying extra attention to lavender as an ingredient in flavour, skincare and perfumes. I've been craving a perfume that combines both of these wonderful notes, and my lab experiments with this idea seem to be a befitting way to transition from one theme to the next.

I've approached this "brief" if you will, in a rather simple way: layer together jasmine perfumes and lavender perfumes and see if that works. I layered Brin de Reglisse over some rather dramatic white-florals to mellow down their headiness. And when I approached this in the lab - I began the day before by layering my two soliflores - Lovender and Yasmin.

I'm not a fan of layering, and I'll tell you why: what usually happens for me when layering one perfume over another on the skin is that the top one will dominate. It's a very rough way to blend two scents together, and on the way, the nuances of one are lost, and some things that are not necessarily desirable get amplified. In this case, the coumarin notes in Lovender were just too much to my liking and the mimosa in Yasmin just smelled sour and icky. That's why I hardly ever recommend layering scents... The results are so far from the original intent of the perfumer.

With those problems anticipated I set off to compose something that takes the best of both worlds (hopefully). I sort of amalgamated the two formulae, but decreased the amount of coumarin-rich components. My Jasmine & Lavender fixation was satisfied. And I got to play in the lab with some other ideas that kept me itching with curiousity. Such as another try at bringing out the tea qualities of jasmine, and rebatching limited edition Jasmine Pho - a refreshing, almost juicy-aldehydic, green-citrusy jasmine fragrance that is very enjoyable in summer.

Jasmine: A Summary

Grasse jasmine

"Everybody has some sense of what good food is. 
What many of us actually eat may not taste specifically good, may not be particularly good for us, and probably comes from a farm or factory we don't want to even imagine. But that's not because we don't know what we want. It's just that we always seem to end up eating something else."
(Jeff Crump - From Earth to Table, p. 1)

I could say the very same about perfume. How many times we know what a good perfume should smell like, but buy into the marketing schemes, or make a purchase because of the bottle alone? How many times it's the persona selling the perfume (a model, celebrity, or a brand-owner we find inspiring) that convinces us it's what we should wear? The power of suggestion is even more pronounced in the fragrance industry. Tell someone there is jasmine in their perfume, and they'll find something - anything - to remind them of what the gestalt of jasmine is in their minds.

While jasmine fits in beautifully into pretty much any composition, illuminating it with its aura and creative more space where before dense matter lay flat and barely breathing - adding anything TO jasmine in order to make it beautiful is almost as ridiculous and frustrating as putting makeup on a beautiful 4 year old girl.

The essence of Jasmine is a perfect thing. To add anything to it, or to take anything away, requires both vision and manipulative skill. How can you make it less indolic but not silence the animalic purr that is so prevalent in a good jasmine? How can you make it fruity and juicy, without being too sweet, cloying and cheap-smelling? How can you take something that is essentially perfect the way it is, and create a new fragrance from it, a jasmine statement unique to you as a composer?

I've spend the best part of July testing jasmine perfumes from all walks of life: the mainstream department store types, artisan and/or natural, niche, and even the synthetic cheapie varieties. It prove to be a far greater challenge to find a satisfying, convincing jasmine that truly brings forth the beauty of this raw material while respecting it. The ones that I've shortlisted boil down to a very short list, actually, and appear in alphabetical order below. It would be interesting to note, that the most intriguing of them are those which do not possess the ambition of being overtly jasmine, but at the same time do not shy away from using impressive dosage of this note.

A La Nuit (Serge Lutens) - Straight up jasmine, and quite believable at that. 

Diorissimo (Dior) - Breathtaking Lily of the Valley masterpiece by Edmond Roudnitska. Look for the vintage or better yet - the extract, where the jasmine absolute is quite evident, as are the green notes and boronia.

Donna Karan Essence: Jasmine (Donna Karan) - realistic jasmine, even if simple. For similar effect, seek out jasmine absolute diluted at 5% or 10% or so at Intelligent Nutrients (Aveda used to have a "Jasmine Absolute Oil" but it seems to have disappeared) or at various aromatherapy suppliers. 

Drama Nuii (Parfumerie Generale) - fruity-lemony jasmine with musk 

Eau d'Hermes (Hermes) - jasmine with lemon and cumin 

Emotionnelle (Parfums DelRae) - Jasmine, violet and cantaloupe


Eau Sauvage (Christian Dior) - Hedione galore (a staggering 40%) in the heart of the father of all masculines. Masterpiece by Edmond Roudnitska, which means you must try it (look for vintage)

Jasmin de Nuit (The Different Company) - jasmine popsicle, with lemon and vanilla 

Jasmine AKA Clair-Obscur (Keiko Mecheri) - Soapy lily of the valley and jasmine 

Jasmine Tea (Artemisia Perfumes) - bejewelled jasmine green tea, with fir, osmanthus and green tea

Jasmine Rouge (Tom Ford) - realistically luxurious jasmine

Joy (Patou) - jasmine and rose

Le Parfum de Thérèse - jasmine, plum and basil sorbetto. Masterpiece by Edmond Roudnitska 

Opium (YSL) - jasmine, orange, patchouli and spices

Samsara (Guerlain) - jasmine and sandalwood

Songes (Annick Goutal) - jasmine ylang ylang heaven


Alba Botanica's Hawaiian Moisture Cream with Soothing Jasmine & Vitamin E

Alba Botanica's Hawaiian Moisture Cream with Soothing Jasmine & Vitamin E  used to be my favourite face cream before Persephenie came up with much more wholesome formulations, and even better perfumed, such as her Rose Paka. I got to admit though: I've abandoned all face creams in favour of my own Elixir - a hand-blended face oil, that is made of nourishing noncomedogenic oils and smell wonderfully rosy and fruity. For this jasmine fest I've also experimented with formulating a jasmine-scented face oil, using avocado oil as the base, in hopes of a greater synergistic effect for sensitive skin. I'm yet to find the right balance of jasmine to the base oil, because there is a tendency of jasmine to get completely hidden in a fatty base. When making perfumes it's not a problem, because high concentration is fine. But in body and skincare products, no more than 1-2% at the very most is recommended, and even less is advisable for the face.

So this is where Jasmine & Vitamin E cream still holds its place as the go-to jasmine-scented moisturizer. It is beautifully scented, with just enough jasmine to give it that character, and a light, heady ylang ylang to support this tropical, intoxicating aroma while keeping its costs down. The texture is very light weight, so I would use it during the day mostly. I'm not too keen on the least of ingredients, though, which seems to have its main constituent as water, seconded by sunflower oil (which is nice enough, but not as rich as I'd like my face cream to be), and glycerin as the third ingredient. Glycerin is not the most moisturizing ingredient, actually. It's humectant, which means that it draws moisture out of the air and into your skin if humidity level is 65% or over. But in a dryer weather, under 65% humidity, what it would do is actually suck out the moisture out of your skin. So I would be careful about using glycerin-based products, depending on where you plan to use the product.

Other than that, it does have some list of beneficial extracts and oil, including both jasmine and chamomile, which are both good for sensitive skin, and various nourishing oils such as borage, sweet almond, jojoba, and of course vitamin E. It's hard to tell how much impact these ingredients would have, it really depends on their exact quantity and quality. But overall, this is a fun product to use, with a lightweight, fast-absorbing texture, and a lovely scent. And you all know that I'm a sucker for the latter.

Ingredients (as appears on the packaging and on Alba Botanica's website):
Aqua (Water), Helianthus Annuus (Sunflower) Oil (1), Glycerin, Glyceryl Stearate, Octyl Palmitate , Aloe Barbadensis Leaf Juice (1), Cetyl Alcohol , Glyceryl Laurate , Tocopheryl Acetate , Aleurites Moluccana Seed Oil, Borago Officinalis Seed Oil (1), Macadamia Ternifolia Seed Oil , Prunus Amygdalus Dulcis (Sweet Almond) Oil (1), Simmondsia Chinensis (Jojoba) Seed Oil (1), Carica Papaya (Papaya) Fruit Extract, Centella Asiatica Extract , Chamomilla Recutita (Matricaria) Flower Extract, Jasminum Officinale (Jasmine) Extract , Zingiber Officinale (Ginger) Root Extract , Allantoin , Dimethicone , Panthenol , Stearic Acid, Tocopherol , Tromethamine , Xanthan Gum, Ethylhexylglycerin, Phenoxyethanol, Amyl Cinnamal, Benzyl Benzoate, Benzyl Salicylate, Butylphenyl Methylpropional, Eugenol, Geraniol, Hydroxycitronellal, Hexyl Cinnamal, Hydroxyisohexyl 3-Cyclohexene Carboxaldehyde, Linalool , Fragrance (Parfum)

Carol Priest's Jasmine Flower Toner


In celebration of jasmine this month, I'd like to mention Carol Priest's Jasmine Flower Toner. I can no longer find it in town, but when I did I truly enjoyed a more light handed experience of jasmine on my face.

Jasmine offers some wonderful properties for the skin. It is particularly recommended for sensitive skin, so enjoying it in this light and safe quantity (this is not a true hydrofoil, but rather jasmine absolute emulsified into distilled water, with the aid of alcohol and carprylyl/capryl glucoside). This ingredient is vegetable-derived and has surfactant, solubalizing and cleansing properties.

Ingredients: Distilled Water (Aqua), Alcohol, Caprylyl/Capryl Glucoside, Jasminum Officinale (Jasmine) Oil. 

P.s. I have no idea why images of orange blossoms were used to illustrate this product on the company's website; but not it's a common mistake. I've even seen citrus blossoms (probably pomelo, actually) labeled as jasmine flowers in a rather famous tea-related coffee table/resource book. 
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