Smiling Country, a photo by Ayala Moriel on Flickr.

Can there be a better timing to reveal my Smiling Country perfume notes than when I'm actually in Sonoma County, which inspired the perfume?

The hills are covered with yellow dry grass and only the trees are green. The smell in the air is of dry grass with subtle underlining cow manure odour. Smiling Country perfume is not far from this, but more on the greener side. I wanted it to be green, crisp, earthy with hints of wine notes and a dash of mimosa (which were in bloom when I first visited her in February)... It may smell like there are notes in it that are not there (patchouli, labdanum and oakmoss were the most repeated guesses). I intentionally did not want to have any of these in there though as they are so easily overused... Instead, what I used to create Smiling Country were:

Top notes: Mimosa absolute, bergamot, frangipani absolute, hemp

Heart notes: Jasmine, tomato leaf absolute, white water lily attar, rhododendron, boronia absolute