Lime, originally uploaded by Ayala Moriel.

Yesterday’s session with my Orcas perfume turned out pretty well, but with one major conclusion: I need seaweed absolute. Badly. In fact, I think there would be no point to make more mods until I get seaweed absolute in. The seaweed I have is an essential oil and is very light. As a result, it only succeeds in playing a minor role in a formula where it has to be the centerpiece.

That being said, I’m happy with the direction this project is leading me, because it is fun, interesting and quite refreshing in the heat wave we are experiencing in the city again (yay!). I’ve been swimming in the ocean 2 nights in a row and intend to do so as long as the weather continues this way.

It is perhaps too early to cast real judgment on the mod of yesterday, because at least a week in the bottle make all the essences act and interact differently than when they are fresh. In this mod, I’ve decided to go back to lime after replacing it with lemon and bergamot in the past 3 mods (2-4). I stayed away from it only because I’ve noticed that every time I want to create something “masculine” I end up with both lime AND juniper. I was trying to avoid doing this again, but this part of the game is over. Lime reminds me of the beach, for whatever reason. Maybe it’s because it’s used in Coca Cola, which everyone seemed to want to drink at the beach (I’ve never gotten into coke, personally). But more likely – it’s probably because of the lemon-lime flavoured bubble gum that we used to indulge in as kids at the beach in the 80’s. There was this crazy brand of bubblegum that came out in the 80’s, in wicked flavours such as coconut, banana-punch (which is basically, cooked strawberry and banana flavour) and lemon-lime was one of those. What was special about those gums was not only their flavours (juicy and a little longer lasting than all the usually Israeli gums), but also they made the most enormous bubbles that we would cover your entire face once they popped. We literally blew bubbles the size of our heads and that was the coolest think we could think of doing, besides catching waves and escaping jellyfish stings.

By I digress. My point is: if lime reminds me of the ocean, I should stick with that! Keeping focus of an idea is always a challenge when you work your way through various mods. It’s so easy to side track and forget that what I wanted was… Wait a minute, what was it? Oh, yes: a woody marine, and preferably masculine.

This mode is actually quite focused, but like I said – there is a real urgent need for stronger seaweed to join the waves of woods and citrus and rosemary. It’s very similar to the last mode because like the last one it has the violet and boronia and cassie. Yet berries less sidetrack it and I used Virginia cedarwood this time to add a little dryness. I’ve also refrained from using oakmoss, and used cedarmoss instead, which is dryer.

Another danger when going through all the mods is redundancy. I already have Rainforest, which is a very West Coast, moist and musty green forest scent. And I already have l’Ecume des Jours, a marine floral, which has boronia, cedarwmoos and seaweed. I need to be sure I’m not repeating myself too much.

Mod. 5 starts very lime-like, than the rosemary comes to the front, with some seaweed, and than what I’m left with is mostly sweetness. I’m surprised at how sweet this is. There is no vanilla; there is no labdanum or amber. It seems to me, that at this particular ratio between the spruce and the vetiver, the blue spruce remains more balsamic than it ever were in previous mods. Now all I need is some seaweed absolute to reinforce the saltiness… And balance that foresty balsamic sweetness. I was thinking of other notes too – such a curry leaves and coriander seeds to add saltiness, but I don’t think this will be enough. And I’m also tempted to add some juniper, but I’m refraining from this because of fear of being redundant.