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Happy Chanukah!

Happy Chanukah!

Wishing you all a joyous Chanukah, filled with light, warmth, fragrant donuts and cozy company. Chanukah originated in festivities for the culmination of the olive harvest - a crop that is not only nutritious and beneficial for the skin, but also the source of light way before kerosene lamps and beeswax candles were thought of.
During Chanukah (December 10-18), receive 20% off on orders of $100 or more with code Chanukah2020.
Here are 8 ways to celebrate the Fête of of Light and Phat! 

Shop for our delightful winter offerings, offered at 20% off with code Chanukah2020 thru December 18, 2020.

Greek Goddess & Olive Oil
Chanukah was originally a festival to celebrate the olive oil harvest. While it is not particularly useful in modern perfumery, Olive oil was the base of the ancient perfumes on the island of Cyprus, where the first perfume factory was excavated. Keeping up with this Greek theme, I suggest you try a perfume that is inspired by my favourite Greek Goddess - Palas Atena, the Goddess of Wisdom and War. You can enjoy it as a parfum oil, Eau de Parfum (in two sizes, mini or 15mL Eau de Parfum). And last but not least - also a hair oil, that is both fragrant and nourishing and can be used as a low maintenance styling product (just work it into your damp hair with your fingertips). 


New! Nag Champa Agarbatti (Indian Incense Sticks)
Few of you may know of my "roots" as an incense maker. The past few years at my new studio enabled me to perfect a few formulae, and learn new technique. One of them is how to make agarbatti (Indian incense sticks with a bamboo core). This is an incense interpretation of Palas Atena, accentuating it's Nag Champa qualities, and using traditional ingredients such as ghee and honey to make these incense sticks release a luxurious and long-lasting smoke (they burn for 35-45min) that is perfect for large spaces. For smaller spaces, you may need to burn them for just five minutes at a time. You can order and enjoy our easy-to-use incense cones version of Palas Atena. Both are fashioned after the famous and beloved traditional Nag Champa - but made form only natural raw materials, infused with rare botanicals and hand-rolled by yours truly at my studio in Clil.


Laurel & Olive Ghar Soap (Aleppo-Style Soap)
Laurel & Olive Ghar (Aleppo-Style) Soap is the definition of pure luxury: two oils only, olive and laurel berry, pressed and combined to make a nourishing soap that is both luxurious, creamy, mildly cleansing. Because it is perfectly balanced and mild, it is appropriate for many sensitive skin conditions, and naturally fragrant without any scent added. Originating in the city of Aleppo, Syria, this is a unique, traditional soap in the Levant, that is produced only by a handful of small factories in Turkey and Syria, and now also offered by Ayala Moriel Parfums.


Sweet Olive (Osmanthus) Perfumes
Olives are great in your martini, but rarely finds its way into perfumes. It's sophisticated cousin Osmanthus though, is also known in the South as Sweet Olive. And indeed, it is a key component in In New Orleans and Charisma has it paired with sweet and warm spearmint and jasmine green tea over an incense base of our and tonka bean. Last but not least: Kinmokusei, my beloved Osmanthus soliflore, it is the star of the show.

Narcissi, Puddles and Mushrooms
This is the time of the year that Narcissus tazetta show their fragrant heads in our meadows. Narkiss (https://ayalamoriel.com/collections/seasonal-ltd-edition/products/narkiss) is its Hebrew name, and the name for the perfume that truly embodies the spirit of Kislev, the Hebrew month in which Chanukah takes place (Kislev 25 falls this year on the eve of Thursday, December 10th). Narkiss perfume smells like winter in Israel, with the slightly incense, green and heady perfume of wild narcissi against the drunken earth, rain puddles, and the moist and elusive scent of mushrooms in the air. This sophisticated Chypre is suitable for both men and women.


Winter Nerikoh
Nerikoh is Japanese kneaded incense that has been fermented underground for at least six months. Nerikoh is never burnt, but rather warmed on an incense heater, to accompany the tea ceremony. You needn't any fancy equipment to enjoy it, and a tiny pinch of one of these tiny balls will scent a room for hours on end. Use an aromatherapy diffuser, or place on top of your wood stove or radiator. It will release a gentle scent of spices, resins and woods. Choose from our most delectable scents for winter: Wind in the Palm Trees AKA Oasis Nerikoh (with dates and Ras el Hanout), or Saturn Nerikoh (with starwood, patchouli and myrrh).

Za'atar, Olive & Seawater Soap Bar
Za'atar & Olive is 100% olive oil, and not just any olive oil, but the purest virgin olive oil that was organically grown and harvested in my family's olive groves. This soap bar is made in the tradition of Savon de Marseilles, with filtered seawater from the Mediterranean sea. And to make it even more wild, it is scented with oil of oregano and sprinkled with Za'atar blend.

Black Licorice Soap Bar (Limited Edition)
Black Licorice soap (https://ayalamoriel.com/products/black-licorice-limited-edition-soap-bar) bar is, no doubt, the most colourful among my soap offerings. And colour and cheer is exactly what we need during these short winter days. This is our tried and true formula that is hydrating, creamy, with rich lather and non-drying. It is scented with our proprietary Black Licorice fragrance , tweaked to suit a soapy scene and thus resembles also the now defunct SenSen candy - another delectable anise candy and breath freshener from Asia. Makes a wonderful holiday gift that is fun to give and receive.

Shop for more winter treats, offered at 20% off with code Chanukah2020 thru Friday, December 18, 2020.

 

Narcissus Enfleurage, Part II

Narcissus Enfleurage
Yipee! Lucky for me, despite the low numbers of blooming narcissus bulbs in my garden this year, the resultant enfleurage from my meagre one-charge-batch is highly fragrant and gorgeous!
If you can imagine me doing a happy dance, this is exactly my reaction to this surprising success. It takes a long time to grow, pick and enfleurage the flowers. And then the fat needs to be soaked in alcohol and left to macerate for several weeks. Today I've finally strained it. The result is a filtered extrait (the term for the enfleurage fragrant tincture, before removal of the alcohol to produce an absolute - a stage I decided to forego due to my low yield and technical limitation), which I promptly added to Narkiss perfume, adding another layer of authentic narcissus to the absolute from Narcisse de Montainges from France that is already in there.

Smoky Narcissus

Narkiss

Wild narcissus (N. tazetta) and paperweights (N. 'Chinese Sacred Lily') are growing in my soon-to-be garden and in the mountainous wilderness that is its backyard. The wild one smells a thousand times better, in my humble opinion.... Especially, I've been haunted by its fragrance at night time, mingled with smoke from all the wood stoves used for heating in the village... Smells like a very fancy, smoky-floral beeswax candle burning. Not that this description does it any justice. I wish I could capture it in a perfume. Narkiss has some of the qualities (herbaceous, waxy-animalic) but as always, nature beats us all perfumers to a pulp. Other perfumes along these lines that I recall are Tom Ford's Velvet Gardenia and Shanghai Lily (I must remember to scout a sample size of that soon). Caron's famous Narcisse Noir also belongs to this territory, albeit it's much more aldehyde-heavy and it also has gasoline-like top-notes. Another scent it reminds me is of some of the Feu de Bois candle by Dyptique.

Those surprising moments when you discover a new yet familiar scent in the natural surroundings, truly are the best.

The Decision


The beautiful thing about deadlines, is that they force you to make a decision. Even deadlines that are imposed by oneself. I wanted to have Narkiss ready in time for Channukah, because that is the time of the year when the narcissi are in bloom in Israel.

I won't pretend it was the hardest decision of my life. Like many other times, I realized at the end of the process that my original concept was really IT. But it was too expensive to create in larger quantities. I had the concept for Narkiss going on for way too long to make it end up as a limited edition, sold only to a handful of curiouis perfumistas. I had bigger dreams for it becoming part of my steady collection - and even design a unique label for it, as part of The Language of Flowers collection.

It boiled down to 2 options. The difficulty was that I really liked both mod 07 and mod 08. Mod 7 started off a little sour, but quite realistically like a pine forest after rain, with that powdery flower lingering in the air. Admittedly, it was quite coumarine-y and green at first, and easily perceived as masculine. When it dried down, it turned into this gorgeous, pine needle and wood aroma - fresh yet deep, woody yet tart. I just adored it.



The 8th mod was very similar to the first idea I had created way back in 2007. I liked it a lot, almost as I did the original. But I didn't like the dry down as much as the 7th version. I had to make a decision and make it fast... And for that sometimes you need an extra set of nostrils. I asked my friend Jolanta to try both with me, just before the start of the Christmas at Hycroft show. She was a little like me, really pining for the 8th mod, but feeling that the 7th would be more popular. I agreed; but also thought out loud with her, saying how so many of my recent releases are not that different when it boils down to the dry down - woody fresh, kinda like Orcas. I felt like I needed to roll out something entirely new.

And that's how I decided on the 8th mod! So you see, in the end, it was worth wasting 6 bottles, countless essences, and many pages in my formulating books. And I truly hope that you'll enjoy my decision!

The Dilemma


With so many mods, the process can go on and on and on... It can be rather daunting at times: sniff this, compare it to that. Add a little bit more of this, and omit that. Does it smell right? Does it really make your nose want to sing? Does it smell unique and fabulous? Is there even a point of releasing something new - or am I just repeating myself and creating yet another white floral, or grassy, hay-like composition?



Composing is tedious, but also very meditative. Creative. Therapeutic, even. It's the analysis stage that can be the killer - I had so many options - the 6 rounds I told you about over the last couple of weeks were really more than that - they were 8 different formulae (or mods), and basically represented two if not three opposing concepts:
1) Retro, luscious floral with a bit of a dark, gloomy and pensieve personality and that is completely abstract.
2) Rainy, greeny winter scent that's supposed to realistically portray a real-life nature scenery (narcissus, puddles and pine forests).
3) Just go wild with narcissus absolute and make it truly shine, purely as a soliflore, with absolutely no regard to availability, expense or demand - which would inevitably create a very limited edition.

It was not the hardest decision of my life but let's say that there were at the end of it, 2 mods that I had to pick. It had to be either one or the other. The difficulty was that I really liked both mod 07 and mod 08.
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