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Orcas: The 1st Natural Oceanic Fragrance For Men





Dear Fragrant Friends,

It's hard to believe another year has gone by! It seems just like yesterday when I was swimming at Sunset Beach and testing the final versions of Orcas on the lifeguards. Oh, wait - I did go for a swim yesterday! Finally, summer is back in the Pacific Nothwest, and that was my first real, long swim of the year, at the very same spot. Ahh, so refreshing...! Which is the same feeling I get now spritzing my Orcas EDP from the new spray bottles. Got some good news to share with you, just in time for Father's Day and the beginning of summer - so read on!

In this newsletter:
  1. Orcas, the 1st Natural Oceanic Fragrance

  2. New: Eau de Parfum Spray Bottles

  3. In the Media + Contest

  4. Upcoming Events: Lace Embrace Event @ Hycroft Mansion June 19th

  5. Orcas Fragrance Launch Party July 17


  6. Wedding Perfumes

  7. Fragrant Father's Day

1. Orcas, the 1st Natural Oceanic Fragrance for Men



Orcas began its journey many years ago, with a scent that had an unusual combination of notes - seaweed, cloves, lime and rosemary. Strangely enough, it smelled like coke, and was loved by everyone who set nose on it. But I knew it wasn't quite right, so I set it aside and forgot all about it, until...

A couple of years ago, I went to Tofino and Uclulet for a little summer vacation, and fell in love with the magical, misty Pacific rim. Long Beach was breathtaking, with the constant mist in the air and the mythical rock that just sits there waiting for the surfers to take a wrong turn, and the whales passing by the Wild Pacific Trail enchanted me with their songs...
The air there is so crips and clean that it makes a perfect habitat for moss and lichen, adorning the trees with velvety green topes and silvery lace. And just
off the shore,
whales spit a mist of water from their lungs which towers abaove the
water and they weave in and out of its depths along the rocky shores.
Orcas plays on this theme of the marine creatures and moss.

Two years later, and Orcas has become what I envisioned - an innovative all-natural marine woody scent, a unique alternative to the mainstream aquatic/ozone fragrances. Orcas is made of a unique combination of scents from sea and seashore, some mundane and familiar, and others are precious botanical gems from the ocean and the land.

It is available in EDP only, in two sizes - 4ml mini ($38) or 15ml spray/splash bottle ($120). It was offered for pre-ordering so the number of bottles that will be ready for the launch (June 12th) is rather limited at the moment (and I'm thrilled it was so well received!!!).

It was always intended as a masculine fragrance, but as it turns out - both men and women love to smell and wear it!!!

You can read more about the process of creating Orcas on SmellyBlog. Here are more notes on the materials used in the finished creation:

Top notes - Breath of Fresh Air:

Rosemary verbenon - sheer, non-medicinal and reminiscent of tea and crisp ocean breeze. Rosemary bushes grow at Sunset Beach, and the lifeguard there make it into tea.

Lime - with its sweet, slightly coconutty undertones, lime is a note that always reminds me of the beach.

Fresh Ginger - brisk and zingy

Cedarwood - an inevitable note as the beaches of the Pacific Northwest are often a rainforest, or gritty sand dotted with cedar logs.

Heart notes - Non-Floral Flowers:
Egyptian Geranium - with a slightly salty, woody and musky aroma, it brings forward floral elements while keeping it clean and frill-free.

Boronia - a dash of oceanic saltiness from this Tasmanian treasure.

Clary Sage - tea-like and ambery nuances to connect between the ambergris and rosemary.

Violet Leaf - a freshwater mist that is cool and elegant.

Base notes - Salt, Whales and Forest at their best:

Seaweed - crisp ocean air with prominent saltiness

Ambergris - animalic whale secretion

Cedarmoss - reminiscent of the lichen hanging on the coniferous trees on the Wild Pacific Trail

Blue Spruce Absolute - scent of the Pacific Northwest forests









Continue reading Ayala Moriel's latest newsletter.

Sun, where art thou?


Building has sundeck., originally uploaded by Ayala Moriel.

This signage looks just as ridiculous now as it has in early July, when it was still cloudy and rainy in Vancouver...
August was barely over, and it already started raining again. My beach days are far and few in between cold wet days, and today was the last day of work for Vancouver's lifeguards... I'm going to miss them almost as much as I will miss the swimming itself - because we both share this strange passion for the beach and the ocean.

Saturday was my last day of swimming, and I was clever enough to bring them all samples of some manly scents to sniff, and most importantly - my 5th mod of Orcas. I'm not the kind of gal that pushes her business everywhere she goes. But when it comes up, it does. We were started to bid our farewells on Friday, and strangely, the question of what I do when I don't swim laps between the shore and the red floaty markers only came up when summer was just about to be gone... The lifeguards seemed to be quite fascinated by my strange profession, and one of them seemed to be unusually interested in fragrance actually. He was even telling me how much he likes the scent of rosemary, and pulled a few needles off the bush behind him, telling me he even likes to make tea out of it.

So it was inevitable that I would tell him about Orcas - a seaweed and rosemary scent that was greatly inspired by my immersion in the Pacific Ocean at Sunset Beach. And I just had to bring my vat of the Orcas test batch the next day. I wasn't planning on giving them samples to take home because I don't usually do that with test batches unless the mod is for sure complete and I have no intentions of adding anything else... The rosemary-loving lifeguards was so smitten with it, he liked it even more than ArbitRary and l'Herbe Rouge (the samples I brought them to take home to impress their wives...). He also noticed that it has a way of intensifying with time - it's as if the scent grows on the skin! This is, I believe, due to the presence of ambergris, which creates that kind of alchemy with the way the notes are playing - first bursting in freshness, than pretending to disappear, only to emerge with a big blow like the whale!

I felt compelled to bring them samples the following day, but it was windy yesterday and not that this would stop me from swimming - but I had to go to the Night Market (it's a summer must and I haven't been there yet this year!) with my friends that evening, and the day just slipped away without me ever making it to Sunset Beach.

And than came today: the lifeguards last day. And I didn't make it there. I admire the Triathletes that swam 5 kilometers in the rainy ocean today. I guess it is just not meant to be... So I'm saving all the Orcas V jus for myself and I will see them next summer!

I still believe I have work to do with this Orcas cologne. It won't be until I actually get a hold of some fair amount of seaweed absolute that I can continue my work. And I'm still waiting to hear back from the suppliers, who's definitely taking their time...!

Ozone

Last night’s swim brought an interesting olfactory surprise. I swam in the water of Sunset Beach, all the way to the large float that marks the boat traffic territory. The setting sun nearly blinded my eyes and I was hardly able to make out the couple in the rowing boat ahead of me. I stopped for a while, blocked off from my goal (to reach that big red ball and than swim back…) by the couple and while waiting for them to move on I noticed an unusual scent in the air.


The middle of the water is the place I least expect to smell anything around. Unlike a walk in the neighbourhood with its abundant gardens, it’s not as if you’d stop to smell the seaweed when you go for a swim… But surprises are what you find in the least expected friend. Just a few days before, I knocked into a good old friend in that very same water. So really, I should know better than to expect less than the unexpected!

The water was very cold, which is pretty much it’s normal thing year around in Vancouver. A peculiar scent, yet not at all unpleasant, wafted above the water and gently blew in my face fragments of raw fish, seaweed and something quite floral and strange. I believe to be the scent of ozone, at least partially, wafting just above the water. It was not unlike calone, but with none of the harsh, sickening quality of rotting fish and piercing rusty metal that I got when I smelled a 10% dilution of the watermelon ketone. Apparently, it could very likely have something to do with a particular brown algae’s metabolism or pheromones.

I’ve never felt that calone was in the least floral, but I can now see where perfumes such as Cool Water and l’Eau d’Iseey found their inspiration. The perfumers must have been either swimming or sailing in a very cold ocean at sunset searching for brown algae…

Bewildered, I turned around and swam back to the beach. It weakened as I approached the shore. But when I went back to the red float (the sailing couple was gone), the scent was there and as strong as before, and it was haunting me ever since. I tried wearing l’Eau d’Issey (which bears some similarities, and to my surprise smells a lot more like sheer woodsy incense scent now, but this is the parfum extrait). I went to the beach again the next day, but the scent was gone.

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