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.

The moss sculpts its way on the tree trunks and branches along the Wild Pacific Trail. And I’ve heard it has something to do with how crisp and clean the air is there… The mosses and lichen love it and adorn the trees with their moss-green velvety ropes and silvery laces… And nearby, 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.

I wanted to play on these themes of moss and marine creatures in the 4th mod. As it turns out, I went a little too far though… I was a little adventurous, and rather than adjusting the formula a bit by changing only an element or two, I added many different elements and nuances.

First, I wanted to see what happens if I add some more violety notes, so I added even omre cassie absolute, which has a wet-wood and leather quality to it and also boronia absolute, which I find to have a certain oceanic quality about it that is hard to explain, but if you smell it you will understand what I’m talking about. And added even more Haitian vetiver!

Remembering the rotting squids also made me want to add something animalic and marine to the mix – and that’s when the ambergris joined the game. My original concept of making this a simple and not crazy expensive perfume (except for the seaweed, which is essential) pretty much flew out of the window right that moment.

I should have probably stopper right than and there to see what transpires of my efforts. But I was unhappy of whatever result was going, and added a little more of this and that – which included more citrus (lime) and more woodsy notes (juniper, cypress). But where everything went out of control was when I decided to go with nothing else but cherry cedar, which is distilled locally, and I thought would be very appropriate for this British Columbian theme. What I added accounts for just about 2% of the formula was clearly too much. All I could notice now was cedar, cedar, cedar… Red, local, whatever…! It was too much.

I let it rest for just one week. I came back to it yesterday, and the thing has transformed into the craziest berry-cedar perfume I’ve ever smelled in my life. And than it turns interestingly salty with the seaweed and boronia and the moss. It’s not bad at all. But it’s not Orcas yet - unless you are imagining a killer whale that picks wild berries and carves canoes from cherry cedar.

Before I went on to another bottle, I made some adjustments to what I told you about earlier. I sharpened and accentuated a few ideas – i.e.: increasing the seaweed a bit, as well as the spruce absolute and added some cypress to flesh out the woody element and in hopes of making it more “masculine” so to speak. I also increased the violety presence by adding a smidgeon of cassie absolute. I also added some citrus notes – bergamot and lemon – to brighten things up a bit and give the whole thing a lift. Egyptian geranium was necessary for added body at the heart notes, and to accompany it - a bit of a very high quality palmarosa, which added a clean yet floral freshness, expansive airiness to the composition. This still remained true to the original concept but just a little more developed.

I was also hoping to increase the salty levels in the composition by adding some atranol-free oakmoss, which I find to be more sheer and marine-like than the nearly ambery-musky full-profile oakmoss absolute (all oakmoss absolute sold these days have the atranol removed. It’s part of EU regulations, and since all oakmoss is produced in Europe – usually harvested in former Yugoslavia and extracted in Grasse) that’s all we’ve got, unless we stashed some oakmoss away.

At the same time, I felt that the rosemary was still quite strong, and the seaweed was not enough present. Which is quite strange given how potent it always seems on its own and how light the rest of the notes were.