One of the things I've enjoyed the most last year, was collaborating with other creative and passionate business women in Vancouver, who I was fortunte enough to meet. As you may have already seen on BuenoStyle's blog, my 1st collaboration for 2011 is ready to launch this weekend!

Christi York of BuenoStyle creates jewelry from vintage finds that she collects and assembles with her own design sensibilities and style: chains, beads, brooches, lockets and vintage charms. Walking up the stairs leading to her studio, the scent of antique furniture and wood-polish and hints of incense perfumed the air ever so gently. Her studio is located on Main street, with a large window to the street observing Shaktea tea salon (I'm so envious!). These wide windows bring in plenty of natural light so one can marvel at the beautiful miniscule vintage treasures, such a chains of pearls, antique brass clasps, rolls of vintage chains, crystal and glass beads, Bakelite flowers and old tarnished filigreed lockets - attractively arranged in wooden trays of print setters.

So it only made sense to call the perfume that was going to complement BuenoStyle's jewelry with the name Antique Amber!

Christi's favourite scent has been Cancer perfume from my (now discontinued) Zodiac collection. We felt that while the perfume was very appropriate for the style and personality of BuenoStyle, this name was misleading. So we formulated it for a solid perfume base, and changed the name to Antique Amber, so that even people who were not born under the sign of the crab will feel compelled to adorn themselves with this exotic amber perfume!

Antique Amber is an oriental-ambery perfume with an old-world charm, like an antique wooden dresser filled with treasures: Luxurious amber resin, exotic patchouli-scented shawls, and remnants of jasmine perfume for an extra feminine touch. Borneol camphor and a hint of aniseed add a mysterious, lingering cool/warm intrigue.
Antique Amber can be worn alone or can be layered with other perfumes for added depth mystery.

Notes: Amber, Camphor, Aniseed, Jasmine, Patchouli

Fragrance family: Oriental-Ambery

Antique Amber will debut tomorrow, encased in BuenoStyle's perfume locket pendants with vintage chain patchwork and crystals (each is a unique design - one of a kind piece!) at the Indie I Do show at Heritage Hall (Main @ 16th Ave), tomorrow - January 22nd, from 11am-5pm. Hope to see you there!

Read my interview for Fragrantica - so beautifully illustrated by Elena Knezevic and with thought-provoking questions by their olfactory oracle, Hieronimuss.

Red Geranium, originally uploaded by kathryn45.

There’s something aggressive about geranium. It immense odour intensity and is very tenacious and can easily overpower anything else in the perfume and just take over. When I was at the training week in Grasse, one of the exercises we were given was to guess the raw materials and the proportion of an accord. It was an accord of lavender and geranium oils, and smelled predominantly of geranium. My first guess was that it was a 60-40 ratio (60% geranium). The truth was the complete reverse: there was 30% geranium, and the remaining 70% were lavender. This would have been the case if rose absolute or even rose otto were used. The lavender would have been stronger. Which only goes to shows you how dominant can geranium be!

So what happens when geranium takes over? Whether if its sweet fruity, rosy, or minty notes come through - they becomes so intense, at times even cloying. Some become intensely musky. And this is partially why I shy away from using very much geranium in my compositions. Egyptian geranium is particularly strange and musky, which can be worked to your advantage.

At other times, the geranium can create very strong association of potpourri. In Diptyque’s L’Eau, this is the whole point. Whether or not potpourri smells are to your liking is of course entirely up to you. But the perfumer sure better be aware of the potpourri potential of a note and how to create the desired effect.

But geranium’s aggressiveness can serve you right in some perfumes. It works wonders in orientals, such as in Dioressence, or the bold ambery Anne Pliska, the legendary dense Old Spice; or Noir Epices, which is simultaneously traditional and modern with its mix of dusky dry spices and dark musk and illuminated with geranium, jasmine and sweet orange. The upfront, bold geranium note is also used to balance the over-the-top white florals in Fracas, headed by tuberose, and also in cutting edge leathers that have become classics – Knize Ten, Impreial Leather, and others. Geranium is also paired with musky vetiver and warm cinnamon and sweet orange in Aveda Personal Blends Key Element #3 Fire Nature (which I love, by the way).

In my Zodiac collection, there is geranium in two perfumes: Taurus, where it takes a second-violin role to support the rose heart, contrasted by patchouli; and Aries, where geranium’s firey-red boldness is set against a backdrop of tobacco and musk overlaid with hot spices – cinnamon, black pepper and cloves and the exotic, diffusive warmth of zantoxylum (Tomar seeds). I just recently revamped Aries and got rid of the lime top notes, I found that they got in the way of the musk and geranium creating a fresh-green distraction from what Aries is all about. Now it’s musky notes are more pronounced with a touch of cascarilla, ambrette, opoponax and bourbon vetiver.