"Butterfly Maiden is the female fertilizing force. Carrying the pollen from one place to another, she cross-fertilizes, just as the soul fertilizes the mind with nightdreams, just as archetypes fertilizes the mundane world. She is the center. She brings the opposites together by taking a little from here and putting it there. Transformation is no more complicated than that. This is what she teaches. This is how the butterfly does it. This is how the soul does it.

Butterfly Woman mends the erroneous idea that transformation is only for the tortured, the saintly, or only for the fabulously strong. The Self need not carry mountains to transform. A little is enough. A little goes a long way. A little changes much. The fertilizing force replaces the moving of mountains." (Clarissa Pinkola-Estes, Women Who Run With The Wolves, p. 209-210)

I found great solace and inspiration in this thought. Some days, and especially in a year like this one (when it seems that all hell has broken loose in so many parts of the world - and it would take a miracle to not turn into a 3rd world war - if we're not already there) - making perfumes is not something that seems too important.

To know that even the smallest of changes could be the seed for transformation, is truly meaningful to me. While perfumery originates from alchemy, this is a concept so foreign to modern-day living, where so much of our life goes by fast-forward, and we can barely scratch the surface of superficiality in so many of our interactions or areas of interests.

Perfume has changed my life, and even in times like this, when I stand helpless facing the horrors that are abound the world over; when I feel like a very small piece of the puzzle, I need to remember this. Perfume may just mean a toiletry, a status symbol, or a token of love to some. But even a small thing like a drop of perfume can change the way you feel. Even if it will just mean a woman feels connected to her wildish nature and her inner self one night, after dabbing a perfume on - it still accounts to something. Maybe it will stir something inside her. Maybe it will awaken her to understand a certain aspect of herself better.

A speck of pollen dust on the feet of a butterfly may not seem like much - a pigment, a powder - but has the power to pass on genetic information and turn a flower into fruit and grow seeds. A seed in the ground is quite and dormant, but hides the potential to transform into a massive babobab tree - and with it transofrming the earth around it, providing food and shelter for animals and other life forms.

A drop of perfume. Inhale. Exhale. Cross-pollination. Inspiration. Transformation is subtle. It is part of us, ever changing us as our cells divide, multiply and die. And as we grow and inspire others, we are part of it too...

"The core of the seen and unseen universe smiles, but remember smiles come best from those who weep. Lightning, then the rain-laughter". - Rumi

Just in time for the much-delayed school year in British Columbia - the rainy season is upon us. Most Vancouverites don't welcome this type of change in weather, but I do. In places plagued with drought, such as my other homeland, the first rain signifies not only the changing season, but also determines the well-being of crops, and predictions for precipitation in the year to come.

In Hebrew, there is a special word for the first rain - "Yoreh". It has a special smell, and an air of excitement about it as Jews welcome the new year and begin the fall harvest season. Many stories have been told about tzadikim (sages or saints) that have saved the country from drought with vigils, fasting and prayers for rain.

In my many years of providing customized fragrance creations and matching scents to personalities, I've received countless emails describing people's faourite scents. The smell of the first rain in all its many permutations is one that comes up most frequently: rain on hot pavement, thunderstorm, wet earth after rain, in other words - petrichor...

The word was coined in 1964 and comes from the Greek petros (stone) and ichos (the liquid that flows in the gods' veins). It's exact definition accodring to the online Wiktionary is "the distinctive scent which accompanies the first rain after a long warm dry spell".

The main reason for the appearance of petrichor is a molecule called Geosmin, a metabolite of bacteria that lives at the top layer of the soil. You might also detect a bit of it in raw, unpeeled beetroot. Combined with the unique flora of the place graced with rain, the scent will have nuances of various roots and dried plant matter. This is why the scent each person associates with petrichor is unique to their homeland.

When I first moved to Vancouver, nearly 16 years ago, the only thing I missed more than my family and friends was the scent of the first rain in autumn, falling on the thirsty dry earth. It’s a scent one can’t describe to someone who never experienced it. And the occurrence of dry earth in British Columbia is a rarity. The closest I was ever able to explain it is that it is wet, musty, dusty and fresh.

The scent of spikenard essential oil comes very close to this (although the whole sensation of the clean air and the wetness is lacking from the experience of sniffing an oil from a bottle, rather than the outdoors). In 2001 I tried to capture that scent, and the result smelled ironically of the Pacific rainforest after the rain instead. The rainforests rarely go dry, but have a constant mysterious wet fresh smell about them, a mingling of all the conifers, moss, lichen and dead leaves rotting on the ground. The forest earth itself in fact layers of compacted woodchips, conifer needles and rotten leaves, which might explain why it does not quite smell like petrichor... So I decided to name it Rainforest instead.

Aside from spikenard, other natural raw materials that might remotely resemble petrichor are attar mitti - a baked earth attar that is produced from fragments of clay pots, distilled into sandalwood oil; and patchouli, with its dry, earthy, musty aroma.

Perfumes that have a distinctive petrichor or geosmin-like notes are Forest Walk by Sonoma Scent Studio, Demeter's Dirt and Neil Morris' Dark Earth.

How would you describe the smell of the first rain? Do you have any favourite perfumes that have that note?

First impressions from NARCISO - a confusingly named fragrance (wcich is why I'm using the upper case) that due to officially come out in October, but is already available at The Bay downtown:

From the get go, it appears the Narciso Rodriguez brand aimed to create a similar cult following to their original, with a few variations: the black rectangular bottle has been replaced by a white cube. The musk was replaced by ambereine accord and a sheer, crystalline amber. The synthetic orange blossom floral theme was replaced by a nondescript gardenia-rose that to my nose smells more similar to a Madonna lily, actually. What remains consistent with the original Narciso Rodgriguez For Her is a clean, woody vetiver - only a little amplified here, and paired with patchouli, of all animals. And that's what made me take notice.

NARCISO is a little too sweet at first, but with a cleanliness that does not weight it down. For reference - the opening and up until the vetiver makes an appearance, this is similar to scents such as DiorAddict, tinged with a touch of Pure Poison and a hint of inky, murky violet notes, not unlike Kisu. The vetiver makes it more balanced and interesting, along the lines of Eau de Merveilles of all things. Who would have thought that could happen? So all in all, an ambery-woodsy vetiver with hints of violet and vague white flowers. It evolves on the skin more than the musky For Her does.

Similarly to Narciso Rodriguze For Her, the idea is not exactly original*, but the execution is what made it exceptional. The perfectionism of the bottle design and the simplicity of the campaign made it stand out in the crowd. Add to that an addictive scent that is an slightly more sophisticated formulation of street vendor variety of Egyptian Musk and a stark packaging design - et voila! A cult fragrance was born.

NARCISO needs to compete with an even larger crowd, and with an already cluttered collection of fragrances from this designer, which includes two or three sequels of For Her, one masculine fragrance, and the glass mirror reflection of "essence". Not an easy task, and indeed simplicity was the only ticket to success. And I foresee this to become as successful as For Her as it could possibly be (which is impossible, because whatever this brand creates will always stand in its solar-musky-shadows).

Bottom line: The ambery-woody version of Narcisso Rodriguez For Her. Well done overall for a mass-marketed fragrance. But why oh why did they need to already come up with a sequel? NARCISO MUSC is already on the designer's website, and I'm already confused...

Top notes: Citrus, Bergamot
Heart notes: Lily, Gardenia, Rose, Violet
Base notes: Amber, Vetiver, Musk, Cedarwood, Patchouli, Vanillin 

* As a point for reference: NARCISO reminds me of a little bit like Obsession, a tad like Prada Ambre Intense Pour Homme, and a lot like Tocade. These three perfumes seemingly have very little in common; but they all share similarities with NARCISO.