Hilde Soliani

Mood Scent 4 : Weird And Wonderful Perfumes


It is Mood Scent 4 time again! A joined perfume bloggers project where we share our views on the same subject linking perfume to mood or occasion. This time Portia (now on A Bottled Rose), Sam  (I Scent You A Day) Megan (Megan In Sainte Maxime) and I chose to write about unusual weird and wonderful perfumes.

It has been a month since my latest blog post. In The Netherlands we have moved from the semi lockdown to a new situation where we are able to travel further away, go abroad and visit restaurants or other public places keeping the 1,5 m in mind. All is still a bit unusual. As some of you who follow me on Instagram might have seen, flowers and nature helped me to stay centred and positive. Luckily I have been able to see my 85 years old dad more as well.  I hope that those reading are able to keep their spirits up.

Back to weird and wonderful perfumes now, I chose three perfumes which all tell an interesting and unusual story. All three are anything but ordinary, because of their story or perfume notes.

BeauFort 1805 Tonnerre, (Come Hell or High Water Collection), Visit The Battle of Trafalgar In 1805

Tonnerre features notes (or accords) of lime, gunpowder, smoke, blood, brandy, seawater, amber, balsam fir and  cedar.

BeauFort was founded by musician Leo Crabtree, a current member from The Prodigy band. Tonnerre was inspired by the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805. Tonnerre features the scents of a complete sea battle with smoking gunpowder, scorched flesh (or blood), black wet earth, salted seawater and pungent tar. It is almost like time travelling as these are not scents (luckily!) you normally get to smell. Tonnerre is not for the faint of heart or a perfume I wear regularly on skin but I find it very intriguing as a perfume creation and olfactory experience.

Hilde Soliani Caffe Delle Vergini, Visit An Italian Cafe In the Eighties After A Night Of Clubbing

Caffe Delle Vergini features notes of ink, coffee and vetiver. 

Caffe Delle Vergini was created by Italian perfumer Hilde Soliani. She was inspired by her visits to the bar Delle Vergini in the Italian City of Sassuolo after a night of clubbing to have breakfast. Bar Delle Vergini is said to be one of the first bars to admit women in the Sixties in Italy. Which reminds me of going out in the Eighties to a Spanish disco and have hot chocolate and fried churros in the middle of the night, not exactly the same scents but you get the idea. Caffe Delle Vergini smells of ink from the newspapers in the bar, espresso coffee from the steaming coffee machine and the smell of vetiver from the perfumed men visiting this bar. Caffe Delle Vergini is not as unusual as the Beaufort Tonnere perfume and more wearable. Actually it is one of the fragrances I wear most from Hilde Soliani as I like the story behind it too. The bottle has a label with a newspaper as you can see on the photograph.

L’Artisan Parfumeur Dzing! Visit An Old Fashioned Circus With Animal Poo and All

Dzing! Features notes of tonka beans, balsam, saffron and ginger. 

Dzing! was inspired by a live circus with notes of horse or elephant dug, hay, powdery animal fur, sweet bright pink candy cotton, used saddle leather and wood dust in the ring. From all fragrances this is my favourite weird and wonderful perfume as after a few hours it leaves a scent of used soft comfortable black leather with a cleaner aldehydic (or soap like) accent. Last week when my cat Rubio visited his cat loo he left the scent of animal dug which very much reminded me of Dzing! Luckily there is much more to Dzing! than animal poo with the used leather, powdery fur notes, cleaner soap and wood dust. Some people got candied sweet apple too. Dzing! was launched in 1999 and created by perfumer Olivia Giacobetti (who also created Diptyque Philosykos, L’Artisan Tea For Two, Frederic Malle En Passant and Iunx fragrances)

These are my 3 picks of  Weird and Wonderful Perfumes. Have a look on Sam’s blog I Scent You A Day, Megan’s  Megan in St. Maxime  and Portia on A Bottled Rose to read their picks and see how they are doing!

I hope you and your loved ones are able to stay healthy, calm, centred and positive during this period.

There have been some troubles with leaving comments lately. I do hope you are able to leave your choice for a weird and wonderful perfume. I love to hear from you.

Disclosure: all photographs were made by Esperessence. All perfumes were bought by me.

 

Perfume Secrets: DIY Enfleurage

Enfleurage or How the scent of flowers and scented leaves is captured in fat and transferred to alcohol

Enfleurage DIY Esperessence

Last summer I took a short online Facebook course, given by Dabney Rose, on how to do your own enfleurage. Dabney Rose promotes real fragrance from real flowers and makes her life growing a perfume garden, employing gentle methods of extraction and teaching about this to others.

The enfleurage course was one which you could easily do at your own pace and ask for help if you needed to through a special Facebook group. My aim was to learn more about this ancient and  gentile way of extraction in perfumery.

Enfleurage DIY Esperessence

As I did not have any scented flowers I used scented tomato leaves, as I had a few tomato plants. My idea was inspired by Hilde Soliani Stecca, a fragrance which to me smells exactly like tomato leaves. Others from the course did use scented flowers like roses, tuberoses, violets or jonquils.

Enfleurage Dabney Rose

The course was very inspiring. We had to put scented flowers or leaves into a Pyrex tray of coconut fat and change them every x hours depending on the flowers or leaves. The coconut fat remained the same so it could absorb the fragrance of the leaves during a longer period of time.

I learned enfleurage takes a lot of patience, although I did not change the leaves as much as I should have. At times it was too warm so the fat melted and sometimes small parts of the leaves remained in the fat as you can see on one photograph.

Enfleurage Dabney Rose

Another thing I learned was that every kind of tomato plant smells differently and thus I connected on a deeper level to plants as well. I had three different kinds of tomato plants to use. It was quite meditative in a way to do this and magical, slowly at your own pace, leaf by leaf.

After the process of changing the leaves or flowers for a period of time you had to scrape the coconut fat, put it in a jar and add some alcohol. Then you had to leave it and shake it from time to time. After a while the alcohol absorbs the scent from the fat.

Enfleurage DIY Esperessence

My tomato leaf coconut fat is still in a jar, waiting to be used. I made it more for the experience than for its fragrance but we shall see how it turns out and what I will use it for.

I asked Dabney Rose if she wanted to explain more about enfleurage in a short interview. This interview will be published very soon on this website. Dabney Rose will be offering her online course in a few months.

If you want to experience the process of enfleurage I could recommend this course to you. It was fun, magical and interesting to do.


 

Special thanks go to Shelley Waddington for helping with finding more information about enfleurage and Dabney Rose for all her help with the process of enfleurage as well.

Disclaimer: the course was paid by me, I did not get any compensation to write about this course

All photographs: made by me