Good enough?

Remember the Orange flower topic covered on this blog? It is time for an update. My little Orange flower baby has matured for a month, bottled in its glass vial and sitting on the shelf patiently going through this mysterious maturation process. Like the homunculus of past days growing in his bottle, the maturation of Orange flower oeuvres is a tricky one, I have seen it many times how a golden concentrate of a wonderful deep sensual scent has turned into diluted caramel syrup, vulgar and trashy. Thus, it is like opening an old bottle found in an Egyptian grave, labelled with a papyrus with magic hieroglyphs saying "Warning: Contains harmful liquid which may enlighten desire or disgust upon release. Opening this bottle may result in immediate disappointment. Do not open if you are under 18. Contraindications: Depression, cardiac problem encountered in the past, limited self-esteem. You open this bottle at your own risk."

Now, with the bottle opened, an aliquot diluted to a starting dilution of 10%, which would result in an intense eau de toilette, I sit here and wonder. Is it good enough? Is it what I wanted to get done? Well, I do not really know yet. Vero, my friend and mentor in perfume matters, thinks it is there where it should be. I look at it and I am faced with two very basic traits of my personality, juxtaposition of two intrinsic driving forces: Unconditional enthusiasm and luring scepticism. It is the best Orange flower so far, that’s for sure (enthusiasm speaking), but it is maybe not abstracted enough (scepticism spreading), it is powerful and clear and vibrant (happy enthusiast) but there are spots in it which might be too loud, too direct for the unacquainted and it is not really a man’s nor a women’s scent (desperate sceptic).

The question of "good enough?" will never be solved, I guess, but for the time being, I will stick to it and see how it develops in different dilutions from 5 to 15%. I think, 7.5% will turn out to be the perfect dilution bringing out all the wonders of this expensive and sexy Orange flower absolute in it, turning my baby into any Orange flower lover’s dream…..(enthusiast speaking).