Tarzan and bling-bling moments

There is something funny about elderly ladies travelling in Zurich’s public transport system that I would like to bring up here to start a post about a discovery I made in the field of Tuberose absolute. When you sit in a typical Zurich tramway in the middle of the day -a time when I rarely use public transport-, cruising slowly through Zurich, you will sooner or later observe a strange movement of elderly ladies, on the move to catch the better seat.

It is kind of special to observe their move, mostly from a double chair (where they sit next to an other passenger) to a single position, sometimes fighting real hard with the centrifugal forces exerted on them by the moving car, hanging like Tarzan on the metal bars, just to get this perfect position; a perspective which may change within minutes by the next emptied seat which gives an even better view on whatever is to be seen in downtown Zurich. It is comparable to my picking the perfect fruit from the help-yourself shelf in my preferred supermarket: I always end up with a specimen in the shopping cart that suddenly doesn’t compare anymore to the one which is in the outmost back line of the shelf. Or to my ordering oils and absolutes.

Thus, I was happy so far with my Tuberose absolute, which I found very nice, but somehow not interesting enough to work with. At least, it never made bling-bling in my head. This bling moment is very important and entire books have been written about this unique crossing point when you instantaneously realize what to do how. Well, last Friday, when rushing through my day, an alert lamp started blinking while smelling some samples I got from Will Lapaz, respectively Eden Botanicals. Tuberose absolute among them, a few drops of a deep orange, almost red colour, and thick syrup in a little glass vial, from India. It is an absolute of Tuberose like I have not found it so far. It is a very complex scent, starting with a note that I would describe as flowery liquorice with vanilla undertones, powdery, but not offensive at all. It is somewhat dry with a touch of smoke attached to it which is shortly transformed on my skin into mouldy woods, but the pleasant type, earthy flowers, almost leathery. My friend put it into other words: For him it is the scent of fading, almost dead Tulip flowers in their last day of life.

I put a little bit on my skin yesterday evening to realize that it lasts for hours! I imagine that this scent is going to be tricky to work with, but one idea came immediately (the bling moment): A leather scent based on some of the story lines that I already told you here, but with this tuberose in the heart! At least a little bit, because it is kind of expensive and probably the stock at Eden Botanicals is limited…..