Linden blossom and petunia
Driving with my bike trough town this morning, the fragrance of fresh linden blossom woke my nose up. It is a true delight, precious and so far, I have not smelled anything synthetic that could replace it. There are some molecules that come close, some eventually might be combined to give this impression, but replace it? No. The natural linden blossom absolute that you can get does not have this wonderful elegance and freshness, sweetness, the airy neroli, the sexyness of jasmine and the lightness of lily-of-the-valley. It is a greenish scent with rather "wet-wood" undertones... thus: We have to enjoy the season and sniff as much as we can of this natural delight.
The same is true for my petunia, flowering in little pots, on the veranda. Deep, rich, vanilla, oakmoss and a sensual powder fills the surrounding in later afternoon. A true delight and the only reason why I have planted them anyway.
Besides sniffing these naturals... I look forward to sniff and learn some synthetics, like decahydro beta naphtylacetate (I hope I got it right), I love it but haven't mastered it, yet... this week will see me continuing the work started on the lavender, complementing what has been done over the weekend (more about it tomorrow), sending out some parcels, tell you more about a most astonishing meeting last Friday and talk about some business ideas....
# posted by andy : 9:36 AM
7 Comments:
Linden blossom is in the air in Freeby too - wonderful wonderful scent and you describe it so well
Heather
Your post about the linden and petunia raises an interesting question (at least to me.) If -- that is a big "if" we want to simply present a fragrance to the world that is the dropdead identical scent that the plant exudes, why?
This was raised by Luca Turin, not in those words, but in a rather deflected way when he said something like "why bother to be a perfumer when there is no essence that smells exactly like a rose (later modified by him as to "fresh" rose.) The point I believe he was making that in the extraction process, several of the chemicals that make up the fresh rose scent are destroyed.
Well, pardon me, but in years of being a perfumer, having the absolutes, concretes and ottos around for the trained and untrained noses to sniff, in any "blind sniff" people will shout "rose" when an otto or absolute wafts by them.
Lavender is immediately recognizable, as are hundreds of others. Linden blossom not so, since it (in the natural absolute form) is rather different from the flower on the tree.
So what does a perfumer want to do? Merely bottle up, naturally or synthetically, a doppelganger for what the botanical smells like? Or blend it in a perfume to slip in and out of the drydown, revealing itself? Or, be transformed into something completely different by synergy?
Probably all of the above.
So, Andy, my big question to you is an intellectual one: what do you want the linden blossom, or petunia, or rose, or whatever to do?
Dear Hannah
Thank you for the link.. I will visit immediately. greetings to a fellow lavender lover from Switzerland
Dear Heather
A wonderful scent, isn't it... and for me-somehow-don't ask me why...it is a very German scent, too. Maybe this is due to chants I have learnt in school, dealing with linden trees and women waiting for their husbands and stuff... german melancholy. Greetings
Dear Anya
Now again: Such a coincidence... I thought about posting this week also about soliflors... and that I do not want to copy/paste orange flower when working on it... I will therefore try to think on your questions tomorrow...
Few things in this world can equal the scent of linden flowers for beauty.
I love that sweet green fragrance!
I often make plans to sniff other blossoms when they are in season, such as the following:
-- pink honeysuckle (delicate, airy sweetness like a watery candyfloss breeze)
-- catalpa tree flowers (almost a vanilla lusciousness)
-- ordinary milkweed in bloom (a sweet spicy scent almost like carnations)
I love Lavender. Thanks for sharing your nice and pleasant views with us.
Send flowers Pakistan
Lavender is very popular, however thanks for highlighting Linden Blossom here. Very underutilized!
Scents Unlimited
Nice blog thanks ffor posting
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