I failed to mention in the last installment that Persephone is my would-be rose perfume. I’m using araucaria and rose in the heart, and rosewood and palmarosa on top, out of 17 notes. It needs a fair amount more work until I can consider it a success. Also, I was mistaken with Hermes. My formula [...]

Persephone is still not right. There’s a sharp aroma that I can’t seem to get rid of. More work is needed. I think I should move on to one of the many other perfume ideas I have, like Hermes (containing tea-tree and eucalyptus, what I call a truly outlaw perfume), and Triton (a blue perfume [...]

The new perfume I made for Mary, now called Héra, is a little nondescript. I’ve changed the formula for the next iteration; I want to smell less sandalwood and hay, more honeysuckle and rose in the heart, and more ginger on the top. The first iteration doesn’t quite know what it wants to be; there [...]

My first impression of the first iteration of Zeus is that its top section is too sharp; I added geranium and fir, which can be sharp. I removed them for the next iteration, and really tried to make the amber scent shine. I used jonquil, rosewood, and petitgrain for not-very-odoriferous body, to flesh out each [...]

More about my views on proper natural-perfume construction: notes intended to add only body must not be not very odoriferous. Orris is an example; patchouli is not. Jonquil is an example; jasmine is not. Petitgrain is an example; ginger made from dried roots is not. I’ve found orris etc. are good at adding body without [...]

I’m really torn about my two new perfumes, Phoebe and Chronos. I was prepared not to release them in the end, but I sent them to my friend John Reasinger (who’s reviewed all my perfumes and is a real champion of Lord’s Jester) and he and his mother really liked them; at some point in [...]

On my web site, you can now order samples with ecommerce; also I lowered the price for custom perfume, to $350 for a basic, sublime perfume, and $700 for a high-end perfume, with more rare, esoteric, and expensive extracts, extracts like orris, boronia, honeysuckle, etc. I have limited experience with custom perfume. I’ve made a [...]

How do I know I’m right, with all my very strong opinions on the art of perfumery? The first thing people notice about my perfumes is that they’re very long-lasting; I figure that has to be a sign. Most folks say they haven’t come to expect “long lasting” from natural perfume; to me, it’s a [...]

Let’s be clear: I never smelled old-world perfume. The thing is once things start making sense, you have a long series of revelations. You start thinking if a and b are true, then c is necessarily so. Everything starts clicking, and you finally begin to understand “perfumery.” It is a complex art. Also, in some [...]