organising the perfume studio

Last weekend, I finally called an end to the nightmarish excuse I had for a perfumery workspace and took the time to properly set up my studio. I used to keep my essential oils in a dark box in my wardrobe which was taken out whenever I wanted to blend. However, my collection has grown significantly and the burgeoning box soon made it impractical to pack, unpack and transport around the house every time inspiration struck. Since I began reformulating my new line of perfumes, I have been finding myself among my bottles and essences almost every hour I was not at the computer maintaining some semblance of a day job. Unfortunately, my collection gradually spread over the last few weeks and parasitically took over my dining table.

This is the dreadfully messy condition under which I have been working for the last few weeks:

It's like the aftermath of an explosion of perfumery, with bottles, pipettes, and blotter strips everywhere. One of the most confusing things was that I had trial blends placed among completed and rejected blends. I always had to remain cognisant of which were which, until I had about 20 bottles divided over 6 fragrances and it started getting out of hand.

I spent Saturday afternoon organising my collection and assembling the new area that would become my atelier. I chose to use my parlour, which has a nice armoire on which I could assemble my perfume organ--my entire collection of essences--all within easy reach, and moved an underused hall table beside it for my blending and notetaking.

Here is my organ with all my individually diluted and decanted collection of essences:

And this is the corner of my blending desk showing trial blends and some mini blotter strips for testing them:

I have made quite a lot of headway since my last blog update. Thank you to everyone who has helped me clear out my remaining collection of my previous line of perfumes. I can hardly believe it but there are now only a small handful of bottles left on the shelf and only two items left in my Etsy store. It is such a thrilling and encouraging feeling to see the slate being wiped clean, ready to begin a new and exciting chapter in my perfumery.

Since completing my first two blends, I have further brewed a sweet woodsy floral based around the incredibly alluring night-flowering jasmine, but composed it with an unexpected smoky top of juniper berry and black pepper and a deeply luxurious base of sandalwood and myrrh. I chose this interpretation so that I may offer something distinctive from a conventional, 'clinically chic' jasmine perfume you might find at a department store.

I'm also presently finalising two blends, a sweet woody perfume that is a rather masculine incarnation of roses and incense, and a fresh citrus fragrance built around a tart and complicated neroli. These two will be reformulations of my existing scents, Golden Lyre and Huntress, and will provide two lovely scents for the warmer months.

I have also been working on an official website for Faunfare, and it's almost complete. Just a few more tweaks and a couple of pages of content and it will become a convenient location for shopping and perfumery-specific news.  I appreciate that not everyone who reads About A Bun is interested in my perfumery, so I will be maintaining a more professional blog there with information about blends I'm working on, while keeping this medium for more heart-to-hearts.