Last night I tried out an accord from a perfume recipe (not my own recipe). Just at first glance without testing it, it seemed to call for too much Frankincense and Vetiver in proportion to the other ingredients. I was right...the Frankincense was too acrid and the Vetiver too overpowering. Maybe I needed to use the Frankincense absolute that it called for instead of the essental oil...I only had the essential oil, so I substituted. I suspect the Aura Cacia Frankincense is just too acrid-smelling for these perfume recipes. It's almost like a really strong orange citric smell. I should probably try some from my favorite online companies instead, and maybe a different species besides Boswellia Carterii. Or an absolute or CO2. As for the Vetiver, I absolutely fell in love with Vetiver in the form of the Crystalized Essence from Eden Botanicals. It was sweet and earthy, all the best scents of soil and none of the bad. I bought some Vet. EO at Whole Foods in Ft. Collins, although it came from somewhere in the Orient and was quite smoky. I think later I got some Aura Cacia Vet. EO, which was Haitian, and not quite as smoky, but very strong and sort of molassesy. In doing research, it is recommended to get Haitian if you don't want that smoky quality. The thing is, all my fave EO Companies. online are completely out of stock of Haitian. I have tried cutting down the Vet. about 10% in my own recipes, but it still seems so overpowering even at that quantity. I'm not sure what to do at this point. Eden Botanicals states their Indian Vet. is less smoky than the Haitian, so maybe I'll try that. Meanwhile, Vetiver totally influenced my dream last night:

I dreamt I had a large bottle of what I thought was Chanel #5. It looked just like my long square black spray bottle. I smelled it...it smelled similar, but had a very pronounced Vetiver scent. I examined the bottle again and it said "Erica." I asked Stan, who was in the kitchen on the floor doing his exercises, if he had gotten me Chanel #5 as a gift. I think he said he had gotten Erica. I told him I had asked for Chanel #5. He wasn't making much sense, and said that's all they had. It was hard to understand him because he was lying down and sleepy and sort of incoherent. It was sort of an annoying dream.

Erica? WTH?

Labels: Dreams, Scents