Perfume Illuminated: Violet

We are exactly one week into the new year of two thousand ten today. A few days ago Greg, Eve and I watched a film titled the Quantum Activist featuring the pioneering scientist Amit Goswami. Amit asks “What are you doing to participate in the creation of the reality we all share?” Part of my participation is with this Perfume Illuminated Project I am co-creating with Beth.

FRAGRANCE

As ideas percolated to the surface for the debut installment I settled on beginning with something simple, on my end, that would lead to more complexity down the road.  I looked at several old formulas for an array of books and settled on the creation of a tincture. Benzoin and Orris came up repeatedly as tinctures utilized in perfume formulations. Thus, after some discussion with Beth, we settled on a tincture of Orris Root. Orris Absolute is, in my opinion, one of the most beautiful raw materials available to the perfumer to work with. The aroma has the sweet floral aspects of violet balanced with a powdery, woody note. Derived from the rhizomes of the Iris Pallida it is a raw material that demands quite a bit of mastery and diligence to derive the essence from.

As Beth and discussed Orris and its violet aroma she mentioned that she has a recipe for candied violets. This reminded me of the violets in my mothers garden. After getting off the phone with Beth I called my mother about the violets, she said that the violets had just started blooming and she had been meaning to tell me. PERFECT! Thus, our project today is centered on the aroma and flavor of violets!

I will share here how to create a tincture using fresh violets as well as a tincture of Orris. Further in the post you will find glorious Beth's contribution which includes a story and a couple fabulous recipes.

To create an Orris Root tincture you will need:

1. Clean glass jar with a firmly fitting lid, sterilized if possible.
2. Ideally use an aged powdered Orris Root. Orris Root, albeit not the aged version, is fairly easy to obtain for sellers of bulk herb. 
3. A high proof alcohol, ideally Ethanol but a high proof Vodka will work. I use a beverage grade organic grape and/or grain alcohol for all my tinctures.  In the past I have used other types of ethanols as well as Vodka.
   

A tincture of Orris Root is very simply made by combining the powder with alcohol. I weigh each material, generally in equal parts or 1 part raw material to 2 parts alcohol. Once the two are combined it is best to shake daily and store in a dark place for at least a month. Orris takes a very long time to release it’s aroma, the longer the better. When the alcohol has taken on the aroma of the Orris filter the solution through a coffee filter. Be aware that some materials require repeated filtering. In some cases I filter first with cheesecloth and secondly using a filter.

To create a Violet flower tincture the process varies slightly. Begin with a clean glass jar with a firmly fitting lid, sterilized if possible. Access to a daily supply of fresh violet flowers is important. Place the flowers and alcohol into the glass jar. Every few days remove the spent flowers and add a fresh supply. Do this for a month or more, until your alcohol has absorbed the aroma of the flowers.

Once your tincture is ready you can use it full strength as a special perfume or use as one component within a  perfume. Violet tinctures are also used cosmetically and medicinally.

FLAVOR

When Roxana called me and asked me if I'd like to be a part of creating "Perfume Illuminated " I absolutely jumped at the chance. I mean who in their right mind would turn down a chance to play with the alchemist herself, the undisputed High Priestess of gorgeous botanical fragrance! We began to speak of our shared love of food , perfume and of the relationship between the art of cooking and the art of creating extraordinary natural fragrances. We weren't exactly sure how it would work so we began to explore all sorts of possibilities. We spoke of orris root and its sensual similarity to the ethereal smell of the sweet violet. I started craving candied violets chopped into ice cream and she started dreaming of violet perfumes. I started dreaming about my husband wearing the violet ice cream and she of tinctured candied violets. Suddenly her mother called with the news that the violets in her garden were beginning to bloom. We laughed at the synergy that had just blossomed between us and here we are.

Many of you have who have read my various postings here and there know that I have had a love affair with violet perfumes practically since birth.  My mother had a beautiful little burgundy velvet jewelry box and inside of it were the treasures that she held closest to herself, her mother's ivory hair combs and diamond watch, a wedding ring or two, a gorgeous pair of mother of pearl opera glasses and my favorite thing of all, a little cobalt bottle with a ancient gold label that read "Attar of Violets" that belonged to her grandmother.  I used to sneak into her dressing room and close the door and then in a very personal ritual for a 7 year old I would open the lovely little box and touch each piece in it, saving the little bottle for last.  Slowly, I'd open the top and clasping it with both hands hold it up to my face and take a deep breath. There was something so magical about the fragrance and it brought visions to me of a life that I'd yet to experience but I knew would someday be mine.

When my mother died,  we kept the little velvet box intact and it still brings a thrill to me every time I open it. I still love the smell of the little violet perfume, although it is slowly beginning to fade.  But over the years  I've developed my own  favorites, Givenchy's sparkling L'interdit , Penhaligons effervescent Violetta and the very traditional Violetta di Parma are but a few of the sweetly scented perfumes that I love and wear on a regular basis.

The Viola odorata or as it is commonly referred to "Sweet violet" also has many healing virtues as well as being an absolutely delicious ingredient in many recipes. Violet flowers and leaves mixed into salads are one of my favorite spring remedies for a sort of pre-menstrual melancholy and when chopped liberally into virgin olive oil with some fresh comfrey leaves;they make a poultice that soothes rashes , irritations, sore muscles and tender breasts. When infused into a simple syrup they will enliven fresh lemonade or an elegant champagne cocktail.  If you are going to make the lemonade, freeze some of the pretty violet flowers into ice cubes to use in your glass. There's really nothing prettier!

When I was 23, I met Jim and shortly after we married we bought a small farm in Burton, Ohio complete with a century home and small barn and several acres of unspoiled land , nestled on a little bit of hillside with an artesian spring that bubbled up down by a little oak grove, providing me with fresh watercress whenever I desired. We named it Windesphere, the place where the winds and waters met.  I'll never forget that first spring. As the snows thawed I began to see what treasures were available in the gardens. First there were the snowdrops that dotted the hillside like a blanket of down and then the buds started to appear everywhere. I found a quince bush and several heirloom apple trees and a blackberry grove that was to produce the most luscious berries that I'd ever tasted.  I will never forget the vision of my young son running towards me covered in sticky purple juice and holding out his little hands that were cupped and tenderly cradling the warm berries that he'd picked to share with me.

Then there were the violets. I'll never forget when I found them. It was on one of those warm early spring days when you've just shed your coat and begun to think that maybe just maybe;you'll be able to put away your long johns for a bit. I decided that it was a good day to go for a walk in the back just to see what was budding. We had a beautiful back porch made of fieldstone and the steps that went towards the back yard were hand hewn and lovely. As I walked I began to notice the
fragrance…something just a bit sweet and very green. All of sudden the fragrance was so strong that I couldn't ignore it and it was then that I looked down. Hidden in the grass all around me were the most beautiful little violets in shades of deep purple, lilac and white and the smell was the most intoxicating thing that I'd ever experienced.  Over the years I picked them for little bouquets, learned to crystallize them for desserts and  made them into massage oils , tinctures, vinegars and syrups. They appeared every spring growing more abundant every year and I will always remember Alex lying face down in a huge patch of them and whispering for me to join him.

In honor of all of those memories I've made a violet ice cream featuring a lovely Teavana white tea blend that features some beautiful crystallized violets and thick and sticky blackberry jam. This Ice cream is so rich and creamy that it's practically obscene, a virtue that I love in both my men and my food! Because I'm here in Ohio in the midst of a gorgeous blizzard there are no fresh violets to be found and sadly no violets to crystallize. If you've never had them, crystallized violets are absolutely beautiful, sparkling little jewels and much better than candy. I became truly addicted to them the very first time that my sister brought them home from Paris for me. Fortunately they are very easy to make.  All you will need are fresh violets, beaten egg white that's not frothy, superfine sugar and a soft sable paintbrush. Spring is the time of year to make them because you can find fresh violets everywhere you roam. Just make sure to harvest them from areas that you know haven't been touched with pesticides because you will not be rinsing them.  Paths through the woods are usually perfect!

Dip the brush into the egg and gently apply the egg white very lightly to the violet, covering the whole flower or petal. Don't use too much, only enough to allow the sugar to stick. Then turn the violet upside down and while holding it over a plate, sprinkle with the superfine sugar to coat it evenly. Place them on a tray that you've line with parchment and allow them to completely dry. You can hasten the process a bit by putting the tray into a 150 degree oven with the door left ajar. They won't be around for very long, but once they are completely dry you can store them for up to a year in an airtight jar.

The Teavana blend that I¹ve used to create our ice cream is called "Lavender Dreams" and it's incredibly beautiful to look at as well as drink. The ingredients are white tea, candied violet flowers, lavender blossoms, apples, raisins, papaya bits, peach pieces, orange peels, carrot slices, verbena, pink rose buds, cornflowers and passion flower blossoms. Add a little white chocolate, blackberry jam , a bit of vanilla and voila !

You will need:
1 pint of whipping cream
2 cups of sweetened coconut milk
1/4 cup of light agave nectar
3/4 cup of Teavana Lavender Dreams tea
1/4 teaspoon of  great vanilla extract (Penzeys if possible)
1 4oz Ghiradelli white chocolate baking bar
2 egg yolks (Organic pasteurized eggs are good to use in this recipe)
4 tablespoons of candied violets
3 tablespoons of Blackberry Jam

Combine the cream and coconut milk in a sauce pan and bring to a shallow boil. Whisk in the agave nectar and vanilla, then turn off the heat.  Add the loose tea and let it infuse for at least 15 minutes stirring occasionally.  When the flavor is as bright as you want it to be, strain the milk mixture through a chinoise and press the tea through the strainer to extract the maximum essence.  It will still be quite warm. Put the milk /cream into a Vitamix or other high speed blender and add the chocolate, violets and jam. Turn the blender on  and adjust to one of the highest settings.  Add the egg yolks and blend for a minute or two.  Pour the custard blend into a dish suitable for freezing or if you¹re lucky enough to have an ice cream maker use that!  Freeze until solid,  garnish with some of the candied violets, a light shortbread cookie and enjoy! This recipe will easily serve about 6 reasonable people or two very greedy ones...you decide!

Many thanks to the delightful Victoria at my local Teavana in Beachwood, Ohio who helped get me all of the candied violets that I needed for this recipe!

To my mother,  you'll probably never know just how much  I miss having tea with you at the Drake Hotel in Chicago,  eating fancy sandwiches and  just laughing about love and life.

And last but not least to my husband Jim who gave me a farm even when he didn't want one and my son Alex, whose chubby little blackberry stained fingers will always be one of my sweetest memories.

Images: Top image "Perfume Illuminated" has been created by Roxana Villa, Postcard is from a collection of old family postcards, photos of violets and violet tincture by Roxana Villa. Perfume vial tea photo by Beth.

The Violet Haze

At least once a week, sometimes twice, I remove the saturated violet flowers from their soak in organic grape alcohol and replace them with fresh flowers. The spent violets are a pale lavender tone when I remove them and drain them. However, once dry the rich violet hue returns, although somewhat dimmed.

This week there has been an over abundance of violet flowers, probably due to it being their correct bloom time. Thus, I started a second tincture, which I will add to the first as the alcohol slowly evaporates.


These violets come to me via my mother who has a plethora of them in her garden. I've tried growing them here but our clay soil is not right for them. Thus I have a few in a pot, but they are still not nearly as happy as the ones that come from my mothers rich soil.

The traditional violet used in perfumery is the heavily fragranced, double petaled Parma violet with origins the warm climate of the Mediterranean region. According to the American Violet Society they came to Italy by way of Portugal via the Bourbon royal family. The infamous Parma violet is a hybrid from the Viola alba, V. odorata, or V. suavis. Experts lean toward the ancestry being the Viola alba. If you are searching for the old varieties look for Duchess de Parme, D’Udine, and Lady Elsington. The Marie Louise is another variety of the Parmas that is very fragrant.


I do not know the Latin name of the wild volunteers in my mothers garden, I would take a guess that they are a very, fragrant variety of the Viola odorata. The fragrance is quite beautiful with strong hay notes.


The tincture I have going is finally starting to take on some of the aroma after many months of "working" it. By working I am referring to straining the tincture, removing the spent flowers and adding new ones. This tincture is featured in my violet chypre natural perfume called Gracing the Dawn, one of the sheerest of all my fragrances.


Images: Most of them ©RoxanaVilla, Gracing the Dawn by Greg Spalenka

Odorata

Gracing the Dawn in her solid manifestation is here! I know fans of this fragrance have been waiting quite a long time for this interpretation, thanks so much for your patience. The structure of this perfume follows what is considered a classic Chypre, a french word meaning Cyprus. Perfumes of this family traditionally are defined by notes of oakmoss and animal musk in the base, rose and jasmine at the heart and bergamot or fresh citrus within the top. Since I refrain from using the historical animal ingredients found in traditional natural Chypre perfumes, I created some faux natural accords to mimic civet, castoreum, ambergris and deer musk. There is also a very minuscule amount of Africa stone, the fossilized distilled droppings of a small animal known as a hyrax.

I use the term botanical perfumer to define what I do in the fragrance realm because I have chosen not to use the historical animal ingredients for ethical reasons. All artists find their path in different ways, mine was via the magical duirway of nature and the oak.

I refer to Gracing the Dawn as a violet perfume, although the violet note in the solid version of the fragrance is subtle, it is a more fictional representation. The main scent component of violet flowers comes from the naturally occurring chemical constituent ionones. The natural perfumer has no violet essential oil, C02 extract or absolute. There is a violet leaf absolute but the aroma is not one of the delicate little flowers we all adore. Opting for maximum nature in my fragrances I utilized Orris and a variety of other whole essences to convey the impression of violets. In the liquid version of this fragrance the violet note was further enhanced with a tincture of violet flowers.

It was my intention to release the solid version with an enfleurage of violets, but alas it is not ready yet. Thus, the addition of the precious infusion will come in future editions of the fragrance. The synergy of the solid is almost exact to that of her fragrance liquid counterpart. There are five accords, one of which is contained within another accord. The most complex of these accords is one I call Fern which is so pretty on her own I may release it as a perfume.

Here's a list of the included essences, which illustrates in the first six ingredients why this perfume is costly:

FLOWERS
Rose
Jasmine
Boronia
Night Queen
Tuberose
Orange Blossom
Osmanthus
Black Current
Narcissus
Ylang Ylang
Mimosa

RESINS
Oakmoss
Peru Balsam
Labdanum
Galbanum

WOOD
Agarwood
Sandalwood
Cedarwood
Guaicwood
Pine

HERBS
Chamomile
Parsley
Ginger
Patchouli
Celery
Clary
Sage
Cumin
Tumeric
Lavender
Rosemary
Juniper
Geranium
Basil
Caraway

OTHER
Violet Leaf
Ambrette
Cognac
Orris
Vetiver
SeaWeed
Choya Nakh
Spikenard
Beeswax
Neem

Solid Mini Sample 
5 gram Honey pot
Round Compact

More about Gracing the Dawn can be found at these links here at the journal: Perspective, October 2010 Gracing the Dawn, July 2010 The Dawn, July 2010

Opening photo by Roxana Villa, illuminated ©GregSpalenka. Find the Gracing the Dawn Flower of Fortune Cards and the print on etsy.

Gracing the Dawn

Gracing the Dawn has finally arrived after being sniffed and sampled by hundreds at the San Diego Comic Con. Exclusively at the E-shop for the moment, you will find the .25 gram and 1 gram glass vials. The flacon size with signature pouch will be added shortly.


This fragrance begs to be sampled on the skin. The aromatic experience via a scent strip or from the glass bottle stopper is very different than when inhaled on human epidermis, especially if you are keen on the subtle violet notes.

Gracing the Dawn is a floral chypre natural botanical perfume featuring a bouquet of some of the most expensive aromatics found on planet Earth.


The fragrance and inspired image is called Gracing the Dawn, a reference to the Three Graces from Greek mythology. Fantastical butterflies sit on the bough of a tree with freshly opened blossoms just as the first light of dawn illuminates the sky.

The perfume is velvety and sultry evoking a vintage from days long gone or perhaps an alternate dimension where we glimpse luminous winged sprites on a wet, black bough.

A myriad of exotic essences are artfully woven in this composition including Cestrum nocturnum, Night Queen, from South India. The main notes in this botanical medley include violet, mimosa, wood, and Italian bergamot. Read more about the composition of the fragrance at this link here at the journal.


The beautiful crochet pouch has been skillfully handmade by my very talented mother Martha. When I am finally ready to debut a perfume we collaborate on the color and style of the pouch.
I feel very fortunate to have these beauties that compliment the intricate, handmade aesthetic that I bring to you. For Gracing the Dawn Martha created two small violet flowers. Like nature, each pouch is unique and features the violets in different shades of purple.


The perfume is part of a series titled Flowers of Fortune associated with artwork by my award winning husband Greg Spalenka. Artwork and image debuted at the 2010 San Diego Comic Con.
The postcards and posters will be available at Greg's E-shop and a dedicated website shortly.

Images: Photos of perfume and pouch by me, Roxana Villa. Butterfly images ©Greg Spalenka.

Violet Posey

It's violet season again! My mother Martha has brought me two posies of violets to tincture, she has an abundance of them coming up in her garden. The bouquet on Saturday was rather large and thus I was able to capture lots of photos of the tincturing process which I will share shortly. I went a little overboard taking photos and thus have quote a few to edit. In the meantime here is a little preview.

The scent of these little heart shaped leaved perennials is intoxicating an fresh, green, floral fragrance that was very popular during the Victorian era. Ruled by Venus, the plants are usually found in Northern climes near banks of water and edges of wood. Here in sunny and hot Southern California they do well in gardens with robust soil that are kept moist during their blooming cycle.

Violet flower is not available as an ingredient for the authentic, botanical perfumer. The note can be approximated with Orris root and other flowers, but nothing quite compares to the scent of a fresh bouquet!

Read more about violets in perfume at these posts here at the journal.


These photographs are copyright Roxana Villa, if you wish to use them please contact me.

Gardenia Pomade 2019

As I begin writing this post it's Friday, the day attributed to Venus, the Goddess of Love, quite fitting for the euphoric fragrance of Gardenias.

The violet jars that I had ordered for the pomade arrived, thus, today I began scooping the 2019 Gardenia pomade of the enfleurage process, into the glass containers, causing a lovely white floral cloud to hang in the air.

This particular pomade is special because it was first originally the bed for my lilac enfleurage, see photo above. Since the scent of that process came out so subtle I decided to use the existing oil bed for the gardenias.

Although the lilac scent is not noticeably present to the nose, there is an imprint of all those flowers and love that has carried over to the gardenias. For those of you who feel energy, let me know if you sense it.

The process of infusing plants, mostly flowers, into a cold fat is called “enfleurage”, it is a technique made popular in the Southern region of France in the late 1800’s. As I share in the Art of Botanical Perfume course, the origin of this very laborious ritual resides in Egypt, along with alchemy. I learned about this cold fat extraction technique in the 90’s within a yahoo group of botanical perfumers. We were all experimenting and sharing our results with each other.

The gentle coaxing, liberating and harnessing the exquisite exhalation of plants takes patience and a heck of a lotta love. In Los Angeles I worked with potted jasmine sambacs, gardenias and plumerias as well as wild violets and jasmine grandi from my moms garden. Until we get more settled here in Santa Fe, my mom has been lovingly tending to my potted babies, as well as infusing & tincturing. She also sends me plants by mail to work with. Enfleurage is definitely a labor of love & devotion, perfect for an obsessive personality and lover of nature.

The gardenia pomade, is heavenly as a solid perfume or decadent face oil on its own, or you can mix it into jojoba oil to extend it. Keep in mind that the fragrance is subtle, and there are some that may not be able to perceive much.

If gardenia isn’t your thing, consider picking one up as a gift for upcoming mothers day, etc. Since the heavenly pomade is protected from light and oxidation in the special violet glass it, the scent will be preserved for when you need it most. The high quality violet glass jars offer optimal protection against the harmful effects of light and increases the shelf life to prolong potency.

I only have a limited supply of this edition, which will be offered to newsletter subscribers first.

If you would like to learn how to make fragrance from plants including the enfleurage process sign up for the Art of Botanical Perfume online course here.

Perspective

One of the primary exercises in art school is doing a drawing using perspective. Generally we learn one point perspective usually based on the geometrical horizon. The exercise is then followed with creating an image with two, three or more points.


Today I offer you an intersection of five point perspective on the natural perfume Gracing the Dawn. Instead of my single perspective on the notes, sillage and evolution of the perfume, here are three other points of view for you to savor:

Beth at The Cleveland Examiner
Donna at Perfume Smelling Things
Trish at Scent Hive
Lucy at Indie Perfumes
and
Elena at Perfume Shrine


Gracing the Dawn, more so than any of my other creations, has a very tangled and twisted her story. Originally she was a draft of notes called The Three Graces created for Heather Ettlingers Perfume in a Poem Project. Over time, with the birth of many other accords and perfumes, the formula morphed and shifted. The original illumination for the fragrance by my husband Greg Spalenka changed as well, becoming his iconic image at the 2010 San Diego Comic Convention where the perfume was debuted.


GreenWitch and Gracing the Dawn, as representatives of the two classical chypre perfumes in my collection, share similar notes and accords from the Animalia kingdom. GreenWitch leaning more into the realm of the Protoctista family and Gracing the Dawn in the Plantae arena. I call both of these "natural" perfumes because they contain ingredients from the animal kingdom.

While visiting Bergdorf Goodman, Henri Bendel and Barneys in NYC last week I was very distraught to hear the sales people refer to many non natural perfumes as natural. When I politely told them that so and so brand was not a natural they argued with me and explained that the creator(s) of the fragrances told them they were natural. I decided to drop it, even though I know for a fact that the fragrances are not natural. Even worse is the fact that the term organic is applied to synthetic perfume. I must be living in an alternate universe where linguistic terminology and integrity exist on the same plane. Thankfully most of the perfume bloggers are well educated.

Beth, who was sampling perfumes with me at the Henri Bendel department store, commented that the word has obviously become "fashionable". The L'Artisan rep shared a scent strip of a fragrance with us featuring apple mentioning all their perfumes were natural. Hello? Not only is it plain as day that the perfume had synthetic aroma molecules but also there is NO apple essential oil. Only apple blossom concrete which is difficult to obtain.


The orchestration of ingredients in Gracing the Dawn shares a few similar essences and four accords which are also in GreenWitch. The four accords have all been crafted by my own hands using essentials oils, absolutes and C02 extracts. In total there are twenty other pure, plant essences including a plethora of flower: rose, jasmine, tuberose, ylang ylang, boronia and nightqueen. I choose to use whole essences in my perfumes, primarily from the botanical world, no isolates what-so-ever.

The base alcohol is organic grape and grain from Oregon with a tincture if infused violet flowers from my mothers garden. There is only a limited amount of the tincture, however, I will be making more in the early Spring as the little violets once more grace us with their delicious aroma.



Samples of the first edition including the violet tincture are available by weight in .25 and 1 gram, the full flacon size features the light purple crochet pouch. I choose purple as the Gracing the Dawns color harmony because when my daughter and husband first experienced the perfume they both murmured "purple".



Images:
1. Perspective engraving from the 17th century mathematics work by Marolois
2. Detail of The School of Athens (full image) by Raffaello Santi, 1509, showing Euclid
3. Gracing the Dawn ©Greg Spalenka. Postcards and posters of the illumination are available at Gregs E-shop, if you ask nicely he might be willing to print up a big banner for you like the one at Comic Con, which sold. I was rather looking forward to displaying it in my studio.
4. Roxana Illuminated Perfume display from Comic Con 2010 ©Evangeline Neuhart.
5. Detail of Gracing the Dawn Gracing the Dawn ©Greg Spalenka
6. 1 gram bottle of Gracing the Dawn Natural Perfume.
7. Violet photo ©Roxana Villa.

2020: The Year of Classic Blue

Pantone has deemed classic blue as the 2020 color of the year, "instilling calm, confidence, and connection, this enduring blue hue highlights our desire for a dependable and stable foundation on which to build as we cross the threshold into a new era."

Blue, that sky hue between violet and green that appears to be the most favored by most humans can span quite a range. What I have referred to as purple others have asserted is blue, while when I have referred to a color as blue someone else will cross their arms and proclaim purple! It's a bit like scent and likely due to a combination of our upbringing, unique perspectives and the way our eyes perceive.

The original palette I received from Jennifer in March 2008 (photo above) had no blue due to the warm triad of hues in my skin, hair and eyes. However, once I started getting silver and grey in my hair, the palette shifted to embracing cooler tones such as a violet tinged, periwinkle blue.

Along with wearing blue I also incorporated the color into perfume story telling with the release of La Dame Blanche. The blue tone represents both healing & sapphires, sapphires were included in the fragrance via a tincture as well as a stone placed into the perfume synergy.

" ... White butterflies are very lucky when seen, while brown ones are unlucky. If a yellow butterfly flies over a coffin, the soul has passed safely to the Otherworld. A blue butterfly signifies that the deceased was a healer. A white butterfly signifies a good person, a dark butterfly a bad person. Butterflies represent transformation and must never be killed."

~ Evert Hopman, 210

I pulled out all the essences that go into making more La Dame Blanche about a week ago in preparation of sitting down and making more of the synergy for both the solid and liquid perfume. I'm so looking forward to having the scent back as it is one of my personal as well as a customer favorite. Once the synergy is made I will accept pre-orders so that you can make sure have one before it is out of stock once more.

Below is a quote by Beth, who commissioned me to create the fragrance, she supplied a horse hair tincture and the sapphires that go into the orchestration of the perfume.

"La Dame Blanche is a voluptuous green floral with a heart of rose, jasmine and tuberose. There is a tincture of sapphires and horse hair, amber and wood. It was blended and released on Samhain 2014 and it is as complex, mysterious and voluptuous as the Sorciere herself. It's a gorgeous perfume and the beauty of it is that it doesn't quite make sense...You will  constantly be trying to decipher it's secrets."
~ Beth Schreibman Gehring

Find more Pantone Color Posts here at the Journal

Images:
1. Blue Velvet Couch, unknown, via Pinterest
2. Finger Fade Dip Dye by Britt Browne, from Growing Up Indigo.blogspot
3. Color Palette by Roxana Villa
4. Roxana Villa photo by Rebecca Fishman
5. Blue Morpho by Roxana Villa, Santa Fe Perfumery
6. Mystic Current by Greg Spalenka
7. La Dame Blanche Apothecary Drawer by Roxana Villa, Santa Fe Perfumery

Getting Dirty

Before my friend and muse, Mona Lewis, arrived in Santa Fe for the Poetry of Scent & Color workshops, I had been foraging for dirt, rocks and plants to run some tests. The dirt and rocks were to be used for creating pigments and the plants for eco printing onto fabric, as shown below.

Heading out to find these materials heightened my connection to the land and enabled a new way of seeing, a heightened perception of the colored soils and plants that grow in and around my work and home environment. I started to see the subtle variations in the hues of the earth and detect whether the reds were warm or cool.

I also started driving more consciously so that observing the plants growing by the roadside and soil colors were easier to perceive. In the process I discovered and new way to connect with the land and the sense of this place. This is now become a new mindfulness practice which is resulting in much more awareness, its like my eyes have expanded their capacity, as if they were lungs inhaling triple the amount of oxygen than before.

Although I have very little background in chemistry and none at all in geology, in the last few weeks I have noticed that at the core of the relationship between plants and minerals is that all matter is composed of chemicals.  Matter is defined as a mass that occupies space, for example plants, rocks, mountains, humans and animals. The chemicals that form matter are tiny particles which are invisible to our eyes.

In alchemy we refer to matter as our "prima materia", the first matter, the ouroboros, where everything begins and ends. Ancient texts mention the symbol of the ouroboros appearing in Egypt circa1690 BC. The serpentine image later appears in Greece where we get the origins of the word “oura” meaning “tail” and “bόros” meaning “eating”.  In many alchemical texts the image depicts a serpent or dragon, or both, eating its own tail. The circular image reminds us of how nature is cyclical, the "eternal return” and primordial unity.

The alchemical illustration above depicts the omnipresence of philosophical matter, with the cubes representing the prima materia.

"The Stone that is Mercury, is cast upon the Earth, exalted on Mountains,
resides in the Air, and is nourished in the Waters."[1]

As a visual and aromatic artist I've come to realize that I strive toward illuminating this "omnipresence" whether it is through a painting, photograph or fragrance.

Creating eco-dyes and grinding down soil for pigments has become a deepening experience, not only as a way to bond with the land and plants but also with my self. I've started to become aware how the colors of the land here in New Mexico are as diverse as the skin pigments of those who dwell here, from the very fair northern Europeans to the darker pigments from Africa. Our skin tones are a reflection of Mother Earth and she a reflection of us.

"As Above So Below,

As Within So Without"

Jennifer Butler, the visionary stylist from Los Angeles, teaches that humans have specific tonalities to their skin, such as violet, pink, gold and peach. The main underlying color of my skin is violet, which is the foundation of the color palette my essence resonates with (see photo above), where as my daughter Eve has peach as her undertone.

Learning how to hunt for rocks, soils and plants that will pigment for paint or imprint on clothe has been tremendously rewarding, opening new pathways of thinking. How this adventure will evolve and integrate with plant perfume is still unfolding as I continue to see and sense the subtle connections that unite scent and color while working continuing to work harmoniously with the Earth.

Images & Text

Photos & text ©RoxanaVilla

Alchemical Emblem "Atalanta Fugiens" 1617 by Michael Maier enhanced and collaged by Roxana Villa

[1]  Michael Maier (1568–1622) A German physician and counsellor to Rudolf II Habsburg in Prague.