In a Station of the Metro

Exactly one year ago today my contribution to the Perfume in a Poem project put together by poet/artist Heather Ettlinger debuted. What an exciting day that was! I remember the day so clearly, it began with a visit to West Hollywood to hear Andy Tauer present followed by the publication of the fourteenth segment of Perfume in a Poem.

I've included the link below if you'd like to journey on over to Heather's blog to peruse this interesting project she created. Regretfully Heather isn't blogging these days. We all look forward to her return.

Perfume in a Poem: Roxana Villa

Image ©Greg Spalenka

The Three Graces: The base meets wood

I have finished the initial base chord, it took me awhile to decide exactly which Patchouli and which Vetiver to integrate with the other members of this temporal ensemble. In the end I choose an Indonesian Patchouli with a lovely floral aspect to it. This floral note will later work nicely with the blossoming heart accord. The Vetiver was tougher, perhaps because I have so many of them to choose from, and love each one. In the end it was one of my Bourbons that won out, a nicely aged, viscous Vetiver. While the base marinates I am moving onto the simple wood accord:

“The bough, where the Goddesses manifest,
is created with wood notes including Cedar and Cabrueva.”

Cabrueva, a hardwood from Paraguay, contains a flowery sweet wood note which will harmonize nicely with both the wood of the Himalayan and Atlas Cedar. Both these essences contain that ubiquitous wood note. The Himalayan, also known as Tibetan, contains a spice note to its warm woody fragrance and is slightly softer with, like the Patchouli and Cabreuva, a subtle floral note.

So you see, I choose my elements so that in the end there will be a harmonizing and relationship from the base, to the middle and extending into the top notes.

Roxana Villa: Perfume Inside the Poem
RoxanaIlluminatedPerfume™
Image of bundled Vetiver courtesy of Christopher McMahon and Manoj Avasthi.

The Three Graces: The base

"I choose notes with a cool quality for the "wet, dark" earth aspect from which the fragrance will be built upon, such as: Mitti Attar, Patchouli, and Vetiver. I see the base as a dark leather chord in juxtaposition to the bright floral heart. I add a touch of Kewda Attar for its cool, watery element and a hint of Black Musk Attar."

This is the base for “The Three Graces” perfume, including three traditional Indian Attars. These precious gems are hydodistilled in India, utilizing a five thousand year old process. The materials; flowers, herbs, woods, seeds or a combination, are hydrodistilled into a base of sandalwood. The process is very labor intensive and thus can be some of the costliness materials for the botanical/natural perfumer.

Mitti Attar: Indian distilled baked earth, after the first Monsoon Rain.
Black Musk Attar: A compound of spices, woods and herbs.
Kewda Attar: The “screw pine” flower, Pandanus odoritissimus.
Vetiver: Roots of a tall growing grass.
Patchouli: Distilled from the dry leaves of the herbaceous herb.

Since this is a base “leather” accord, for a final perfume consisting of twenty ingredients, I will cease to add other elements. This is the first time I have intended an exact number of ingredients for a perfume. At the moment it is feeling rather restrictive, however, I feel compelled to remain true to the poem from which this was birthed. The total number of essences in this perfume matches the twenty words in the Ezra Pound poem.

Roxana Villa: Perfume in a Poem
Roxana Illuminated Perfume™
Images courtesy of Christopher McMahon and Manoj Avasthi. Above left are the Mitti Patties drying in the Indian Sun. Above, on left are Kewda flowers in a basket and just to the left is bundled Vetiver.

Smell is a potent wizard

“Smell is a potent wizard that transports you across thousands of miles and all the years you have lived.”
- Helen Keller


The Perfume Inside a Poem two week project comes to a close today. Can you hear me sighing? It has been such a pleasure to participate in and witness. I will miss checking in to read the different artistic interpretations.


For me the project was extremely inspirational from which many seeds were birthed. I will be presenting here.

Many thanks to Heather, all the talent that courageously exhaled their interpretations, those who inhaled our stories and all the commentators who ground our ideas. Enormous gratitude to Greg who contributed his visual interpretation of my perfume brief.

Roxana Villa: Perfume Inside a Poem
Perfume Inside a Poem
Roxana Illuminated Perfume™

Perfume Inside the Poem Unveiled

This afternoon, Heather Ettlinger of Memory and Desire, will publish my contribution
to her ongoing project titled Perfume Inside the Poem. I am one of fourteen other perfumers who has participated in this fascinating scent exploration of a poem by Ezra Pound.
Please have a peek and if inspired leave a comment. Those who post a comment on her blog will be entered into a contest for samples of the final perfume creations and other goodies.
Greg has created a beautiful image to go with my final fragrance.
Eventually this image will be an animation on our website.
There have been several off shoot projects which were birthed from the simple three line poem. I will write more on the project and the botanical elements of the perfume creation
here on this journal in the next few days.
Cheers to the art spirit!

Memory and Desire
Roxana Illuminated Perfume™

Image of the Lotus flower is courtesy of Christopher McMahon and Manoj Avasthi.

Visual and Aromatic Arts

The artist is a receptacle for emotions that come from all over the place;
from the sky, from the earth, from a scrap of paper,
from a passing shape, from a spider’s web.
~ Pablo Picasso

Yesterday I was filmed here in the studio for an upcoming conference for "solpreneurs" happening this summer. Once I get more details I will post here, it sounds fabulous. I was asked questions regarding what business challenges I face. It's interesting that as a botanical perfumer and visual artist the challenges are quite similar. The main difference is that for an aromatic artist the health of ones sense of smell is paramount to your ability to work. Lately my olfactory sense has been a bit compromised by allergies. It's so frustrating! I can duplicate perfumes which have already been transcribed, however, creating new accords and perfumes can be a challenge. Interestingly enough, sometimes, when I sit down to work my sinuses and breathing clears. I attribute this to the healing powers of the essential oils, focus and working blissfully.

At the moment I continue to work on several custom perfume portraits, new accords, perfumes and the special fragrance I am creating for the Heather Ettlinger Perfume in a Poem Project. Have you been following the project? It's so fascinating to read each perfume artists interpretation of the Ezra Pound poem. Check it out, it's really inspiring. Fellow perfumer and colleague Ayala Moriel was featured yesterday.

Perfume in a Poem Project
Ayala Moriel
Roxana Illuminated Perfume™
Greg Spalenka
The School of Visual Arts

"Butterfly Lady" © Greg Spalenka is an original mixed media painting created for the School of Visual Arts in New York City. The original hangs at school in New York. If you lived in NYC in the eighties and rode the subways you might remember seeing it plastered on the walls.

Perfume Inside the Poem

Heather Ettlinger, devotee of both perfume and poetry, has fused her love into a fun and creative project on her blog Memory and Desire. Heather has attracted fourteen perfumers from different terrains to participate. The collaboration is called Perfume Inside the Poem and centers around the Ezra Pound poem titled In a Station of the Metro. An introduction to the project and the poem has been posted on the Memory and Desire blog. The contributing perfumers are quite diverse with aromatic palettes ranging from Naturals, Botanicals, Synthetics and/or a combination. Besides reading and viewing the contributions from each participant one can also enter to win samples.

The contribution from Roxana Illuminated Perfume is scheduled to be posted on Memory and Desire Saturday, March 29th.

The image above is more evocative of the Poem Inside the Perfume, than the Perfume Inside the Poem. However, it is a lovely illustration which conveys an appropriate mood. The bottle in the illustration is a mason jar which I use to tincture and infuse many of the materials that go into my botanical perfumes. The illustration is called "Preserved Memories" ©Greg Spalenka.

Perfume Inside the Poem
Memory and Desire
Roxana Illuminated Perfume™