The Tink Goes On

The jasmine tincture process is still going. Normally the cycle ends at some point in November, but it is dependent on the weather. Since we continue to have high heat its possible that will just keep on supplying those beautiful little blooms for another month.

Harnessing the Soul of Jasmine

The article I wrote for the NAHA (National Association of Holistic Aromatherapy) journal is live, check it out here.

In the meantime, this years tincture is coming out quite spectacular. Every night or morning when I add more flowers I take a little taste. In the photo above with the notice the different shades of yellow of each liquid contained within each glass jar. The largest one on the left, is the first one I started, thus the hue is more golden compared to the second jar on its right and the green hues of the little jar on top.

My jasmine plants haven't been looking so good the last few days, I'm not quite sure why. They seem a bit "spent", like they are tired, but I could be projecting. We shall see how much longer the season will go, normally they continue offering up the flowers into November.

Jasmine Tincturing Summer 2015

Although the jasmine blooms seemed to get to a slow start this year they sure have been producing dynamically lately!

Every evening or morning I harvest the little flowers, take photos and add them to the 190 proof grape alcohol. Sometimes I filter the alcohol before adding the flowers, besides that, I do these tasks every single day and will continue until the cycle ends, usually in November.

The amount of photos I take daily is probably as abundant to the blooms. At the moment I have three glass mason jars filled with the aromatic elixir in my refrigerator. This fragrance potion ultimately goes into Blossom, a citrus and herb cologne I created based on traditional formulas. I'm experimenting with using the tincture like a bitter added to cocktails.

Each time I filter the infused alcohol I pour filtered water over the spent flowers I drink the heavenly tonic with Greg.

The biggest challenge each day is figuring out how I will shoot a new and interesting photo of the process, I feel like I've shot every possible potential image and then a new one, thankfully, presents itself. Here's a few from this morning....

Happy Independence Day!

I'm sort of taking the day off, it's Independence Day here in the US after all, not that a major holiday would influence a perpetual artist. Day, night, linear time doesn't much affect those living in the creative realm except for perhaps getting to the post office with packages before they close.

I started the morning with some gardening including the daily task of gathering the pikake blossoms and putting them into the ongoing tincture. Since there were too many spent flowers in the potion, before adding the new batch, I filtered it and removed the clear, skeletal looking posies. One of the new tasks I've added to the process of filtration is that afterward I will run water through the spent florets that are sitting in the strainer and drink the potion. It's a delicious, refreshing potion with the notes of jasmine sambac and adds a nice addition to the ongoing ritual.

Besides lounging and enjoying the freedom of it, my main agenda today is reading  more of "A Discovery of Witches" by Deborah Harkness. I've been curious about this novel since it came out and a facebook friend mentioned it to me. Then, in January while enjoying the medieval dye garden at Highland Hall Waldorf School, the book came up in a conversation with one of the faculty members. I had brought up the film "Only Lovers Left Alive" which led to a discussion about vampires and the book. It wasn't until a few days ago that I finally took a moment to have the book transferred to my local library and I started reading it.

The alchemical symbols on the cover immediately intrigued me, followed by the first paragraph with the main character, Dr, Diana Bishop, gathering leather-bound manuscripts from Oxford's Bodleian Library.

I'm not very far into the novel as I type this, but, I've already noticed that the author has a great use of scent in her writing which has added yet another level of appreciation for me. I'm in heaven and hyper conscious of that impending moment when you realize how depressing it will be once you have finished a great book. Luckily this is a trilogy, so the anticipated point of gloom can be let go for awhile.

More soon, in the meantime, the prevailing scent for Independence Day seems to be "smoke" emanating from all the barbeques here in the wooded hills. This evening the note will have an added slightly metallic aspect from the firework festivities down in the valley.

White Flower Season!

The white flower season has arrived! It appeared like a rough start for the Jasmine sambacs but not for the Gardenias. Here at the house of beautiful smells I have a jasmine sambac tincture and a gardenia enfleurage in tandem, eventually I will have a jasmine sambac enfleurage as well but its too early in the season. Although in all honesty, the weather pattern is completely off and thus so is the flowering pattern of the sambacs.

For those of you who are subscribers of my newsletter you'll find a little treat of the 2014 gardenia enfleurage from last year. Little tubs are also available at the fan funding here. Keep in mind that the 2014 edition is very subtle, the fat was only charged with flowers three times. The 2015 edition should have a much stronger presence since we began the process earlier in the season.

Meanwhile...

While most places in the northern hemisphere have been experiencing some form of Autumn weather and signs of the impending season, we continue to have heat and very few visible harbingers except for acorns and pumpkin vendors.

Meanwhile, the jasmine sambac is happily blooming in yet another flowering cycle. I now have two big bottles of tincture, a glass jar of an infusion and an enfleurage all happening at once!

Dailies

The daily gathering of little white florets from for the Jasmine sambac tincture continues. Although there was a bit of a dry spell of blossoms for about a week, the plants are flowering once more.

These waxy, abundantly scented little flowers have been getting added to 190 proof grape alcohol since April of this year. Thursday morning, while filtering the tincture, I poured a tablespoon into a glass. After finishing the process and cleaning up, I studied the fragrant potion and drank. The first impression was the strong, sharp, astringent taste of the 190 proof organic alcohol followed by the most glorious floral flavor. Like a well blended, complex botanical perfume, there was a journey of notes which ended with the most delectable tang of jasmine flowers...as if drinking an aspect of the soul of the plant which even the hydrosol cannot capture.

While experiencing this exotic and completely new taste sensation I contemplated how the high proof alcohol extracts botanical components that water cannot, making this format of experiencing the flavor of these delicate flowers a completely new and different adventure.

This tincture is meant for the 2015 edition of the Blossom Cologne. The 2014 edition of the fresh and uplifting cologne can be found here, keep in mind there is a specified amount of the cologne due to the finite availability of the hand infused alcohol contained within the fragrance.

Each plant material tinctures up differently, some do not not release there precious aromatic treasures while others do so very eagerly. Jasmine sambac works well as long as you can keep up the task of filtering old blossoms and adding new ones consistently for a period of three months or so. The alcohol in the tincture I've been making is just about completely saturated with aromatics thus, tomorrow I will begin doing an enfleurage with the jasmine blossoms.

Happy Solstice!

Happy Solstice from the Santa Monica Mountains to each of you. The potted jasmine sambacs in my garden started their blooming cycle in April. Each morning I have been gathering the little white blossoms and placing them into the organic, 190 proof grape alcohol. The base starts off a crystalline clear liquid slowly turning toward a golden yellow by the end of the process in the Autumn.

Some days there are no flowers, just a few or like today too many to count. The amount of blooms seems less than last year which may have to do with the un-seasonal warm winter we had. These little blooms will infuse the alcohol until it can no longer take on any scent. At that point I will start a second batch.

In the meantime I am working on the new edition of Blossom Eau de Cologne. There is still a bit of the 2014 edition which can be found by following this link for a sample and/or a 30 ml spray bottle at the website.

This post has been pinned here, follow the process on Instagram here.

Blooming

While straightening up the studio I happened across a few glass amber bottles containing Blossom Eau de Cologne. I poured them all together, then filtered to make sure any bits of the jasmine tincture and botanical extracts were gone and have listed the remnants here. This is all that is left of the 2013 edition.

The 2014 edition is now underway which will feature a tincture of our jasmine sambac blossoms from last years bloom time.

Day and Night Blooms

Of late my days and nights begin and end with jasmine flowers. In the evening, usually just before bed, earlier if I remember, I turn on all the lights that will illuminate the front side of the house where all the clay pots of the jasmine sambac plants are and I slowly begin picking. Quite often I will encounter spiders and their webs, sometimes I hear rustling under the oaks where they have spread a nice carpet of leaves to hear the footsteps of the four leggeds. In those instances I stomp my feet so that whatever is over just yonder knows that I am about. I'm not too concerned about raccoons or coyotes, but skunks I'd rather not have an encounter with.

One of my regular daily friends is this praying mantis pictured above. I've seen her grow from a little babe into this young adult. In the Autumn she'll find a male to mate with and bite his head off.

I have yet to see what insect pollinates the jasmine flowers. Honey bees and hummingbirds buzz around the plants but the pollinator of these intoxicants is probably a nocturnal being like a moth.

In the morning one of the first things I do is go out and check for newly opened blossoms or any I missed from the night before. The plants have been producing such a large number of blossoms that I currently have three different forms of extraction taking place all at once. The tincture was the first extract I started, in that process the sweet smelling flowers are placed into organic grape alcohol. The second might be termed a cold infusion or maceration, in this scenario the white blossoms are put into organic jojoba oil.

The third process, which was begun this week, is an enfleurage. Each morning I place each posy face down covering the entire surface, in the evening before bed I remove them because they oxidize very quickly. After only three days of adding blossoms the base has already been well impregnated with the delicious aroma of the tantalizing florets.

I have also begun a plumeria enfleurage, although I don't have nearly as many flowers and plants to work with as the Jasmine. It's all a bit of an experiment, if it goes well I'll get more plants and move onto bigger production. A plantation in for organic jasmin sambac and plumeria flowers Hawaii is what I will visualize each time I inhale the euphoric inducing aromas.

These type of processes are no longer used by the perfume industry because they require much labor and costs. Since profits are king in this realm synthetics, which are cheaper and consistent, have become queen, Among the indie natural perfume and herbalism crowd you will find quite a few keeping these old world practices alive. Judging from what is happening with the rise of the artisanal food scene, I suspect more and more will be surfacing.

Photos ©RoxanaVilla, taken with a Canon and I-pad via Instagram app.

Causing Great Happiness

We are in mid July and the jasmine harvest is in full swing. In the past I would harvest the delicate, white flowers in the morning. This year I am harvesting them in the evening at about 10pm once the new blossoms are freshly opened with their intoxicating fresh floral pure fume. The word intoxicating is defined as "causing great happiness", I can't think of a better descriptor for jasmine sambac flowers at the moment.

Each night the harvest is different, sometimes it will be only a few flowers, tonight it was about twenty with an even larger harvest coming in the next few days. The cycle, like the moon, expands and contacts.

I keep the glass jars with the organic, grape alcohol and flowers in the refrigerator. Once the jar is full I will filter it, remove the spent flowers and continue to add more until once it is full again. Like the blooming cycle, the process of adding new blossoms is a cyclical pattern.

The 2012 jasmine sambac flower tincture appears in the new edition of Blossom, Chiaroscuro and Cimbalom liquid.. I've added samples in glass, mini spray bottles in the shop yesterday. The jasmine tincture in progress will be featured in the next edition of Blossom and subsequent editions of Chiaroscuro and Cimbalom liquid natural, botanical perfume.

The Tribe Jasmineae

"You need regular doses of unreasonable beauty, sublime anomalies, 

beguiling ephemera, and inexplicable joys." 

~ Rob Brezsny

We have finally hit the time of the year where my Jasmine sambac plants begin their long flowering season here in the woodland. I gathered a handful of the little, waxy white flowers on Moon day morning to begin a new tincture. Before doing so I removed the tincture begun last summer from the fridge, filtered out the blossoms that were in it and now have a glorious, golden liquid which is thick with the vitality and scent of the flower.

The initial plan was to add this tincture to two jasmine perfumes in the works, although that isn't completely clear in my mind yet. Since I only have about 16 ounces of the Summer 2012 vintage, it may only go into one of the fragrances. In the meantime I plan to get even more plants.

Eve returned home from college in Vermont this weekend, thus the house is now filled with regular visitors coming to see her. Yesterday I decided to take advantage of the entourage of people and get impressions of the tincture without them knowing what it was. Here are some of the descriptive words that were shared when I placed the precious liquid on each persons inner wrist:

Gardenia
Hawaiian blossoms
Fresh
Floral
White
Clean
Jasmine

Eve said that it smells very clean and modern with almost a metallic note. To my nose, I also get honey. Too bad the bees don't pollinate these flowers, Jasmin sambac honey would be pretty amazing.

Photos: 1st and 2nd photo by me 3rd photo by Rebecca Fishman.