Coming up with a concept or a collection of fragrances with a particular concept, is often times both full of fun & challenging. Sometimes I come up with either "what" or "who" I'll be designing a particular fragrance for and other times, I create a perfume, and find a perfect name for it later.
When I decided to make the "Seven Deadly Sins" Collection, I mused painstakingly over each sin, what they felt like, and what they looked like when acted upon. Once I was fully engaged, I went to work on a fragrance that fit the emotions that lay behind the sin.
I'm inspired by many, many things other-worldly, Gothic, spooky, fantasy, Victorian, magikal, musical, and Zeitgeists.
I had been strongly desirous to create at least one perfume inspired by the song "Go Ask Alice" by the Jefferson Airplane for ages. (Something about that song is just so hauntingly beautiful, and trippy). It ended up that I went hog wild, and started an entire line of perfumes based on that one song.
I'm sure everyone is curious as to why I picked the fragrance combos for each of the characters, and what inspired me. Down the rabbit Hole for example, gave me lot's of ideas. Aether, space, wet soil, plant roots, air but, those all seemed so obvious. And then I started thinking about the scents that one might smell while heading into Wonderland. Fruits, tea & cakes, flora and fauna....in the end, I decided upon a very happy summer fruit combination based solely on the fact that I personally would be rejoicing in the fact that I was about to enter the infamous Wonderland itself.
On the opposite end of the spectrum, when deciding to create a fragrance for "The Hookah Smokin' Caterpillar" I could not wait to create the obvious! I wanted so badly to make this particular perfume smell exactly what I imagined his hookah would smell like. Opium, ganja, pipe tobacco & hookah tobacco and several woods.. This would have to be a more masculine fragrance due to the strong dry wood notes but, it's one that I very much enjoy wearing myself.
When it came time to create a perfume for Alice herself (Go Ask Alice), it seemed to be a no brainer. I just imaged exactly what I thought Alice would smell like. Top notes of Passion Fruit & Nectarines with a hint of Ruby Red Grapefruits followed by an English Garden full of freshly cut Roses, Lily of the Valley, & Tuberose with Rosewood essential oil, Sandalwood, and a hint of Vanilla e.o. - Soft, pretty & sweet.
I wasn't sure if I was going to do a fragrance for the concept of "Happy Un-Birthday Cake" until I had a sweet tooth one day and decided I so desperately wanted to create a perfume that smelled like nothing but sweet sugars. I wanted it all to smell of white (for the un-color) cakes, sugars and fillings. Although lemon is certainly yellow on the outside, once you squeeze them, the juice has no color at all so, I included a bit of lemon curd filling. It cures any sweet tooth indeed but, this particular collection was intended to be a purely fun olfactory experience, and that's what it is.
Cheshire Cat...what can I say. I have a major mystical crush on that Cheshire Cat. I'm a huge cat lover to start with, and Lewis Carroll did a magnificent job on that character (as well as many others). This one required the highest praise from me. I went in the obvious direction of "purple" smells with the berries, but Cheshire lives in and above, and around trees, in a very enchanting English forest, in the middle of Wonderland and I could spare no expense in the price of the essential oils for this one so, I included the elusive Oud (agarwood) for the scent of the trees, & then naturally it required oak moss absolute because, no tree in the woods is without it's moss, followed by the very earthy fragrance of dark Indonesian patchouli essential oil, a light swirl of romantic flora, and some tree dropped resins to add to it's mystery. I adore the combo of this one but, no one ever thought I was anything but eccentric ;)
More to come!
