AbdesSalaam Perfume Course – Part VI: The Animalics

Bring on the animals! In perfumery, “lions and tigers and bears, oh my” turns into “deer and beavers and furry rodents,” with a strong whiff of goats and horses as well. It’s quite another world, one where the materials in their concentrated or raw state smell very different from how they end up in a fragrance bottle on the store shelves. This is Mother Nature in her stinkiest, most feral, most natural form, though the skank sometimes feels like Mother Nature is on steroids.

Beaver glands, the basis for Castoreum in perfumery. Photo: my own.

Beaver glands, the basis for Castoreum in perfumery. Photo: my own.

What was so special about AbdesSalaam’s perfume course was the opportunity to smell some truly rare materials, to actually hold them in our hands, smear them on our skin or, in one rather disconcerting incident, even taste them on our tongue. From fossilized African hyraceum to Ethiopian civet anal sac paste and muskrat genital glands, each bore a scent that was truly like nothing that I’ve ever encountered in perfumery. Their aroma was so alien from my every day existence that I lack the olfactory vocabulary to convey the full extent of their aroma, but I shall try to do my best. Ultimately, like everything else in AbdesSalaam’s perfume course that I’ve written about so far, there is no substitute for personal experience and my posts can only convey one-tenth of what it was like. The animalics are just one part of why his perfume course is so unique, as well as why it’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity that you should experience for yourself if you have the time, means, and opportunity.

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AbdesSalaam Perfume Course – Part V: The Language of Perfume, Olfactory Marketing & More

Music may be the food of love for Shakespeare, but red roses are one of its greatest symbols in modern culture. In the language of perfume, however, roses represent much more than just love. Today, we’ll look at olfactory archetypes as symbols that indirectly tell a story when used in perfume, before moving onto other parts of AbdesSalaam’s perfume course like olfactory marketing and subliminal messages, making bespoke scents for clients, and more.

Source: desktopwallpaper2.com

Source: desktopwallpaper2.com

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AbdesSalaam Perfume Course – Part IV: How To Make Perfume

How do you actually make perfume? For AbdesSalaam, the fundamental starting point is with an idea or thematic concept for your creation, one that is as simple as possible. Again and again, AbdesSalaam returned to the Guerlain quote discussed in Part I on the importance of simple ideas, and emphasized that you should not get lost in your own fantasy or over-complicate things. Once you have the idea, then you try to render it concrete by blending materials in accordance with a formula that is centered first on the main accord, then on secondary elements.

Bottles of the more than 15 perfumes I made. Photo: my own.

Bottles of the more than 15 blends I made. Photo: my own.

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AbdesSalaam Perfume Course – Part III: “Learning How to Smell”

Source: World in a Bottle Facebook Page. Creator unknown.

Source: World in a Bottle Facebook Page. Creator unknown.

The scent hit you with the force of a tornado from the moment you pushed open the door. Even at the very threshold of our classroom, you were plunged into a maelstrom of aromas. Sparkling citruses danced a brisk Foxtrot with green herbs; dark spices intertwined in a slithering tango with lush floralcy; ripples of golden warmth ran over a hint of desert dustiness here or a whisper of geranium there — they twisted and turned in the air, alone and together, a multitude of invisible forces spinning out to touch you, to suffuse your body, to stampede up your nose with the force of an invading armada before quickly flittering away. A wave of woods, both spicy and aromatic, vibrated in the air, set at a lower frequency than the rest, but caressing you nevertheless.

The molecules may have been invisible, but they carried as much weight, heft, and impact as anything solid in the classroom. They felt like an introduction to the lesson we’d be learning, a welcoming committee or advance guard that enveloped our senses far before we ever sat at our tables. It’s a testament to the sheer force and intensity of concentrated essential oils that the scent maelstrom had somehow managed to escape from the hundred of closed bottles in that room, transforming the very air around them into a tantalizing promise of things to come.

Photo: twitrheaders.com

Photo: twitrheaders.com

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