Patchouli Phreak Project

Introduction to the Patchouli Phreak Project

Patchouli - most people love it or hate it. I'm a hippie from the mid-1960s, so you can guess where I stand. I have a collection of patchouli oils from various countries and from different time periods. I wish I still had some I got back in the 60s, but they're long gone, used up, vaporized into the air. Recently, I did a scent re-evaluation of many of the oils and discovered some amazing evolution in the scents. Patchouli is a "base" note in perfumery, which means it will last indefinitely under good storage conditions, and mellow and evolve during storage.

patchouli basking in the semi-shade in my front garden

In the next few months, I will write about many of the oils I have stashed in my extensive collection. I'm not going to give the history and create monographs of each oil, I just want to share some of my observations after almost 60 years of collecting them. For the record, I typically use light patchouli in my perfumes, a molecularly distilled oil suitable for replicability and smoothness.

It's important to reference the Lexicon I provide for my students to describe all the variations in scent notes that I found within the different patchoulis. Typical textbooks and references say that Patchouli is a base note, woody, musky, balsamic, earthy, etc. However, those few descriptors are rather limited and don't convey the variety of top, middle, and base notes found within this intriguing oil. Many people don't know that almost every essential oil and absolute has its own top middle and base notes. Of course, we know that where they are grown, harvest time, soil, and extraction methods can give great variance to any oil.

The Most Unique and Lovely Oil

Many of the patchouli oils I have are rather as expected. I should add that many of my patchouli oils are aged, some of them 20 years or more. So my findings while hopefully expanding your observations of oils when you evaluate them in the future, will also encourage you to put some aside and age them, like a fine wine, to determine where their chemical constituents take them. I can say without hesitation because Patchouli is such a stable heavy molecule not one of my patchoulis ever went bad (oxidized) or rancid as some oils can.

Sixteen ounces of last-century exquisite patchouli oil 

from Camden Gray

Lexicon for the oil I'm describing today from Camden Gray, purchased in 1999:

Smooth, earthy, balsamic, cedar, mitti, ozonic, geosmin, petrichor

From Wikipedia:

Petrichor wafts through the air when rain falls on rich, healthy soil. That soil is home to millions of microorganisms that produce a chemical compound called geosmin.

Geosmin is a gas produced by a group of bacteria called Actinomycetes, though it's unclear why. You can smell geosmin after it rains, or in your garden after tilling soil or watering plants.

So, petrichor is detected as the rain falls on the soil, and geosmin is the scent released as a gas by the soil bacteria. I took a course in soil microbiology and was married to a Ph.D. in soil microbiology, so I am always intrigued by soil/bacteria/air/water interactions. I also smell the subtle ozone in this oil that can manifest before it rains.

This oil seems to include a spectrum of scents from petrichor to geosmin. Very unusual.

Mitti is an Indian co-distillation of soil that has been saturated during monsoon, then dried out and mixed with sandalwood oil in the distillation unit. The patchouli I'm writing about here has that mitti smell (actually more mitti-ish than any mitti I ever experienced) without the sandalwood, of course.

Patchouli is expected to be smooth, soft in nature, if "loud" in wafting diffusion. A little goes a long way, as you may know. Earthy is a given, it has deep, rich tones, but this oil takes it beyond that, really invoking soil in a beautiful, fresh, uplifting way. It's just so unique from all the patchoulis I have ever experienced.

Balsamic is a sweet, warm, resinous, forest-type fragrance. This oil certainly takes me to a sweet-smelling forest, a touch away from a fougere family perfume, only needing to be uplifted by some lavender and wild citrus.

I'm encouraging you to put the base note oils away to age in a cool, dry place, and observe their evolution over time. This patchouli project has been very inspiring to me, and I hope you look forward to the next oil I write about.

Leave a comment on this oil or any patchouli oil you love, and I will enter you in a random drawing for one ounce of it. Open to USA residents only. The drawing will be held on June 25th, 2024, and will be announced here on the 26th.