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Showing posts with the label tincturing

Ask the Perfumer July 28, 2013 Tincturing the Fragrant Harvest

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 Originally published July 28, 2013 I was digging up some old photos for a writing project, and this one of Jasmine sambac Grand Duke of Tuscany is from 2005.  I used a thumbnail of it on the original naturalperfumery.com website that was launched that year.  The thumbnail is an ironic term here since it features my thumbnail!  What huge flowers from the Grand Duke!  Many are the size of small carnations, which they remind people of, due to their tightly-clustered petals.  The window to harvest this flower is small since they’re slow to ripen to the proper stage for harvesting, and then, boom, overnight, it seems, they start to turn brown. A gorgeous, intensely-fragrant slow-growing jasmine. So many of the white flowers produce an orangey-brown absolute or tincture, have you noticed that?  Jasmines and gardenias, Michelia, and lotus come to mind.  When I pop Michelia alba flowers into a tincture, the menstruum turns reddish-brown immediately!  The Grand Dukes take a bit longer to chang

Summerscent - A Thai "Jasmine Tree" is a new addition to Anya's Garden Perfumes

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Ruffled, delicate Summerscent blooms Do you love the fragrance of blooming michelia or ylang ylang flowers?  Then you'll love this pretty flowering plant, sometimes called Summerscent or dwarf tree jasmie.  Radermachera kunming is a rare plant, not often found in garden centers.  It starts blooming when only 1 - 2' tall, and mine little plant in a pot is full of blooms and buds.  The sweet scent, and at least now, with it's first big summer flush of flowers, doesn't smell like jasmine.  It's much more like the piercing sweet floral fruity scent of michelia or ylang ylang flowers. It has large cluster of buds ready to open when the current flowers fade.  I'm going to start picking the flowers for enfleurage today. Summerscent is loaded with juicy buds ready to follow in a fragrant succession of blooms Seeing that it's native to Thailand, it is a tropical plant, and you either need to live in a tropical or subtropical area to grow it outside, or have