chips

For my UK friends always in search of the best fish 'n' chips or, just chips, an article from Perfume & Flavorist:

Analysis: Twice-cooked Chip Aroma Yields Bitter Cocoa & Floral Notes. 

Enjoy! I especially like the detection of ironing board scent. 
There. Didn't you just smell that?

cha cha changes

changes in the world of what we will be smelling:

from Denyse Beaulieu of Grain de Musc in Perfume & Flavorist

from Luca Turin
from Octavian of 1000 Fragrances

there's more flowing around the blogosphere and media

mystic

We meet the
invisible daily

What do you
meet
today?

Illustration: Lura Astor

Smelling the Invisible

Click for Octavian Sever Coifan's of 1000 Fragrances interview with Jean Claude Ellena and Francoise Caron for click l'Express in French with photos

I love d'Orange Verte including the bottle color.

More on Jean Claude Ellena at Grain de Musc click here

Love to see the noses of Noses
the way we would study the insteps of ballerinas
the line of leg and arm to fingertip

the hands of musicians

potters' meeting clay

We meet the invisible daily. What do you meet today?

Illustration: Jumping Perfume Bottles  © Lura Astor

Photo: Hermes Bottles/Hermes

lilac frenzy

In the modern world we have Olivia Giacobetti's En Passant of Frederic Malle's Editions de Parfums 2000 describing the scent of a lilac whipped by the wind and carried by the spring air near a garden; an impressionistic fragrance; a play on one note (white lilac); captured at an instant in time; a glorification of the scent of nature coupled with watery notes; radiant and serene. notes include white lilac, orange leaves, cucumber absolute, wheat absolute.


For a Trip in Time Travel Lane
 
Lucien Lelong's Lilac from the 1930's-40's
in a Renee Lalique bottle
with starfish top.
















Lilac Imperial Water from Colgate 1910

Elizabeth Arden had Italian Lilac and Lilac both 1922

Goetting's White Lilac circa 1871-1896

Rigaud's Le Lilas 1933

Le Lilas de Gabilla 1922






photo: Lilac Josee Holland Eclipse
photo: Bottles Perfume Projects click here

yum mane padme yum

Here's a quote
Sharing is good.

-Sunshine Cleaners, fine cast and writing. 

Watercolor: Lura Astor

Ellena / Roudnitska quote

We both believed that beauty
is synonymous with generosity.
 
Jean Claude Ellena on he and Edmond Roudnitska.
 
Thanks to Perfume Shrine's click here interview

do you seek? a true Lilac scent?

a true Lilac scent? Responding to requests, the closest I have come is Highland Lilac. Upon first sniff flood memories of smelling the bushes of this heady fragrance, feeling like a giraffe as my young neck stretched to get in all the information. 

 

Not a chemist, perfumer, or scientist, I've never had access to the test tubes and vials of synthetic molecules, accords and more (though I welcome the opportunities). 

Doc Lilac, director of Highland Park, with other staff unanimously chose Highland Lilac as the fragrance most representing the Rochester Lilac at its peak.   1.800.411.1602

Anyone remember Lilac Vegetal? Used by barbers, especially in the New York City area. I don't know if this concoction, originally from 1880, is what my younger sister, brother and I smelled as we would cling to my dad’s neck after he came home from the Grand Central Station barber and giggle smelling up and down his prickly neck back. It was the only time he wore fragrance and quite the unusual treat. It definitely had lilac in it.

Photo: Syringa Vulgaris Radomil

Pinaud Lilac Vegetal

more down below, keep reading!

For those near Rochester, NY May 8-17, 2009

 
You get the Lilac Festival May 8-17. 
I was fortunate to hear Dr. John at the Hollywood Bowl, here he and Joan Osborne perform at the Highland Bowl.
 
There will be artists, more musicians, events.

Lucky duckies, you get to smell the varietals of lilacs. More than 500 varieties from white through pinks and purples.

Lilac became Rochester, New York's official flower in 1948.


The lilac bush syringa vulgaris became New York State's official state bush in 2006.

Lilac blossom is New Hampshire's official state flower. 

This poster is for sale at the site.

Bloom baby Bloom

Bloom the petal of peace from your own hot water. Heye! Especially as venus and mars dance into hot-headed, strong-willing Aries, the baby's first run. Burn, baby, Burn has new meaning when dona nobis pacem begins at home, your heart, your lungs, your soulfulness. Steep and brew the heart/lung/soul petals in the hot water of our making and lets make the world sing! not singe.


Mixed Media: From the El Train Lura Astor

Petals

the flutter of the white winged moths to street lights made a snowfall in July, perhaps their natural predators had been damaged in the chemical spray tests.

To my child's eye they were a delight, an awe, a beauty. I heard the adults talk about tree leaf damage. I loved the trees. But I loved the once in a lifetime flutter of those white angel winged petals of snow, a blizzard in July's dark humidity.

I knew then what I know now, Nature's fecundity cannot be stopped, though it can rechannel. Our natural predators now? The morphs and the hybrids? Within our own psyche and without, these predators do battle with our natural protectors of our personal fecundity, our helix of creativity, our lushness even in barren landscapes, including those damaged by chemical tests and faulty logic, or a mouthpiece severed from the heart.

As the heart bridges the head, speech and speed with grounding, moving continuity, find petals in a bottle of fragrance, a cup of tea, the wind playing leaves like a xylophone.
 
Our heart's butterfly migrations take us home, we leave again to explore, home again, leaving to explore. Petals of rhythm, heartbeat braille, samba fire, milonga melt, skinflesh drumtalk, again and again we home to the light in any humid darkness.
 
As we create pathways through this funny time, it is up to us and our imaginations, it is up to us. Flap away ...

Painting: Petals Lura Astor

Sublime

Sublime by Patou today. Have a Sublime day, everyone

The Power of 3

Pull to consciousness 3 things
people
places
experiences
that you know to be ... Beautiful

Aries Sun - Libra Moon = Full Moon

Julie Must be Smiling!

ahhhhh, I do love street theater

a smart way for dance/theater studios to use their talents!
thanks to Dr. K.C. Bugg for passing this link along. 

click  Centraal Station Antwerpen

the eyes have it

pick an eye
any eye

what was it you wanted to see?


image: Sherri Hogue

dance to be free

 

... and find your self knowledge ...
April arrives and Pan dances
flowers, trees and petals

must be the season of the witch - Donovan


Painting: Hidden Dance in Heart Lura Astor