A Conversation between Shelley Waddington of EnVoyage Perfumes (and Summer of Patchouli LOVE 2011 PLAP perfumer #3!) and Ambrosia Jones, Perfume by Nature (AND PLAP perfumer #6!)

 A series of conversations between the Australian Priestess of Perfume, Ambrosia, owner of “Perfume by Nature” and other Indie Scent Artists from around the world.

This time I am interviewing Shelley Waddington, owner of “En Voyage Perfumes”,  a fellow Indie Perfumer from sunny Northern California!

Shelley’s perfumes are luxurious and sophisticated, and a perfect scentual match to her sumptuous vermillion satin website! They have a true Rodeo drive touch to them that is beautiful!

  The question I ask all perfumers: Why do you make perfumes?  

My childhood was immersed in the arts.  I grew up surrounded by artists, musicians, and writers. Art was expected.

Perfume eventually became my favorite medium to work in.   Expressing the fragrances in my imagination to tell interesting and emotional stories is my artistic passion.   Catapulting an idea into the universe that becomes interwoven into people’s special places and memories is hugely rewarding.

Scent is so strongly tied to memory isn’t it…it also never ceases to amaze me how often people will pick up one of my perfumes and start with “that reminds me of…” and end up telling me a whole story about someone they loved, a precious memory from childhood etc…

 

Yes, our brain is wired very tightly to trigger memories and emotions that we associate  with the moment a specific smell was first experienced.  That was the idea behind our wedding perfumes, “Vents Ardents” and “Nectars des Îles”,  to allow couples to create the fragrance of meeting at the altar  – and then to vividly re-experience and enjoy the memories of that moment  again and again throughout their entire lives, each time they smell  the perfumes.

How did you learn perfumery?

Like learning to read and write, or to play an instrument or to ride a bike, it’s a process of absorbing information and practicing.  The constants are focus, desire, time, practice,  information, experimenting.  It’s a state of mind as well as  a wholehearted investment of spirit, passion, time, and resources.

I know you also teach perfumery, how do you approach this?

 

I’m a credentialed California teacher.  My current course on the topic of  natural isolates for perfumers is the first and only course of its kind.  It was co-written with two PhD chemists who are also perfumers, and sets a correspondingly high standard of learning.

Teaching is my personal activism.   I’m moved to share and demystify new breakthroughs in science, such as natural isolates.  Something widely misunderstood, such as musks were a few years back, also motivates me to teach.  My internet workshop on the topic of musk back in 2007 was another first of its kind. 

Receiving thank you messages from a bright upcoming perfumers and impressively trained, successful professionals, saying that they  experienced a new door having been opened for them, is an incredible reward.  

Musks are certainly a very complicated and controversial subject….and I think one of the main reasons many perfumers who start out using naturals exclusively expand to use synthetics in their perfumes. I know I personally toy with the idea of at least playing with polycyclic musks…I have a small bottle of exaltolide (a nature-identical musk which is found in many naturally musky scented plants and animal excretions) that I pull out and sniff lovingly from time to time…..

Having a fragrance library of specific reference materials is important.  Exaltolide is an interesting macrocyclic lactone that was discovered in angelica root oil in 1927 and then later synthesized and introduced into perfumery by Firmenich. It became an important commercial product and is now very recognizable in our vast array of contemporary cultural smells.

I use the large ring ketones and lactones exclusively, as they are the closest in structure to the natural Tonquin Musk and  have the most luxurious fragrance.   And they are bio-friendly, that’s very important to me.

You make both Natural and mixed media perfumes…can you share a bit about this?

 

You’re right, I perfume in both modalities.  Most importantly, naturals are the central feature of every perfume  I compose.  

“L’Emblem Rouge”  is my newest natural perfume -  a lightly spiced rose soliflor based on eco-cert Iranian rose otto.  Highlighted with Parma violet, it finishes with a soft ambery, balsam base.  It will be available on my website in July.

I work from a broad palette – currently my perfumer’s organ contains over 400 naturals, 388 synthesized fragrance molecules (only the bio-friendly ones), and dozens of tinctures and enfleurages that I make with undenatured alcohols.

Ooh, that sounds exciting! What kind of tinctures and enfluerages do you make?

 It isn’t widely known, but the early classic perfumes incorporated tinctures and enfleurages.  That was  partly what made them so amazingly complex and beautiful.   The subsequent removal of these materials is one of the reasons why perfume lovers are disappointed at  their modern commercial reformulations. 

I’m especially excited about the orange blossom extrait from enfluerage that I made this year.  Pairing it with mimosa imparted an extraordinarily sheer luminosity to my newest natural perfume, “Go Ask Alice”.

(Editor’s note- Go Ask Alice is Shelley’s Summer of Patchouli LOVE 2011 submission)

Orange Blossom and Mimosa is a beautiful combination…I used them together last year in a custom perfume I designed for an Australian artist named Helen Wells…there’s something so magical about the way the two play together! You’ve got me curious now, we should swap samples to compare what we’ve done with them!

 

 My tinctures are mostly experimental but a few have turned out to be quite useful.  I’ve tinctured several bee materials, and dozens of fruits, vegetables, seeds, leaves, mosses, algaes, woods, roots, resins, spices, and even unusual items ranging from deer antler and fossilized amber to sterile topsoil. 

Which are your favorite ingredients, both natural and synthesized (and what you like about them!

There are so many exceptional fragrance materials, but discovering the perfect material for a certain situation always makes it a favorite.

For example, Melon Valerate (Manzanate)  alone  is powerfully shrill, but when diluted down to a barely perceptible level, it  imparts an amazing green apple peel/pineapple aspect that becomes a floating dream in a certain accords.  That effect sparked a new idea that I used  in “Vents Ardents”.

I’m also strongly moved by the story, the history, the elegance of manufacture, the final product and its usefulness and safety in contributing to a magnificent perfume.  Some materials play central roles and some have a critical but miniscule presence that may never be noticed by anyone but a master perfumer – but that can completely create something new.

An oakwood hydrocarbon extraction from France, made from winebarrels, has my current attention.  It has a dry woody fragrance that is nicely nuanced with plum and red wine.  I’m also strongly attracted to aged patchouli and sandalwood.  And working with rose otto never fails to induce a pleasant state of mind. So hedonics does play a small role in the answer to your good question.

Are there any you really don’t like or find challenging to work with?

Dark blue yarrow lures me to keep trying to work it into a perfume for its beautiful color, but it has also taught me to generally avoid the more medicinal, astringent herbs.  They just don’t work into perfumes very well. 

Yeah they don’t play easily with others, grin! I’ve used some of them in drier men’s colognes with a woody base…but you do have to be careful with them….

 

You sent me two of your perfumes, would you like to tell me a bit more about them? What inspired you to make them, what effect you set out to achieve, what you used in their making etc….

 

 It was a fun long-distance collaboration between California and the Caribbean.

We were really surprised by all the interest it created among perfume lovers. 

The project was a true “first of its kind”, with two perfumers (Juan Perez and me) composing  separate  perfumes that stand well individually but also complement each another.  They were designed to be layered to create a third new fragrance.  They interlock.

(By the way, “Vents Ardents” and “Nectars des Îles” are actually an epic love story.  But I’ll tell you more about that in a minute…)

They certainly both have really intense tropical fruit notes….as soon as I opened the parcel you sent I was reminded of one of the main differences between purely Natural Perfumery and Blended Perfumery…the intensity! Natural Scents tend to stay much closer to the body…whereas your scents have all of the great “throw” to them that people often look for in modern perfumes..plus an amazing longevity!

Vent Ardents reminded me of a classical Chypre type scent my grandmother used to wear…it has the same deep, dry elegant notes to it that I found fascinating as a child…but you’ve given it a more modern twist with the tropical lushness through it…

 

“Vents Ardents” is a rustic amber with lots of natural fruits, vanilla beans, hay, tobacco and rum representing Caribbean cargo, and many woods, representing the sailing vessel and the sea.  It began as a masculine idea but in the making it  became more all embracing.

Nectar des Iles actually reminded me of “Poison” …. In an elegant, more sophisticated kind of way

 

That makes a certain kind of sense as they are of a similar lineage.  However “Nectars” is less Oriental and more tropical, and without the unfortunate cloying aspects of “Poison”.   Think more towards a “Vanderbilt” with more naturals and tropical blossom notes. 

The central heart of “Nectars” is the Fresh Gardenia and Tiare petal accord.  Absolutes of two frangipani species, of Ylang Ylang, Jasmine auriculatum and Osmanthus add  a lot of natural interest and depth.

It takes a deft hand to create a nice sillage while still retaining this kind of sheerness and delicacy.  Juan accomplished it masterfully.

 

What does the perfume mean to you? What did you use as inspiration? What ingredients did you choose for the effects you were looking for?

This is a love story about a sailor at sea who, surrounded by the fragrances of his Caribbean cargo, his sailing ship and the ocean that surrounds him, suddenly notices something magnificent in the air as he nears a tropical island. 

The enticing fragrances move him to send a message afloat in a bottle.  In return, he receives an inviting response. 

His romantic attraction leads him to shore and upriver through the fragrant rain forest that is redolent with exotic and sweetly narcotic fragrances.

His ardent search leads him to the gentle, worthy, and beautiful Island woman of his dreams who awaits and welcomes him with tropical flowers.   Thus, their  fragrances mix and become one.

What a pretty picture that conjures up! A true Fragrant Romance

Sounds like you’ve had a pretty busy time in recent years.…what dreams do you have for the future?

Expect some real surprises soon, including the unveiling of “Go Ask Alice” and  “L’Emblem Rouge”, another entirely original kind of collaboration.

As an independent artist, my goal is to stay informed by what perfume lovers enjoy. I strive to make luxurious perfumes that are both innovative as well as highly wearable.  

My goals as an entrepreneur are to continue controlled growth in response to our client demand, without compromising the guiding  principles of great fragrances, great service, and responsible eco-friendliness.

 

Thank you so much for letting me and the readers have a look into your fragrant world Shelley! Looks like there’s many good things ahead! – by Ambrosia Jones, Perfume by Nature, (and PLAP #6 perfumer with her beautiful perfume “Happiness”!)

Related posts:

1. Submission #3 *Go Ask Alice* Natural Eau de Parfum By EnVoyage Perfumes Perfumer: Shelley Waddington Summer of Patchouli LOVE 2011 Go Ask Alice Natural Eau de Parfum By EnVoyage...
2. Perfume Education *NEW* Book Perfuming With Natural Isolates by Shelley Waddington of EnVoyage Perfumes. Book review by Monica Miller, Permaculture Perfumista. How does Perfumer Shelley Waddington create such beautiful modern natural...
3. LOVE POTION for Imbolc ~ Perfume by Nature Loves us up ~ Naturally! Ambrosia Jones is a perfumer in Perfume Pharmer’s project Primordial Scents 2012 Autumn Sky Art ~ please see banner ad this...
4. Ambrosia Jones, Australian Priestess of Natural Perfume interviews Kedra Hart PLAP Perfumer #13 and owner Perfumer Opus Oils Jitterbug Perfume Parlour  Kedra has fascinated me ever since I first came across...
5. Meet Me at the Corner of Haight & Ashbury: PLAP Peace-LOVE-and-Patchouli Perfumer # 4 Jane Cate A Wing and A Prayer Perfumes. Summer of Patchouli LOVE 2011 Perfume Pharmer and the Patch Test Bunnies. Meet Me at the Corner of Haight & Ashbury:...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.