Maybe you haven’t found your perfect match in love, but you can find your perfect match with fragrance!
You can find fragrances everywhere, but there is a company that creates single note fragrances that are so unusual, you might wonder how in the world they ever came up with them. The creator of “Dirt” and “Grass” and the also popular”Laundromat” and “Angle Food Cake” fragrance and a total of 250 single note scents, is Demeter Fragrance Library. New scents are launched just about every month, the latest being a woodsy Oud in January 2013; Flowering Tonka (rich with vanilla with touches of cinnamon, saffron, almond and clove) in February; Vanilla Cookie Dough launches in March, followed by the green and unusual Rice Paddy in April. Sunshine will launch in may, with Pruning Shears in June, White Sangria in July and Iced Berries in August. We can’t wait!
In the past, the Advice Sisters have reviewed a number of these fragrances. We love them “as-is.” How I never realized I could mix, match & layer them is beyond me. But at a recent event held at Duane Reade Drug Store near Bloomingdale’s in Manhattan (quite a fantastic cosmetics department to check out, if you’re in the area), I got an up-close-and-personal experience in taking Demeter’s fragrance notes by the bottle, and mixing some of them together, to create truly one of a kind fragrances.
A “single note” fragrance is the expression of one single identifiable note or smell or idea. Master perfumers ” (“noses” ) use these notes like a composer uses musical notes, to create a larger and harmonious “whole” composition (in this case, a complex fragrance). Most fragrances have dominant top, middle and bottom notes. The top is what you smell first,and the bottom notes are the ones that tend to linger. Mixed with all the notes, you get the fragrance you know and love!
You can wear Demeter Fragrance Library scents as-is, as single notes, but because they are notes, you can be your own master perfumer and mix them in various combinations to come up with a scent that mixes notes you love. The order, the amount and your skin chemistry will change how all these notes work alone, and together.
My husband is a huge fan of Demeter’s “dirt” note. I am not sure why, but that’s the one he likes, so I tried to create a scent with dirt as the big player. I mixed grass, and some other notes. It just didn’t send me. So I went back to the drawing board and started with one of Demeter’s new single notes called: ” OUD. This particular woodsy note is one I love in almost every fragrance. But what would smell nice, combined with it? I tried a few things, but I’m not perfumer, so I relied on a little help from the very affable Mark Crames, Demeter Fragrance Library’s founder. You can tell he loves fragrance, and he admitted that his “work” is a pleasure.
Surveying the choices in front of me, lined up with colorful labels, I liked softly spicy black ginger, so that went into the mix. And I added some Earl Grey Tea, a light scent that added something to the top, but wasn’t all that noticeable. For the big finish, Mark suggested Patchouli. This is a fragrance I associate with hippies and head shops, and normally I don’t really care for it. But that’s where mixing can make a big impact, and surprise you. Smelling is important. The Demeter version isn’t sweet or cloying, but more smokey and deep and really pretty. Together, these notes made a great combination (on paper strips). At home, on my own skin, I’ll continue to experiment to see just how much of each gives me the scent that works the best.
The point of all this is that it’s fun to play “perfumer” and come up with something unique. If you want to try using Demeter’s single notes to mix your own unique scent, 250 different single notes are available to you. But a good rule of thumb that if things go together in real life, like Dirt, Grass and Tomato, they will merge well into a pleasing, layered scent. Find the combos that work best for you, but remember also that the essence in each fragrance will react differently to the oils in your own skin, so your special mix may not smell the same of your BFF. Luckily, the Demeter Fragrance Library fragrances are affordable. A s 1 oz. cologne in a spray bottle is $20.00. There are also other sizes and scented bath & body products you can enjoy. Get these locally in your Duane Reade drug store, or you can also order online on the Demeter web site. http://www.demeterfragrance.com
Extending the Life of Demeter Fragrance
Light and heat are the enemies of all fragrances. Keeping a Demeter fragrance away from light and heat will extend it’s life. This is even more important for Demeter fragrances than most other prestige scents because Demeter is so highly natural, with no synthetic extenders.
It is also possible to extend the life of the fragrance on the skin by a classic methodology called “layering”. Unlike the mixing and matching we do with Demeter scents to create new scents, classic layering simply means putting a lotion or oil on the skin, either the same scent or an unscented version, before applying the cologne or EDT. The fragrance oil bind to the oils on the skin, and the lotion or gel simply creates a better surface for binding, making the fragrance last much longer. This is the reason fragrance lasts longer on people with oily skin, but can dissipate quickly on drier skin.
95% Natural Ingredients
While it is impossible to make the broad range of fragrances that we make without using some synthetic ingredients, we strive to make Demeter as natural as possible:
· 95% of our ingredients are derived from natural or renewable resources
· No artificial colors. Any color in a Demeter scent is a natural product of the ingredients used to make the scent. This is why most Demeter scents are clear
· No binders or emulsifiers
· No Phthalates
· Alcohol naturally fermented from corn
