Rose en Bos Fine Fragrance is now available at the Sojourn Natural Spa in Woodstock, Cape Town!

This lovely spa has been created “… as a natural oasis in the bustling mother city where you can come for a brief stay in a relaxed, nurturing and rejuvenating environment….” Their products are high quality and natural.

Book your visit at

http://www.sojournnaturalspa.com/ or by phoning 021 801 6662

I am so glad I asked people to share their scent memories with me – my inbox has been filled with people’s stories and experiences!

The strongest scent associations seem to be fragrances linked to loved ones and to childhood homes. I am truly sorry that I can’t send a bottle of Viridescent to everyone who emailed their memories – but to all of you thank you for sharing, you certainly brightened my day!

My three winners are Cat B in California, USA, who shared her powerful memories of her grandfather who smoked tobacco and passed away when she was young; Yash from Paris, France, remembering the scents of a Mauritius garden and lastly but definitely not least Karen/QuoterGal, also in California USA, who shared some memories of her childhood garden, the smell of wet violets and lilacs.

I hope everyone finds a little sunshine this winter in the north, be it actual or metaphorical.

Sending lots of sunny thoughts from The Western Cape Perfumery,

X

The Natural Perfumer’s Guild is having a blogging event and give-away of products with up lifting scents to ‘bring joy’ to those suffering from ‘winter-blues’ in the Northern Hemisphere.

While it is hot and sunny in South Africa at the moment, our thoughts go out to SAD sufferers and all those struggling to cope with cold weather and cloudy skies that are prevalent in much of the northern hemisphere at the moment.     

The power of scent to lift your mood has been well-documented. According to the Scent Report:

“…The perception of smell consists not only of the sensation of the odours themselves but of the experiences and emotions associated with these sensations. Smells can evoke strong emotional reactions…”

For myself, scent evokes immediate memories, scents from my childhood being especially strong  - the smell of juice drinks, the satisfying smell of the earth after  highveld rain, my grandparent’s house etc. Wearing fragrance gives me an immediate mood lift.

Viridescent  is Rose en Bos’s ‘happiest’ scent, a luscious blend of sweet smelling citruses and frankincense.

If you would like to win a 10 or 30ml bottle of bottled South African sunshine (also know as Viridescent botanical perfume) from The Western Cape Perfumery please send us an email (HERE) with a sentence describing your happiest scent memory. Please include your first name, or nickname and your location.

Winners will be announced on Thursday.

The long awaited day is here! Rose en Bos Fine Fragrance is now available to buy at the Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens – at The Kirstenbosch Shop (in the Visitor Centre – Gate 1).

We have a lovely big window display and a dresser full of our hand blended botanical fragrances for you to try out! So if you are in the area, pop in and check it out!

So the last month or so its been all go at the Western Cape Perfumery. We’ve been filling, bottles, making boxes, photographing and building window displays and stands in preparation for the launch of Rose en Bos Fine Fragrance in Cape Town at the Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens. Watch this space to see more!

Kirstenbosch will be selling 10ml travel sized eau de toilette bottles, available in Viridescent, Rose & Vines, and for the first time in liquid form: Imithi.

Okay, so I am relatively new to the world of niche perfumery, having launched my little business only last year. Running a start up perfuming takes a surprisingly varied list of skills – perfume skills, most obviously, but then there’s also chemistry, marketing, design, website skills, legal issues, admin etc etc etc.

It has taken me a few years to get to the point where I felt my perfumes were of a quality that I wanted to release them into the wild, and honestly I had no idea what an interesting and complicated journey this would be. As an artist the ‘look’ of my products is very important to me and I was early frustrated in my search for boxes. I could find pre-made boxes, but they were generic looking AND expensive. Emails to box making companies went unanswered – unless I was prepared to order in the thousands no one was interested.

Apparently I don’t appreciate my mum, Ros, enough because she solved this problem for me so quickly I never realised it was a widespread complaint!

[My mum helps me out at the perfumery (and in life!). She is an incredible lady with a very practical mind. I'm taking her out for tea at the Mount Nelson at the earliest available opportunity.]

My mum used to be a programmer and is extremely computer literate. One of my sisters is a scrap-booking fiend and whilst waiting for my sister to pick out reams of that pretty paper scrap bookers use she spotted a cri-cut machine, and thought it might have box making potential. Now that we have it I don’t know how we would manage without it.

With the cricut machine we (and that’s the royal ‘we’) can design boxes any shape and size, basically in the space of an evening or so. We wasted a fair amount of card in the learning curve, and my first batch of boxes we had to neaten up with nail scissors but now we know what we are doing it all runs smoothly (as long as we put the paper in straight!).

Imagine my surprise when Anya McCoy, from Anya’s Garden, and President of the Natural Perfumer’s Guild was interested in our little box machine after I posted some pictures on facebook.

I’m so very happy I can make a small contribution to the Guild that have been so kind to me.

Anya has blogged about the ‘boxgasm’ here.

Oh and here’s my new poster that I’ve been meaning to post!

Behold the newly folded and beribboned 10ml sized EDT sample bottles and boxes! I am very happy with these little packages, I think they are terribly fetching…now my mum and I have to fold and package the rest (3 down, 147 to go:) 

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New artwork for an advert to be featured in the forthcoming edition of Vintage Lifestyle Magazine. The new edition should be coming out on the 4th of June.

This artwork is a larger version of the ‘Imithi’ solid parfum label, and also a portrait of my sister (much to her amusement … and bemusement?). I am trying to channel the fragrance advertisements of the 1920′s and 30′s… This one is Alphonse Mucha inspired, of course. I think the vintage feel is a fit with the classical methods of perfume blending that I use.

While I am a huge fan of contemporary perfume advert photography I do think it is a pity that they consistently ONLY use photography. Below are some of my favourite old perfume adverts.

I recently wrote a (very) short article for Diana Rankin of Perfume Power about the pros and cons of natural vs synthetic ingredients in perfume and fragrance. Diana is a perfume lover, with an interesting story, and she runs workshops and corporate events. Her mission is to educate everyone in all things perfume, which is something I can appreciate! Anyway here is the link to the article, which is very brief for such a hefty topic: Natural vs Synthetic: Some Thoughts.