cocktails ingredient natural vanilla
15 April 2015 / 27 July 2023 by Pell Wall (Chris) | Leave a Comment
Prosecco upgraded with Vanilla CognacPell Wall style Vanilla is one of the most useful ingredients in cooking, cocktails and perfumery. Its story is quite well known, so I’m only going to touch on some of the less well-known aspects here. My main purpose is to give details of a fine drink and a tincture that […]
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DIY education ingredient Making your own perfume natural
14 March 2015 / 27 July 2023 by Pell Wall (Chris) | Leave a Comment
Tolu Balsam is a very useful natural fixative as well as a lovely base-note in its own right, but it isn’t the easiest of materials to handle. It comes from the South American tree Myroxylon balsamum. It is used to fix materials such as juniper, petitgrain, spices and florals of many kinds and frequently forms a […]
DIY education IFRA ingredient Lily of the Valley natural synthetic
30 July 2014 / 26 April 2024 by Pell Wall (Chris) | Leave a Comment
Mystery Perfumery has always glorified the floral and for centuries perfumers have sought ways to extract the essence from real flowers to incorporate into their creations. With many flowers this quest has met with considerable success, with a few commercially viable products produced that are still used in modern perfumery: rose and jasmine being the […]
Disambiguation DIY education ingredient natural
19 July 2013 / 26 April 2024 by Pell Wall (Chris) | 2 Comments on Natural Perfume Materials: what the terms mean
There are quite a few methods by which the aromatic principles of natural materials are made available for use in perfumery and unfortunately some of the terms used are obscure and others are sometimes mis-used. The purpose of this post is to set out the main terms used, together with definitions of widespread acceptance. In […]
ambergris animal Disambiguation DIY education Making your own perfume natural synthetic
29 April 2013 by Pell Wall (Chris) | Leave a Comment
I’ve written already about natural ambergris (also called Ambra) and mentioned there that most perfumery uses synthetic substitutes. Here I’m setting out some of those substitutes (mainly synthetic, but including some naturals) and trying to sort out some of the confusion resulting from the fact that there are so many different products with very similar names. […]
animal DIY ingredient Making your own perfume musk natural synthetic
14 August 2012 by Pell Wall (Chris) | Leave a Comment
Musk is one of the most common elements in perfumes – some form of musk is included in virtually every fragrance on the market, but which form varies a great deal as there are a great many options. At one time, musk came almost exclusively from various species of Musk Deer but this has almost […]
DIY ingredient lilac Making your own perfume natural synthetic
18 July 2012 by Pell Wall (Chris) | 3 Comments on Bitter Almond Oil
Bitter Almond Oil is one of those curious perfumery ingredients that isn’t at all what it appears to be: it almost certainly won’t have been made from almonds, bitter or otherwise, isn’t bitter and may be natural or synthetic. Bitter Almond Blossom What is called Bitter Almond Oil and was originally and is still occasionally made from bitter almond kernels – Prunus amygdalus Amara […]
choosing and classifying fragrance education ingredient Making your own perfume natural synthetic
13 June 2012 by Pell Wall (Chris) | 1 Comment on Books about Perfumes and Perfumery
There are quite a lot of books about on the subject of perfumes, perfumery and the making of perfumes and many of them are not all that helpful, so I’ve tried to gather together here some recommendations for books I’ve found to be particularly helpful or interesting. Some books from the Pell Wall Perfumes bookshelf […]
DIY education hyacinth ingredient Making your own perfume natural nature of smell Persian Prince Spring Flowers Collection
2 May 2012 by Pell Wall (Chris) | Leave a Comment
What’s actually in the scent of a flower? It’s probably not a question most people ask, but if you’re interested in the answer I’m presenting here a discussion of the components of the scent of hyacinth flowers. Hyacinths in flower in the Pell Wall garden Most of these individual chemicals are available to the perfumer […]
DIY FAQ ingredient Making your own perfume natural synthetic
1 May 2012 by Pell Wall (Chris) | 10 Comments on Starter Kit for DIY Perfume Making
One of those questions I get asked quite often by people planning to start making their own perfumes is what to buy to get started. To help answer that I’ve put together some lists of both natural and synthetic materials that I think are good to start with. Pell Wall Perfumes Blending Bench My own […]
Disambiguation DIY education ingredient Making your own perfume natural
28 April 2012 by Pell Wall (Chris) | Leave a Comment
Perfumery ingredients often have fascinating names, sometimes confused by different usages and this is a case in point, in this case there are three different ingredients, all fixative base notes, that are easily confused: Benzoin, used alone, or prefixed with Sumatra, usually refers to Styrax benzoin (also called Benzoin resinoid*), whereas Benzoin Siam is usually used to refer to Styrax tonkinensis – […]
artemisia Devana Disambiguation DIY estragon ingredient Making your own perfume natural vetiver
26 February 2012 by Pell Wall (Chris) | 2 Comments on Artemisia – and how to identify natural perfumery ingredients
Artemisia absinthium Lambrook Sliver I used Artemisia absinthium as the key ingredient in my fragrance Devana, but it’s raised a few questions about what it is and whether there are other similar plants about. I think the genus Artemisia is rather an interesting one, so I thought I’d expand on it a bit here. First […]
education ingredient natural
9 January 2012 by Pell Wall (Chris) | Leave a Comment
The sandalwood I use in many of my products comes from Vanuatu. Pieces of good quality sandalwood Another of the classic ingredients of perfumery that has been in use for centuries, sandalwood is a fragrance that will be familiar to most people. What may be less familiar is the fact that the most famous form […]
ambergris animal DIY education ingredient Making your own perfume natural
27 December 2011 by Pell Wall (Chris) | Leave a Comment
Ambergris as a perfume ingredient has a lasting fascination and is widely misunderstood – here I’ve described some of it’s story. I don’t generally use real animal ingredients in my work – I use synthetic substitutes – however some ingredients have a special magic regardless of whether they can be used, or afforded. A piece […]
articles natural Pell Wall in the media shropshire magazine synthetic
Article: Synthetic or Natural? Here you can read a slightly longer version of an article published in the December 2011 edition of the Shropshire Magazine exploring the changing use of natural and synthetic materials in perfume and their relative merits, which you can also read in plain pdf. There are a lot of evangelists about […]
