Friday, June 08, 2012

Anisaldehyde, etc.

Do y'allz have those notes where you get an aromachemical and you're all like, "This is the PERFECT _____ note!!!!!" (until later, of course, when you realize that it's only PART of the note, but at the time you thought it was the Alpha and the Omega??) Well, I have them all the time.  When I get new aromachems.  For example, when I got methyl diantilis, I was like, "This is the perfect carnation!!!! This is the only thing I need! I'll just dilute this and then I'll be happy forever!" Later, of course, I got isoeugenol, and I had a similar reaction, but then it was tempered with thoughts like, 'They say this is like methyl diantilis, and it is! Only with a faint suggestion of ham!'

But today I finally got my anisaldehyde, which I feared might not get here at all, since you can make Los Drogas out of it, apparently (although my 4 milliliters couldn't possibly make much--maybe a microscopic grain of something?).  I've smelled anisyl acetate, which smells.... pink. Kinda fruity in cherry way, kinda powdery. Someone at a job once described it as smelling like a cheap perfumer for girls.  I've also smelled acetophenone (which may or may not be related, but smells very like bitter almond--strong, almondy, quick... in other words, super-awesome.  The main descriptors describe it as floral, as in hawthorn, and mimosa--I'll have to take them on their word, since I'm not really familiar with those flowers in nature. But apparently mimosa has a sweet, cherry-almond-vanilla-heliotrope type smell.  From what I can guess) and acetanisole, which I remember being disappointed in, as I expected a vanillic, hay-like, maybe spicy note that I didn't at the time perceive.

...Back to anisaldehyde.  The Good Scents Company says it smells 'anisic,' but when I first smelled it from the bottle I was like, 'This is the hay I've been looking for all my life!!!! This is the hay-tonka missing link!' Of course, 10 seconds later I realized that it could be a component, a building block, of the hay-tonka accord.  And even later I realized how cherry-almond it smells, but of course, tonka has always smelled partly almondy to me.  And since anisaldehyde supposedly lasts +40 hours, maybe it would be a good component for hay.  Coumarin + tobacco absolute + dimethyl hydroquinone + anisaldehyde? What am I missing???  Surely I'm missing something. Of course, if I actually tried (again) to make a hay thing, I'm sure beyond a shadow of a doubt that the ingredient list would swell to the thousands.  Such is how I do...

In my order today, the anisaldehyde was the only thing new.  The rest was: 2 salicylates (hexyl and Z3hexenyl), generic greenish ones, as opposed to generic floral ones (amyl and isoamyl); Florosa (I think I'm starting to get how it's a floralizer now); Givaudan's Lindenblossom base (is this in Curve Men??? Or is it the anisaldehyde or Florosa I'm smelling? Sometimes they get mixed up in a shipment; also, now that I smell this again, I'm really getting 'perfumery linden' from it now--before I just got *strong tangy green floral*.   I also get a little bit of a violet smell from it when a little gets on my hands); and Galaxolide 50%, which I've had enough exposure to that I can smell it when I uncap the bottle (until I start mixing; then I can only sort of recall it from memory. The best part about Galaxolide is that when you smell it, you think of Tresor, which has I think 21% Galaxolide in the formula.)

And that's the fragrance beep for today.  Flerp!