Idyllic Muse: Capturing Beauty with Botanicals

Recently I came across this gorgeous pergola in a North Carolina botanical garden. Day-blooming jasmine grew entwined among the rafters, and the scent was divine. At the end of the pergola was a lovely fountain and beyond that, a peaceful pond. Utterly enchanted by the idyllic scene in front of me, for a moment nothing else mattered but capturing it on camera.

Often it happens like that with a fragrance inspiration as well. A compelling image will take shape in my mind ... arising from a memory, or a texture, or a dream, or a song ... and I become thoroughly intent on capturing that image with scent.

Scent is transformative, and our reaction to it is primal. It’s one of the most direct and honest touchstones we have in our lives. Think about how many times in a day you smell things that evoke a reaction. Or how a certain scent can instantly take you back to a specific time and place in your life, and others trigger cathartic emotions. Even if you’re not a fragrance-wearer, you have to admit the sheer power of scent makes it a force to be reckoned with.

Though I am inspired by many things, nature has always been my muse. Being out in nature feeds my spirit, and my desire to stay in tune with the natural world is one of the reasons I choose to create my perfumes with botanical essences.

Another reason is the incomparable quality and beauty of botanicals. In my opinion, botanical perfumes are the ne plus ultra of scent.

Because truly, in terms of beauty, depth and connection to the human spirit, synthetic fragrance materials don't come close to the real thing. Let me explain why.

Botanical ingredients are living plant materials. When a plant part — from flowers, leaves, stems, roots or resin — undergoes a distillation process to extract its essence, the resulting aromatic material carries with it the heartbeat and genetic code of the plant.

It is the essences’ innate aliveness that creates the enchanting evolution of scent that is one the hallmarks of botanical perfumery. This fascinating evolution unfolds in exquisitely nuanced fashion from the first spritz of inviting top notes to the last lingering base notes.

Along the way, it takes you on a gorgeous and deeply resonant journey of scent.

This botanical life force also confers a vibrant, complex scent profile to each essence that outshines the relatively flat-smelling scents created by synthetic materials.

By contrast, synthetic-based perfumes, whose ingredients are mostly inert, man-made chemicals, are far less alive and vibrant. They may interest us initially, presenting an enticing top note accord that moves quickly to the heart notes, but they become cloying as time goes on, with little to no continued evolution of the scent. The fragrance seems to just hang in the air, unchanging and devoid of nuance.

If we are in tune with our senses, we probably find this static immutability of fragrance notes a turn-off. We react this way because intuitively, we know that scents are meant to evolve and change, like everything else in the natural world. When they don’t, it doesn’t feel right. We unconsciously recognize those scents as imposters and, figuratively and literally, turn our noses up at them.

So it is precisely their lack of natural evolution that marks synthetic-laden fragrances as inauthentic. Essentially it’s the difference between a bouquet of real flowers and plastic flowers. Which would you be happy to receive, and which would you politely decline? 

Different strokes for different folks, of course, and I realize that lots of people enjoy synthetic-based perfumes in spite of ingredients that merely mimic the real thing. But others find them difficult or impossible to wear.

I personally have a hard time even being near someone who’s wearing a synthetic-based fragrance — my reaction to the smell of synthetics is almost visceral, and they quickly make me headachy, sneezy or itchy (or all three).

Coming from a professional background in holistic health, I want to bring less toxicity into people's lives with my fragrances, not more. There, too, plant ingredients come out ahead. Botanical essences enhance one’s health, while synthetic fragrance molecules do the opposite.

We could have a very long discussion about the toxic properties of synthetic fragrance ingredients (which include aroma chemicals, isolates, “fragrance oils” and “nature-identical oils”). But for now, I’ll just say this …

I love it when I hear from customers that our perfumes have changed their relationship to scent. Many of these customers had been unable to wear fragrances for years due to allergic and other negative health reactions. That changed for them when they found our brand.

Then there’s the artistic expression angle of perfume composition. Call me a purist, but the idea of translating inspirations and emotions into olfactive art using fake fragrance ingredients just doesn’t make sense to me.

Sustainability matters to me as well. I strive to do my part for this planet we call home by using only one-hundred percent renewable ingredients in my fragrances. That's something the makers of petroleum-based synthetic fragrances can't lay claim to.

To learn more about the beauty and value of botanical perfumery, click here and here. For more about me, click here. And if you’ve got any questions for me, feel free to reach out! — Claudia