CHOCOLATES from around the WORLD:
A four-part series on natural perfumers
PART TWO
I was so delighted when I first read about Ambrosia Jones a few years ago. When I connected her via email, I immediately felt warmth and a true connoisseur with a passion for all that is good.
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| DEATH BY CHOCOLATE |
Not only is Ms. Jones a very nice lady but she is so smart. Ms. Jones is a business owner, natural perfumer, writer, a Bachelors degree in nursing, a healer with training in aromatherapy and a Chinese massage therapist. Wow, this is amazing!
What I really admire, Ms. Jones about is her passion in natural perfumery with over twenty years of success!
Ms. Jones is located in Sydney, Australia with a private perfume house called PERFUME BY NATURE. I read it is on the central coast of Australia just two hours outside of Sydney in a beautiful area.
While most people would be outside taken in the scenery of beautiful Sydney, Australia, Ms. Jones is busy in her studio created mouthwatering chocolate perfumes such as DEATH BY CHOCOLATE EAU DE TOILETTE and CRAVING EAU DE TOILETTE.
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| CRAVING |
It is a new way of experiencing a homemade brownie with nuts!
DEATH BY CHOCOLATE works so well with your body chemistry. I cannot get over the warm sensation of it and it stays on four hours with no flat “after smell”.
If you are “craving” something more adventurous and more daring, then I suggest CRAVING for you.
CRAVING is described as being an “animalistic” fragrance because of the musk scent to it and that is why it was part of the “Mystery of Musk” Project that was run by the Natural Perfumers Guild.
CRAVING received wonderful reviews for its use of cocoa, vanilla, honey, caramel and coffee notes that makes it a superb gourmand fragrance.
Ms. Jones definitely created this fragrance with a lot of warmth because it too stays on for hours and the musk note stays strong.
I was so impressed by these two fragrances that I had to speak with Ms. Jones more about her inspirations and years of dedication to perfumery.
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| Ambrosia Jones |
THE INTERVIEW...
1. I read on your blog that you are a lover of chocolate. Was there anything else other than your love of chocolate that made you create DEATH by CHOCOLATE and CRAVING Perfumes?
Well, chocolate is something that for most people has incredibly pleasant connotations...chocolate makes us feel happy, sensual, loved, spoiled...and it is these feelings that I wanted to explore to see if they translated into scent form."Death by Chocolate" is a study on the scent of cocoa itself....it is a very pure scent, chocolate without being sweet, chocolate that is elegant and refined....In "Craving" the cocoa is a bynote, combined with a number of other lucsious food ie notes...caramel, hazelnut and a very exotic Araibian Oud and musk base. The Cocoa here is more to accentuate the sensual nature of the perfume...and a play on the connection between sex and food, grin! The idea was to create a perfume that stimulated and tantalized all of the senses....
2. DEATH by CHOCOLATE reminds me of a fudge brownie dripping with gooey caramel sauce. Simply divine. How difficult, Ambrosia was it to capture the essence of chocolate and making it smells so edible?
Grin, I'm glad you think I did a good job of it! I spent a lot of time experiementing with different combinations and ingredients...
3. Ambrosia, I am feeling very hungry right now! You added musk, roasted hazelnuts and an very interesting ingredient...dark sultry cocoa liquor in CRAVING. What exactly is cocoa liquor?
The cocoa liquoer is a fragrance accord or note rather than an ingredient. It is the smell of cocoa liquor that is created by the combination of a number of ingredients, including cocoa absolute and Oud...
4. What are some of the things you love about being a natural perfumer?
What don't I love.... The ingredients themselves are probably the most beautiful thing about this art form....I love flowers and herbs and have rather a large collection of them growing in my garden too...and using ingredients from plants and flowers I know deeply and understand and connect to makes it more..intimate I guess you couldsay...It also means that I can make use of the emotional and physical effects of the oils and absolutes as well as their scent attributes when I am designing a perfume..."Craving" for instance has a number of oils with sensual aphrodisiac properties in it...
5. I know you are aware of the restrictions for perfumers, especially natural perfumers to conform to laws about what is prohibited in perfumes. How have you manage to work around or with these laws to continue to create what nature intended?
Well, the laws surrounding perfume are many, varied and contradictory. I don't wholesale in Europe yet, so I'm not restricted by the EU regulations which are enough to give anyone a headache! IFRA restrictions are a voluntary agreement amongst a large number of conventional perfume companies and not laws as such. (yet), and seems to be mainly based around promoting the use of artificial chemical substitutes for a large number of perfectly safe natural oils that have been used in herbal medicine and traditional perfumery for thousands of years. It seems to be driven by a number of large perfume ingredient manufacturers with a vested interest in selling their own substitutes for natural rose otto eg, rather than research of commonsense.The actual laws that govern cosmetic manufacturing the world over are on the line of not using harmful or toxic ingredients. Which I don't have a problem with. If anything, I think they aren't strict enough when you look at some of the substances commonly used in conventional perfumes nowadays...I follow my own far stricter guidelines and those more commonly held among Aromatherapists, herbalists and the Natural Perfumers guild.
Thank you so much again, Ambrosia. This has been a wonderful interview. I wish you continued success and I look forward to more wonderful perfume creations from you.
Thank you for the interview Felicia, it's lovely to have an opportunity to about my perfume obsession!
To purchase: http://www.perfumebynature.com.au/
Contact: ambrosia@perfumebynature.com.au
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