Tincturing and Extracting Scents From My Garden

I live in Southern California and have a yard and garden that provides me with wonderful flower blooms.

I use my roses, gardenias, and my flowering trees - lemon blossoms, orange blossoms, and grapefruit blossoms.

This is the process for the flowers. Bring them into the house, separate all of the leaves, twigs, green parts, and petals that are bruised and damaged and discard everything that is not a terrific looking flower. Now
lay the flowers on paper towels to absorb the moisture. Let them air dry for a while until they feel dry. If you tincture wet materials they turn black, mold, or it just doesn't work.

Fill a clean glass jar with high proof alcohol and put the blooms in and make sure all of the blooms are covered.

Replace the blooms with new ones as often as you can. Repeat until you are satisfied with your results or until your garden stops producing. You can shake the tinctures and check on the smell daily.

I have also put gardenias in jojoba oil and once again it is the same process. This method can cause the blossoms to mold. Be careful of this.  If it starts to smell off throw it out. You can remove the petals after one day or leave for several.  This is your call.  It takes many changes of petals to build up the strength of the gardenia smell.

I also tincture other items like vanilla beans and use those tinctures in my perfumes and custom couture perfumes.  Some of my flower tinctures are only used in my one of a kind bespoke perfumes. 

New Moon in Libra - How Balanced Is Your Life?

Seeking balance and beauty I take a walk in my flower garden and rose garden every morning.  Most times I am delighted to see smiling faces such as these beauties.  There are water droplets  fresh on the leaves from the sprinkler and the sun just starting to shine, what a perfect time to enjoy the magic.

Then my soul invites me to sit a while and watch the hummingbirds dancing in and out of the desert sage and the brilliant orange fire plants.

What a joy.  I sit and meditate and then decide to start my day.  Life is about balancing joy, pleasure, work, spiritual time, and exercise.  Are you getting a taste of all of these in your day?

Wordless Wednesday

Glorious Gardenias!

I love this time of year! My garden is absolutely exploding with color and scent. Every morning at 6 a m I walk out into my wonderland. What is new today? I am never disappointed!

I have several varieties of gardenias and they are literally covered with blooms. It takes a basket to collect all of the blooms to take into my studio to macerate and tincture them.

The gardenia fragrance is so intoxicating...I sit and swoon when the breeze hits the plants. Heaven, I'm in heaven! What joy... simple pleasures.

Come and join me in a tour of my garden ...and take an aromatic class. I teach natural perfume classes and aromatic journeys on Saturday. Private classes can be arranged during the week.

How about a custom bespoke perfume using some of these gardenia blooms?

Amaryllis In Bloom

This beautiful bulb is in full bloom now..The Amaryllis has a very slight smell...not enough to put into a perfume. This flower's gift is in its dramatic size and the wonderful red orange color with the spectacular green center. The six point white star burst is lovely in itself. What a sweet smiling face to wake up to this morning. It is growing in my garden alongside roses, cannas, johnny jump ups, and many annual flowering plants. What a beauty!