Perfume in Paris

Showing off my perfume creation

 Daniel told me about a perfume making workshop he recently attended with a friend in Paris. It is a two hour class where participants learn about the industry of perfume making, how we detect and process scent in the brain, and receive instruction on how to make our own personalized fragrance. We choose three or four  liquid scents from a great variety of options among them  floral, woodsy, and spicy. Using the instructed  guidelines for proportion,  we measure the liquid essences and combine them  in a beaker. The proportions are written on a handout you can keep.   Each participant gets to take home a 50 ml bottle of their own creation. If you love what you created, you can order more of your personalized perfume at a later date.

The perfume workshop is given by Candora, a perfume company which specializes in a la carte perfume, Their shop is in the Marais and the perfume making classroom space nearby. I find the entire experience fascinating.  Since I  had just finished  listening to my audio book, The Perfumist of Paris by Alka Joshi,  the class reinforces much of the information about perfume  Alka Joshi provides.  I choose Vetiver, Rose Peppercorns, and Oud. Oud is a kind of woody resin found in the Middle East. It is also the name of a musical instrument played in the  region.

The owner of Candora is our instructor that day. He finds it a pity that in our culture,  floral scents are meant for women and woodsy spicy scents for men. So he encourages us to smell outside the box or should I say bottle.  I name my perfume La Puissance which means Power in French. It smells refreshing and somewhat masculine which suits me just fine.

I am back home in Beaverton now. My bottle of La Puissance reminds me of my amazing month in France, a month full of connections with friends,  beautiful rigorous hikes,  scrumptious food, laughter, and both the fun and challenging experiences of travel.  It takes lots of stamina to travel these days. Much of what I choose to do in France requires courage and fortitude. La Puissance says it all. Thank you so much for reading my blog. I hope you enjoyed it.

The link to the perfume workshop is below. I highly recommend the experience when you travel to Paris

https://www.candora-fragrance.com/make-your-own-perfume-workshop/