Well brothers, I decided it was time to pull the plug. I’m developing my first Amber accord. I want to start making genuine, wearable fragrances. Considering my dream fragrance house uses a lot of ambers, I figured this would be an excellent way to get my head in the game. Starting with mastering accord building, making good individual accords and such, and then building them into simple perfumes. I ordered raw labdanum from a trusted seller off of Etsy, along with perfumers alcohol, as well as some glass bottles to contain it, and very fine filters. The plan is to freeze it, break it up, weigh it out, combine it with ethanol, heat it up, let it sit until it dissolves, filter out the liquid mixture, heat and evaporate the ethanol out to yield Labdanum absolute, and experiment with different dilutions from 1-10%. I’ll be making notes and keeping track of how each concentrate to see how it smells, and what to use it for in combination of other notes. Higher diluted for fresher stuff, heavier for smokier, more ambery stuff. Yes you can order absolute as its own thing, but I’d prefer to get a full feel of the process. Later I’ll be ordering vanilla and benzoin, along with a secret ingredient, and experimenting with a house amber accord. I want to take a huge risk here, and order some Turkish rose absolute, because the main fragrance I want to perfect is an amber/rose fragrance, but, I’m holding off on it for now. It’s like thirty bucks for 5 ml 😭, though with high dilution I can make it last. I can’t believe I’m doing this. I’ve fallen in love with this art this deeply now. Wish me luck brothers.

Signature Seraphim Musk / Zaharoff — went with something a bit different, but still seems to work in the heat for me

Grabbed some Mancera samples this week - this is the first one I've tried - very impressed. prominent spice, leather, nice blend of subtle floral - backdrop of tobacco and mild vanilla. To me, there is something of the original Opium profile here, finely balanced with no small nod to Ombre Leather - would opt to wear this more in cooler and/or evening settings. decent projection and staying power too.