Monday, April 23, 2012

Peony Musing

Peony

Laurie Erickson's post about her first carnation blooming in her garden got me thinking again about peonies, which I've began exploring olfactory wise in June 2007.

Peonies are lovely, yet a little confusing... I find that they vary in scent quite a bit and are not consistently "pleasant". Some of them could even smell like swamp and decaying vegetation - maybe even compost in it's post-fermentation stages...

But the good ones smell rosy and green-fresh, with hints of clove-like spiciness, and have less of the compost/earth/green rot smell. I tried to recreate it with naturals, and it always boils down to the fact that it's really too similar to rose and carnation to be a good stand-alone scent. It needs some extra something that will create the olfactory illusion of something that it's not... At least with my limited palette of only natural essential oils, absolutes, etc.

Labels: , , ,

1 Comments:

At April 26, 2012 11:51 PM, Anonymous Brian Shea said...

My mother had had peonies growing her garden ever since I remember and I've always thought that they smelled more like roses than her roses did! The peonies were a deep pink/magenta color and the roses a beautiful, bright crimson. But I always thought the roses smelled yeasty like bread or what mostly came to my mind was beer!

 

Post a Comment

<< Home