Recipes from the Vault

Essense wishes to share various perfume recipes culled from 4 decades of Essense history. The names of the customers have been omitted to protect privacy. Each month 4 more "secret" recipes will be revealed!

This Dennisport, MA customer created a perfume we could call “ARABIAN ROSE-VANILLA.”  Some customers don’t name their perfumes, but I recommend that you do!  It’s a bonding aspect of creating the “signature” in your signature scent.  Of the various ROSE perfume oils available at Essense, the ARABIAN ROSE used here is the lightest and most delicate. Some people have difficulty smelling it because it is so light, but for those who can smell it, it’s nearly ethereal. 

In the late 1990’s, a woman from Shrewsbury, MA decided to name her new perfume “STARDUST.” This was a magical and busy time for Essense of Edgartown, on Martha’s Vineyard.  The FRENCH VANILLA used in this blend has a creamier, sweeter, smoother but perhaps smokier scent than the regular VANILLA. This CHINA MUSK is the original, now classic version, created and trademarked way back in 1960’s Berkeley, CA by a successful perfumer. It’s called CHINA MUSK because MUSK was originally extracted from the scent glands of cute little deer that lived in China. Today these deer are protected and this extraction is illegal. All MUSK used legally in the United States today is created synthetically in perfume laboratories. MUSK is one of the most common and essential “base notes” used in world-wide perfumery.

This Bloomfield, CT customer came to the newly built Essense in Oak Bluffs, between 2001-2011. She mixed-up a perfume named “SWEET MUSK,” a simple 2-oil blend using snappy green floral SWEET PEA and exotic but fresh EGYPTIAN MUSK. Some health food stores sell a popular roll-on perfume oil called “Egyptian Goddess,” which uses EGYPTIAN MUSK along with some flowery notes.

After Essense reopened just outside Meredith Village, alongside Lake Waukewan and Lake Winnipesaukee, customers have traded their Atlantic ferry rides with the Steamship Authority for scenic drives among the lakes and mountains of central NH. Here is a custom-blended perfume dubbed   “VELVET  BULLDOZER!” This customer lives nearby and she asked me to name her new perfume. VELVET BULLDOZER is what an old Chicago Bluesman nicknamed me “back in the day,” when I still lived in Chicago; so I’ve played it forward. It denotes an “iron lady” concept; akin to Theodore Roosevelt’s idea of  "speak softly and carry a big stick.” For this perfume, the imported EGYPTIAN TUBEROSE offers mysterious floral intrigue, while CHINA RAIN adds the trademarked blend of both CHINA MUSK and additional pleasing flowers, all universally desired in classic perfumes.