Jasmine

Jasmine

Jasmine cut, image added Saturday March 21st, 2015

Spring is now here as of 6:45 this morning and I’m sure everyone has been awaiting its arrival and the hopes of brighter, warmer days ahead.  Surely they’re not so far off now, are they?

I breathe deep over the soap and close my eyes.  Other senses take over.  Hearing becomes keener, smell becomes sharper.

Jasmine, sweet yet sensual, evocative yet innocent walks hand in hand with ethereal orange blossoms and the crisp green notes of bamboo.  It’s the scent of summertime.  An evening in late spring or early summer.  You know the ones I mean.

Windows are flung wide. The curtains lift and fall with the gentle evening breeze that comes through.  You can still hear some distant lawnmower humming, a dog barking as it romps with the young boy who plays with him in their backyard fortress.  Soon enough it will be time to go inside, get his bath and settle in for the night, the faithful family dog watching over his young charge.

There’s a quiet hesitation in the air just before the sun slips further beyond the horizon, the soil beneath our feet is still a bit cool, still awaiting that day when the burgeoning bounty of new growth reveals itself and we all smile when we see the tiny fragile shoots threading their way upward, reaching for the sun.

A mother rocks her baby to sleep as the evening deepens and she smiles as she lays her baby down for a night of restful sleep as some of the more precocious spring flowers already in bloom perfume the air. That moment is held in our minds, in our hearts for all time as the scent of summer.  Freshly cut grass – green, dewy, and clean.  Florals – light, calming yet uplifting and that scent we all know as night.  It’s dewy, cool, but promises much more.  This lovely fragrance is all of that, the stuff of memories and far more than all of that, it’s a genuine scent that brings all we hold dear to mind.

This gorgeous fragrance is available from Fragrance Laboratory,  along with so many other outstanding fragrance oils.  You’ll simply have to experience this scent for yourself to get the best it has to offer.  It’s a yellow oil and slightly discolours the soap, but barely to a very pale yellow, which can easily be overcome with enough white to lighten it.  I prefered to keep some of that pale sunwashed colour by adding a bit of Extra Bright from TKB Trading plus some Silver White (also TKB) that’s an bit iridescent, shiny and evening makes the bars sparkle in the right light.  This scent really needed to shine and the Silver White gives just the right amount of shimmer.  Unlike so many other floral FOs, this one does NOT accelerate at all.  I had plenty of time for swirling and decorating the top in any way I wanted to, so the top was improvised a bit from a technique I’d seen done with a cake decoration.  It would work better if I’d waited a bit longer to do the designing of the top, but it still turned out pretty enough to please me.   Tomorrow, I’ll check to see if it’s firm enough to be cut and if so, I’ll post some pics of what I find inside.  Fingers crossed there because I tried something I’m not very well-practiced in yet, so it’s anyone’s guess what in there!