JORUM JOURNAL is a monthly glimpse behind the scenes at Jorum Studio. Find out what’s inspiring us, what’s motivating us, what we’re celebrating – the thoughts and stories behind our unique Scottish fragrances.

 

This week we announced our next fragrance launch: SPIRITCASK. This new Extrait de Parfum will be the sixth addition to the Scottish Odyssey collection...coming soon!

 

READING LIST

Winter in Sokcho by Elisa Shua Dusapin
A perfect winter read, you can feel the chill radiating from the pages – but Dusapin's unpretentious writing style counters with real warmth and fragile tenderness.

Flora Photographica: The Flower in Contemporary Photography 
by William A. Ewing, Danaé Panchaud
We picked up this beautiful tome while in Florence for Pitti Fragranze 2022. So inspiring!

In Search of Scents: Sourcing the World's Perfumes by Dominique Roques
An instant classic translated by Stephanie Smee. For anyone interested in the journey of materials from source to fragrance.
 

MATERIAL FOCUS: CHAMPACA

Champaca Absolute is a truly prized aromatic. We use it sparingly in many of our client formulations at JORUM Laboratories, usually in trace amounts. Typically we use it in floral-leaning compositions, or in accessory to Sandalwood notes, giving them an expansive floral body.

 

A readily mobile liquid, champaca absolute is usually dark reddish-brown or orange in colour. The aroma profile is exhilarating, with a distinctive Mongolia / neroli floral freshness and tulip-stem green snap on opening. The apricot and fleshy fruit notes make champaca a perfect partner with osmanthus absolute and pink lotus absolute. It’s effectively used to add realism to fruity profiles: with time, fleshy fruits such as mango, papaya and guava come into focus with a hint of creamy parsnip character peeking through. 

 

As the oil settles further it reveals an admirable and uncommon botanical sucrose quality. Unsurprisingly, champaca really is a floral tour-de-force – with hints of orange flowers, tropical ylang-ylang and fuggy jasmine rising and falling. What makes champaca really special is the dry-floral steamy quality it possesses: decent levels of phenyl ethyl alcohol that enrich good qualities of champaca help in this regard. 

 

The synergy between champaca and sandalwood is worthy of note. The pairing is otherworldly. This duality has been exploited for centuries in India where champaca flowers are distilled into a sandalwood oil substrate to produce an exquisite Attar. 

 

Beyond this, we find many similarities between champaca and high quality guaiacwood, tobacco and purified vetiver extracts. There is a hidden incense reveal that turns increasingly ‘tea-leaf’ as the oil dries out. Using even small amounts of champaca is a totally unique way to convey very fine tea. 

 

The cost of champaca extracts has increased exponentially. The plant is now protected in India and only certified farmers and oil producers can extract from plants that are proven to be maintained sustainably. One of the rarest and most beautiful aromatics available, it easily reaches $8k per kilogram. Thankfully, however, tiny amounts are usually sufficient for most applications. 

 

Champaca is paired with the equally beautiful and rare pink lotus absolute in our PONY BOY Extrait de Parfum. We have used a relatively decent amount (just shy of 1%). This duo produces the steamed tea-like, fresh tobacco and incense-y note, conveying ultraviolet and neon pink steam rising from a fantasy Loch!
 

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