I finally made my copycat Hwyl! 3 reflections:

Basics get you to substance

In arts of smell and taste (tea, coffee, wine, cheese, perfume, etc.) you reach for “notes”, suggestions for what to expect.

You can keep the notes basic, and people will understand. For example, while mixing the essential oils, I was smelling for woodsy, citrusy, and floral notes, to balance them. Anyone with a working sense of smell would understand what those mean.

Starting to move outside basic, you get “bright”, “dark”, “warm”, and “cold”, which kind of make sense, though seem imprecise. Anything beyond smacks of pretension through obscurity.

Why would one reach for obscurity? For optics, not substance. The Hwyl listing states:

Aroma

Smoky, woody, rich

Suited to

All genders; freethinkers, eccentrics, wanderers

Rich? I guess you need rich to buy the fragrance! Freethinkers? To buy the fancy restaurant bathroom fragrance featured in Vogue?

Art and science, actually kind of

From the interview I linked in the previous post:

Can you describe the Aesop fragrance philosophy in three words?

“Art meets science.”

First of all, three words? What else were you expecting?

“Optics, not substance.”

Second of all, so many professions fancy their work art and science. Programmers fancy their work art and science. Chefs fancy their work art and science. Financiers fancy their work art and science.

With this experience, I did find out the actual science component of perfume, though. After mixing in the dipropylene glycol to distribute the essential oils, then adding water, the oils separated and became cloudy! My friend explained fragrance companies would hire scientists to custom-blend liquids to prevent the separation and cloudiness. Without them, I just shook the vial.

Iterations and comparisons

I had to iterate a few times to get the desired balance of essential oil smells.

Before I iterate and create another vial, I want to go to the Aesop store and get sample strips. Then I can compare my next iteration vial to the original, and to my previous iteration vial.