My brief for Freesia was to recapture the impression of an old perfume, a reasonably straightforward floral but one that holds special significance for the person I was creating it for. An old, albeit empty, bottle of the original offered a starting point, something to aim for. But this wasn’t to be a simple re-creation – rather a re-imagining, updating the fragrance to be more modern, more sophisticated.
My vision was to layer a gentle suede leather underneath the freesia of the original, and connect the two with some lush greenery and a touch of warm, dry wood. As the dominant note, however, the first step was to formulate my freesia accord, not least because it’s a scent you have to reconstruct, freesia being unavailable as a raw ingredient.
I found a chemical analysis of the scent of a freesia; key information to start reconstructing it. The main components are two aroma chemicals called alpha terpineol and beta ionone, which on their own smell a bit like pine bathroom cleaner and raspberry gummy sweets. With a little trial and error, and adjustment of the proportions to reflect differing rates of evaporation, I arrived at the skeleton of a freesia scent. I added a few other notes to flesh it out, and simultaneously developed the other accords to complete the perfume.
Having finished formulating this contemporary take on a freesia-led fragrance, I needed a bottle for it. As this was a personal gift, I took a personal approach, hand-etching an illustration of a freesia on to a matt black coated glass bottle.
