The importance of expressing affections, in order to attain fulfillment of our needs.

 I've arrived here late: 6:45 p.m., here, just outside of the Civic Center Metropolitan district of Downtown L.A., by the 23rd St. | Orthopaedic Institute Metro Expo Line Station. I'd been hoping to get here, even days sooner, in order to check up on the USC dumpster pigeons flock, at the parking lot, nearby Popeye's Chicken, located at the corner of Adams and Figueroa. 

The pigeons usually hang out, as a large flock, lined up at the edge of the back of the buildings.

Today, it was a scant crowd, with some pigeons scattered about, on the street lighting poles, and here and there. Not much. 

Regardless of that I had missed their standard day's hang out, which peaks in the late morning, perhaps, through early afternoon (I had slept in until 2:30 p.m., today; I was quite exhausted, apparently, from having arrived home, last night, around 1:30 p.m.). My Google Maps location tracking timeline says that I walked 52 miles yesterday: obviously not possibly true, and I didn't go to Arcadia; I'm not sure why or how that was put in to the timeline. 

I tossed the birds some old soggy sandwich, broken in to pieces, that I had procured, along my journeys from the the previous days. The birds were not quite actively attentive to me, and for the sake of that food had arrived for them, although I did get some reciprocation out of a few of them, after a few moments had passed. 

The moment had reminded me of the figurative meanings behind feeding the birds: seeking a "some day (to come)" affection, out of the flocks of pigeons, given years of care and dedication having been offered to them, and hoping for this long-standing task to effect a semi-domesticated manner and characteristic about the flocks, around town, and hopefully, some day, the birds will be hand-tame, out in public. It's a parable about the importance of loving and kind affections, in a sense. We all long to be with our life partner, and to establish a family around the ideas, based on the American Dream, although, as the images of the pigeons, here, in this case, show; we are not always successful at attaining our ends, means, and goals, in life, despite trying. 

In the end, I managed to get the pigeons' attention, and they did a roundabout whole-flock flight, for show. This behavioral pattern is to signal birds perching nearby of that resources had arrived, in order for the rest of the birds to eat. It's a pro-sociable figurative gesture; the rest of the birds are similarly seeking food, yet they would perhaps be missing out on the meal otherwise, whereas they are of intrinsic value to the entire flock, given that they're scouting out resources, just as similarly as they are, in this chosen source spot, for food; behind the building. It's a naturally-derived behavioral more, of worthy ethics about it. The human-relevant moral of this event is that we ought to have an ambient ethical threshold of consideration and manners towards others; it's the natural order, and sustainable life's path to follow. 

After some time, other birds had arrived, and they didn't seem all that hungry, for today. At least there's food sitting out, and tomorrow will be another day. 

Product Review: New Haul of fragrance ingredients from PerfumersWorld.com.

 It's only been two months since I started doing this stuff (again). (I'd previously, back from around 2008-2012 had the budget to do fragrancing, with essential oils from Whole Foods, mostly). This time around, though, it was serious. I'd discovered online retail and wholesale suppliers of fragrance compounds and aroma ingredients (essential oils and absolutes), and I finally had my living situation and circumstances such that I could muster pulling off some mail order purchases, and develop my fragrance-making hobby successfully. My latest haul was for over $1250 and it got me over 70+ quality ingredients, of my choosing, priced by the gram, as the website www.perfumersworld.com does, as their retail fragrance supply basis, as an e-commerce website and organization, based out of Thailand. 

My summer of 2021 Perfumer's World fragrance ingredients haul - over 70 ingredients of my choice, given 2 months of experience and shopping around, at this point; I had my picks, and I got what I wanted, good and all, for the most part. 

This time around, I was interested in procuring mostly highly-prized standards and classics, such as rose de mai, I got jasmine absolute, jasmine flowers, methyl jasmonate, jasmine sambac absolute, frangipani absolute, indole crystals, for reconstituting these flowers, artificially (by design), and many other classics of fragrances beloved, and the well-known plants, herbs, flowers, and trees that provide these lovely fragrances, as well as some fragrance industry insider tricks ingredients, such as Schiff's Base, which is also used to reconstitute flower absolutes. I also dived richly in to the world of classic musks, of the global fragrance research and design houses; a history of musks, that I'd procured, as you would see, from my listed purchases, below. I also decided to experiment, slightly, with hormonal and mood-altering pheromone compounds, such as truffle concentrate, to see how they would affect the fragrance-wearing experience. 

I made a neat-o fresh, minty, cool, phenolic and narcotic rich floral essences composition out of this, after I had spent some time protecting the shipment, once it had gotten in to my possession, delivered by Fed-Ex. The shipment from www.perfumersworld.com took about a week, or so, to arrive, and I had security concerns over receiving it, since I go out, in to town, to feed the birds, during the day, and there were some delays, aside from that, in various stops that the shipment had gone through, such as being held up in Taiwan, and then the package went to Alaska, and Tennessee, even, before it got squared away in the Los Angeles area, finally. I decided to have the package held at a Fed-Ex location, for me to pick up, at my leisure. I didn't play with the ingredients much, during the initial receipt phase, because I was more interested in protecting it, and keeping the bottles sealed. Opening up a haul of fragrance ingredients produces a vastly diffuse aroma experience that spreads in to the extent of neighboring households, and it draws attention to the fragrance maker, and the goings-on of making a fragrance, which is easily an enviable position to be in, given a standard neighborhood, around town. 

All things considered, and that being said, I came up with an appreciably fine(-ish), or notably novel, and "good" fragrance composition, with the inspiration behind mixing which of these purchased new ingredients ought be, being an indole cornmint (I was big on cornmint and hay absolute coming to me), floral fresh narcotic standards of perfumery history-"easy," such as rose de mai, jasmine sambac, and frangipani absolutes being the main fragrance feature components, chamomile, included,  along with a full array of several or more musks, which, this time around, with this purchase, brought a veritable selection of poignant, delicate, nuanced, clean, fresh, and beautiful musks, of the musks of standards established, throughout history, in perfumery - muscone, Macrolide, Helvetolide, Cosmone, Celestolide, Amberfix, and Velvione; I added some Vitamin E, and solubizer, some patchouli, heavy on the pink pepper, and Sugandha Kokila, an Indian fragrance, for some classic and exotic appeal. There was raspberry ketone, ethylene brassylate, phenylacetic acid, lyral, coriander, marjoram, and plenty of oud to it. All in all, I was generally reserved, about how much of each I had put in, and extra-careful, on some of the inclusions. It turned out fabulous. I highly recommend this purchasing list, as a first-resort reference for beginners and aspirants in fragrance composition mixing, and I highly recommend www.perfumersworld.com, for the ingredients purchase. They sell by the gram, and are therefore as economical as need be, while maintaining a high standard of ingredient purity and shipment delivery handling, and customer service. 

A New Era in Designer Fragrance Aesthetics - Trading Luxury for Good Health.

 On the surface, a hobby involving fragrance ingredients, for the purpose of creating cologne, perfume, or room sprays, might seem superficially indulgent. 

Plants at Grand Park, in Downtown Los Angeles, CA, 90012, USA.

My take on the subject, being a fragrance-making enthusiast, myself, is that the hobby, itself, embodies some of the finest things we have, in society, as far as considering things from the botanical perspective. Perfumery is a vast and diverse field, whereas, the common person could not conceivably rise to the achievement of well-established and well-educated fine perfumers who come up with fragrances for designer labels. It's a pursuit that is steeped in industry standards of intellectual property and secrets, necessary to maintain integrity and sustainability for their enterprise. 

Fair enough. So what can the modern day and typical layperson enthusiast of fragrance manufacturing, as a hobby, aspire to, of a respectable and redeemable outcome of having this hobby? 

A look in to the subject, with some insight in to the field, going on my third month, now, in which I had been occupied with fulfilling an ingredients collection, is that the products themselves, simple, or complex, that they might be - « could » lend themselves well enough, for the layperson, in establishing a wellness and therapeutic practice, of a sort, along the lines of a homeopathic and natural products, designed for healing - as a primary goal, of what the fragrance hobby has, of something of meaning, and merit, as for a justification for what might otherwise be considered indulgent and foolish about having a hobby based in aesthetics, such that a fragrance ingredients hobby could be, whereas a sound and grounded mind ought to win out, for the enthusiast. 

Indeed, fragrance components, of the natural end of the spectrum, given the expanse of choices, from essential oils, absolutes, and extracts, on one hand, to synthetic ingredients on the other side of the spectrum, which are used to reconstitute and imitate naturally-derived fragrance components, or extracts, using chemistry techniques, to mimic the originally-desired substance, as closely as possible. Attaining mastery over such a premise is largely out of the reach of the layperson. The good news is that natural ingredients are, by no means, inferior to synthetic ingredients; rather, they are typically easier to work with; the disposition of that lab-made ingredients ought be used, in perfumery, is based on a demand which arises from cost considerations, rather than technique and aesthetic of the composition of fragrances, in general, being at stake. 

Fine fragrance extracts are of primary importance, as the central subject at hand, first of all. In this day and age, in homeopathic medicines that are produced, in my experience, simply contain plant matter, with perhaps a menial extraction that had been done on the product, whereas fragrance absolutes and essential oils are far more powerful and superior; in many cases, the simple act of spraying the fragrance composition on to the body is enough to provide therapeutic relief, to the wearer. It is important to not overdo things, though, and to not sacrifice organic manufacture for cheaper products, in many cases, as the composition may decrease in quality or integrity, for having a wild chemical component thrown in to the mix. 

Given that, the topic of botany, in being the basis of what constitutes the perfume-making industry, is a rich science that imbues the student of plant life with the knowledge of the therapeutic components that make up the fragrance ingredients that are available to individuals. Some of these components are found in relatively micro-amounts, in unprocessed plant material, whereas the extractions involved, in obtaining essential oils and absolutes, are sufficient to produce true therapeutic effect in the user, with the added benefit of potentially smelling good, as well, if the composition is made properly, and in good balance.

We live in an era in which perfumery ingredients can sometimes be had for a bargain, relatively, and with global competition for our consumer dollars at stake, for ingredients suppliers. I'll follow up, at some point, in regards to specific online suppliers and buyers' deals that companies offer, for the retail buyer of fragrance ingredients. In the meantime, please feel free to message me, or leave a comment, detailing your questions or issues pertaining to establishing a collection of ingredients of your own.  

Here are a few articles I pulled up via Google Scholar that go in to the scientific detail, basis, and study of specific natural perfume and aroma ingredients, along the lines of their innate healing and therapeutic potential.

Bibliography and reference:

Essential Oils and Bioactive Components against Arthritis: A Novel Perspective on Their Therapeutic Potential

Mariangela Marrelli, Valentina Amodeo, Maria Rosaria Perri, Filomena Conforti, Giancarlo Statti

Plants 9 (10), 1252, 2020

Online: https://www.mdpi.com/2223-7747/9/10/1252/pdf

Phytochemical and Pharmacological activity of Genus Plumeria: An updated review

Manjusha Choudhary, V Kumar, S Singh

International Journal of Biomedical and Advance Research 5 (6), 266-271, 2014

Online: https://www.academia.edu/download/34597640/pLumeria_generos.pdf

Indole as a core anti-inflammatory agent-a mini review

K Hemalatha, G Madhumitha, Selvaraj Mohana Roopan

Chem. Sci. Rev. Lett 2 (1), 287-292, 2013

Online: https://www.academia.edu/download/34996040/2013-chemical_science_reviews_and_letters.pdf

I have borderline people in my head, back at home.

 People who know me, of my recent mockup self, know that I toe a contentious line about my narcissism, being that there are a couple, or so, variants of narcissism, and even at that, given "whatever," about this guy, or that, and we're all sufferers of the same ailment, to some degree; yet each of us would prefer our own brand, of things, when it comes to who's personality traits, and ideations, etc. end up being the more fruitful and attractive persona in society. 

The textbook Narcissism spectrum is a 5-step set of distinctions in depravity, or misfortune, as it were, pinioned about the topic spectre of Narcissism (to reiterate) at issue. It begins with ...

Well, I don't remember. But there's grandiosity, delusions of grandeur, borderline personality disorder, as the middle trait, then psychopathy, and lastly, paranoid schizophrenia, as the final trait that defined the narcissist, and their inevitable outcome, with the psychiatric industry. 

No? This is a poor topic, for some, or, in some regards. Yet, I constantly deal and cope with a reality of having to accommodate people who destroy any semblance of a proper relationship that had been established, whereas those moments seem to have lost importance, for the person. People had been working overtime, and at all hours, trying to offer in a therapeutic approach, to no avail. Heartbreaking attitudes, sadistic fantasies, and many various sorts of care to abuse people, from a networked and arbitrarily tangential outlook and outset, from the core identity of a single victim; finding casualties in innocent bystanders, friends, relatives, etc. 

That's all I'll say; just my input, as to acknowledge that it's still going on, on this day. 

The iPigeon.institute online store (preview launch).

 I'm launching a private preview to my new online store, which will be offering essential oil and fragrance absolute personal misting bottle aromatherapy and personal care products, such as natural soaps, and other toiletry products, to come, in the near future. 

Here is the temporary (private) link to preview the online launch of my e-commerce store:

https://ipigeoninstitute.mybigcommerce.com/?guestTkn=8cihzrus4z

The store aims to provide direct-to-consumer deals on personal and home aesthetics and care products, with iPigeon.institute-unique flair and artisan | boutique exclusivity. Consumers benefit from my constant efforts in sourcing quality ingredients and from my dedications to research and online publishing, in which I discover online resources which have led me to be able to provide affordable luxury products, with all-natural ingredients, of high quality and purity, hand-made with care and with attention to the utmost standards in manufacturing.

A review, for inclusiveness, here - The Rigorous Honesty of the 12 Steps.

As I consider this article's context, I'm fraught with a significant backdrop of an allegorical account of life's experiences, at my [forget <_<, rather] foray. One of my teen years' best friends had grown distant from me, over the years, and his attitudes in communicating sorrow over this loss are inelegant and cruel. I'd come to see him as this new person, made up of cruelty, rather than that I could see him as a friend. It's "all in my head," as the old saying goes. 

On one hand, I don't like doing old things. A timeless thing, on the other hand, is a different story and distinction. People, lately, simply forget what's really being spoken about, and people have been fumbling about, failing at simply acknowledging the present moment, in life. Little obsessions over the small details of former failures is an unfortunate circumstance, to be sure, although we all have moments like that, in life - hopefully only formerly so, though. In therapy, we release these sorts of frustrations and anxieties through speaking candidly with a trusted individual, who is bound to professional ethics not to reveal the details of the conversations that transpire between they, themselves, and the client. Even so, various types of people will simply fail to trust the therapist, having been a victim of abused trust in life which had never been nurtured back to health. I'm by no means very well traveled in sociable acquisitions of a vast number of strangers that I've befriended, so I couldn't quite say, at what point, in life, people's trust in others had been violated. For me, it was quite early on. I was physically abused, by my father, for things that I had about myself, that I didn't quite understand, or I didn't have the thought about myself, in life, such as to avoid the consequence of being abused. On one hand, who ever does know the appropriate course of actions to take, such as to avert an abusive and hurtful consequence for ourselves? For me, it's a significantly adult thing; I'm 39 now, and it was well in to my mid-30's, or so, as to when I had "Scientology cleared" my mind of all shortcomings and admissions necessary, in life, for having become a spiritually competent individual in life, who could answer for things that would have otherwise separated me from others, earlier on, in life, and which had prevented me from being accepted, or included, in people's lives and common affections, absent from barriers to achieving that manner of relationship. 

 

The At-Home Parfumerie - How to mix like a semi-pro.

 After procuring a shelf-rack, or so, of fragrance ingredients of your choice and specialty, it’s time to employ “interval-mixing” in to the creative and manufacturing process.

The iPigeon.institute slight return shelf rack of perfumer’s ingredients, essential oils, and aroma molecules.

Making a simple “natural” smelling fragrance is not difficult - just purchase expensive and high-quality ingredients. But, in order to attain the scent profile of a higher-end cologne for men, for example, it requires some ingenuity in the logistics of “what’s going on | in” the fragrance. 

My mixing palette | my working process. I tried out what I would call “interval mixing,” which capitalizes on the notions of the deeper underlying chemistry behind the individual ingredients.

On one hand, the fragrance ought never quite completely fall out, from the bottom, itself, in to a poor-smelling thing. If you’d done this, don’t dump it - it’s largely against the law, internationally, and it’s poor morals. Instead, just save the fragmented artifact of manufacture, as a token partial that could be returned to, that might slightly fulfill some future need, even it it’s just drops of the stuff.

On my most current excursion and creation, however, I managed to deftly control the flow of creating a fragrance, with a collection number of ingredients totaling about 100, or so, give or take, without having created a poor-smelling product, which had been how many of my attempts to create a distinctly masculine-smelling fragrance product had turned out. I’d been getting some tips, through nightly searches about the facets and characteristics of ingredients, their expected percentage fill, of the entirety of a composition (fragrance or parfum base - which, in and of itself, take up perhaps 15-30% of the bottle, and the rest is water and alcohol (40-50%) and perhaps the rest of the fill is made up of quick notes, nuances, clean-ups, and touch-ups with essential oils, terpenes, crystals, musks, colors, etc.).

I wanted to do a men’s fragrance that was light-feeling, syrupy sweet, yet rich in savory background, such as that it would entice the olfactory sense’s relationship with the visceral and primal urges of hunger, upon encountering it. Easily gourmand, yet imagining a rich and eloquent debouter of enterprise and establishment to follow - picture a starving population, for example; yet many people refuse to eat, when offered food, or when found asking for charity. What could spark and inspire their neglected self-care better than a timely happenstance passersby encounter, on the street? What better disposition could there be, alongside the context being well-fed, in the American way? (or French, in nature, as I sometimes refer to). 

The secret to my creative process, in this instance, was to come up with a decent enough floral base - I chose Narcissus, in this instance, with 3-4 or so full and generous squirts from the dropper, although just 1, to begin with, in a pool of perfumer’s alcohol, in the bottle. 

Then I started to work my way around the fragrance’s underlying inspiration, which would be a light, crisp, and refreshing citrus assertion, for which I used some terpene ingredients, such as Limonene D. There was kumquat oil, as well. After this stage, I went back to tradition and rounded off the composition, as it was, with Lavandin Grosso. Then I grabbed my powders and crystals, to musky up the scent, and ground it, with concentrated force. I employed Ambroxan to ground out this first stage. 

The next phase I went in to was to add the primary natural characteristics that would shape the quality facets and natural appeal factor of the fragrance, using primarily essential oils, at this stage. I used Ginger CO2 (don’t ever get a ginger that’s not at least a CO2 extraction - my lesson learned), myrrh oil, tonka bean absolute (lots), jasmine tea perfume extract, citron oil, ylang ylang, cedarwood (atlas), and teak (just a little). Here, in this stage, I found that I wasn’t ruining the fragrance, by this point, so I decided to test out employing my crystals, which smell good, in and of themselves, but I’d read up on their common usage recommendations in a fragrance composition, and it’s typically at the 1%, or 0.1% or less. I have Exaltone, by Firmenich, and Ambrocenide, by Symrise, which I used, in this stage. 

Then, my inner animal 🦔 perhaps, started to perk up, and I thought about the ingredients, and their place in fragrance-making, which is largely based on descriptions of the properties, chemical name, and organoleptic properties of the material. I thought about ketones, which I’d read, are sometimes characterizable as metabolite products of the body. (Wikipedia). Oh, yeah. And just prior, I’d put some stuff in to the mix, like anisaldehyde and oud base, one of which had been touted as “the smell of the bathroom, toilet included” sort of thing. I figured, “well, these things have some basis in how they are created, as by-products of microbial, fungal, or plant life (even animals, in the past mostly), 

but, continuing forward, though, given that the ingredients had an appeal, on top of that I was creating this composition, as my main aspiration, and meanwhile, the fragrance base hadn’t turned bad on me, just yet, I figured that it was time for me to try and encapsulate the essence as it was, in this stage, so I added some musk ketone powder, for the sake of the fact that it (ketones) affect biological processes; I imagined that the oud base, or the dimethyl anthranilate, or pyralone (it was all of these, perhaps, in the end, to be honest; a modest amount of each of them) - these components, and the bacterial sorts of processes of interaction, reaction, or metabolism, of the energy products available, based on the richness of the ingredients, in and of themselves, much different, and more natural-smelling, since I was employing essential oils, mostly, at this stage, (some farnesol, also), and I’d formerly tried to employ these ingredients, of the [toilette] - means to an end (like, eau de toilette), and the mixture would end up getting worse and worse, the more I added to it, from here. 

Now, I didn’t actually add orange flower absolute, but I did do an ad-hoc Schiffs base, although I added the hydroxycitronellol in an equal amount to the iso butyl quinoline (pyralone), because I wanted to emphasize the citrusy character of the composition, and because the source and main composition was so rich in material, to begin with. All in all, at this phase, I threw in a small (mini) scoop spoon’s worth of musk ketone, in to the mix, because I figured that the ketone element, added in to the composition, would detract any ongoing (and eventual) free-radical occurrences from proliferating, and, in turn, I end up with a garbage composition. The musk ketones would keep the developing energetic processes distracted, and meanwhile, I have the buffer of these expensive crystals as the basis of what the mixture [could] eventually smell like, if needed; although it still hadn’t turned bad on me, which is important. 

Then I threw in some Iso E Super, after gently gyroscope-rotating the mixture around, and making sure that the crystals became well-incorporated in to the existing mix - 

Oh yeah! I forgot, at first, I started out with some very primary facet components of many to any type of fragrance composition - rose petals, jasmine sambac absolute, neroli oil, from Morocco, (at some point, in the composition; perhaps later on), and santalol, in modest amounts, each of them, yet somewhat only at the time being, of how small my beginnings were, in creating this mixture, and these ingredients, for having been expensive. (They still are expensive, for that matter, yet they’re quite essential in a fragrance composition, for how the smell’s purpose and character become modulated in to a new olfactory experience, at the command of the hand of the perfumer.

Some small vials of expensive essential oils and rich absolutes.

Having taken on this new, and progressively (intervals-bounded) methodology in manufacturing a fragrance composition, which I’d found somewhat difficult to do, for men’s sorts of fragrances, in the past, I now felt more at ease, in applying more ingredients, such as gurjun balsam, rhodinol, lauryl acetate C-12, para cresyl isobutyrate, nectaryl (to peach sweeten things up), beeswax absolute (for even more, and long-lasting sweetness), as well as two scoops of ethyl vanillin (with the small flat scoop).

Every invested gourmand would understand, as well, the fascinating combination and compelling novel effect (which I called “mooshy-moo”) that black pepper oil has upon a richly-established vanilla, as the “latest thing.” It’s a quite comforting and warming sensory experience. 

I didn’t want to leave any trails unmapped, so to speak. In intervals, I had planned to do the dump of crystals, such as Nerolin bromelia, as last-stand additions to the mix, yet I ended up tossing some in, a bit before I finished, since the perfumer’s alcohol works fast, yet I gyroscope-rotate the mixture, at this stage, to speed the musk ketone reactions up.

Then I thought, 

Hey, I have some celery ketone, as well! How about that, for the gourmand floral fragrant citrus (petitgrain got it’s own intervallic development ketone-assisted cycle in on it).

That’s about all, for now. 

Except for the onion skeet skeet - just 4 drops, (not of pure onion oil - significantly diluted, a few drops to 2 or so fl. oz.) - for the acrylates (thanks, Calvin Klein, for that tip off [context]).

Oh, yeah, there was Cetalox, as well. Benzyl Benzoate, and I topped off the composition, once I was fairly satisfied with it, with benzyl alcohol, to have a solvent base to incorporate the insoluble oils and water (also added at the end) together in to a miscible solution. I put some Yellow (Lake) and Basic Fuschia (2 drops), for color. There was trans-2 decanol, a tiny bit of humulene, and several drops of cinnamon bark oil. I put a drop of Geosmin into it, as well.