Re: TOTD 120408: earthy

[Guest guest]

Hi Adam and all,

Earthy:

Labdanum

Angi :0)

[Guest guest]

>

> What's the most " earthy " essence to you? How do you describe

> " earthy " ? Do you like earthy?

>

Vetiver, Oakmoss, mitti attar, calamus, hélychrisum, patchouli

[Guest guest]

Earthy to me means something rustic, simple, round, powerful, and

like the colors brown and deep green.

Labdanum (though I consider this complex so it's earthy/spicy)

Hay

Tobacco

The mitti I've smelled smells mostly of sandalwood. I like the idea

of attempting to acquire the scent of fresh soil or finished compost.

[Guest guest]

What's the most " earthy " essence to you? How do you describe

" earthy " ? Do you like earthy?

[Guest guest]

>

> What's the most " earthy " essence to you? How do you describe

> " earthy " ? Do you like earthy?

>

Mmmmmm! Earthy! Yep, I really like " earthy " . Next to fiery, it's my

favorite. What's the most earthy to me? That's too hard - all of the

following say " earthy " to me fairly equally, in their own way:

Vetiver, spikenard, valerian, carrot, patchouli, cepes, blackberry,

mitti (duh), my dirt tincture (again, duh), oak moss and cedar moss,

seaweed, tonka, ylang ylang, gurjun balsam...

Cheers!

Andrine

[Guest guest]

>

> What's the most " earthy " essence to you? How do you describe

> " earthy " ? Do you like earthy?

>

Patchouli is the most earthy essence to me. I like " earthy " and think of it as

very complex and

containing notes of decay. It's reminiscent of everything in the natural world,

but lacks purity

and sweetness.

[Guest guest]

> Hmmm... Ylang ylang as earthy.  Thats interesting.  I would never

think of ylang ylang, or any floral smell for that matter, as earthy. 

Blackberry either.  I can somewhat understand seaweed, but to me it

just smells too much of the ocean to be considered earthy.  Just my

opinion......

> What is gurjun balsam?  I've never heard of it.  So, apparently it

smells earthy?

>

> g

That's why I LOVE this group and the fun discourse brought on by the

TOTDs!

Among the more obvious " earthy " scents, I wanted to list a few things

that smell earthy to me that folks might not normally associate with

" earthy " . The reason why I listed ylang ylang was that there's a bit

of a dark and dirty smell to some of it (in a really good way).

Especially Liberty's ylang complete, and their cananga to a lesser

extent.

Blackberry is very earthy to me because of the musk in it. I was

thinking of that very thing while I was making blackberry cab/merlot

cranberry sauce for Thanksgiving. At the time, I was just so

enthralled with the way the musk in the berries was voodooing me.

Like the huge berries on the wild vines that take over everything here

and make everyone swoon in late summer with their intoxicating scent

that wafts through the air in little teasing tendrils. The ones I was

cooking gave me a nice little mini-swoon.

The seaweed... Well, that's an easy one for me to explain too. It

comes from living near the water and in the land of rain, where

really, everything probably smells like water at first sniff (I've

been here since day one, so I didn't exactly get " first sniff "

impressions; the scents were just always there), so instead of

thinking that things just smell like water around here, your nose

makes finer distinctions - it breaks it all down into all sorts of

categories - even different categories of water. This is how a nose

finds the earthy and airy, and most likely the fiery (I need to go

looking for that!) in all the " watery " things here. Does that make sense?

And finally... Gurjun balsam is from a tree in Southeast Asia. The

botanical name is Dipterocarpus terbinatus.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dipterocarpus

http://www.henriettesherbal.com/eclectic/usdisp/dipterocarpus_oleu.html

It's a really a fun little oil. It's very subtle. You have to sort

of circular breathe when sniffing it right in the bottle in order to

get the scent molecules rolling around in your nose. Then you start

to get this lovely little very delicate, earthy, woody, warm scent

that's got a little pepper and the tiniest bit of metallic tinge to

it. I've not yet used it in anything because it's so subtle. I'm not

sure what it would play with that wouldn't overwhelm it.

The second link that I provided talks about gurjun being similar in

odor and consistency to copaiba. I have to say that I suppose there

are similarities in the overall scent, at first sniff. However, if

you stick with it and keep smelling the two, the gurjun is sweeter,

woodier, spicier, and much more complex - more multi-dimensional.

Thanks for the fun comments that enabled me to figure out just why all

these things said " earth " to me.

Cheers!

Andrine

[Guest guest]

> What's the most " earthy " essence to you? How do you describe

> " earthy " ? Do you like earthy?

Turmeric.

Love it. Cook with it. Paint with it. Perfume with it! I even put

it on oatmeal with blackstrap molasses and tahini. . .sublime.

Mitti.

For me the earthenware scent it very clear. Love it. Now if I could

put that on my oatmeal . . . hmmmm.