Difficult customer

[Guest guest]

Good morning(afternoon or evening) everyone, I thought I would come

to you all for some suggestions. I have a customer who is really

very nice. She is a compound pharmacist and I make a number of

lotions, balms and soaps for her. BUT, she is always thrusting these

perfumes or lotions or sniffy sheets at me and asking me if I can

recreate them with naturals. One time she gave me a sniffy page with

no scent left on it that she wanted me to try to come up with just by

the description.

:-) Impossible you say? Well, you are right, it is impossible. At

any rate, anything I ever come up with is yucky or it makes her sick

or it has some disgusting element in it that made her 'sick'. Now

mind you, I am not nearly as good as any number of you, but I am not

that bad either. The scent I made for her to try, which happens to

have had very good responses from a number of people and is in Whole

Foods, made her sick and had an earthy scent that she didn't like.

(See my eyes rolling). It was a combination of tangerine, mandarin,

jasmine, vetiver, vanilla and a couple of other things, can't

remember right now as I am at my day job and don't have the

ingredients here. Although the sniffy sheet she gave me said it had

jasmine in it, maybe she didn't like that. Sometimes it has a very

slight ick factor to it for some people until it blossoms on your

skin. Sigh!

I know that probably the best thing to do would have her come to my

house and set an array of oils and absolutes in front of her to see

which ones she likes and doesn't like and go from there, but I would

rather not do that if possible. In the meantime, she seems to like

citrusy scents, she said she likes patchouli, but then says she

doesn't like earthy smells. I tried to use vetiver in place of the

patchouli as it seems (to me anyway) to be close but less intensely

dirt smelling. But, of course, she didn't like that either. So, to

my question, are there any base and or middle notes that aren't " too

sweet " or " too earthy " that will help a blend of citruses and mild

floral (no rose - it makes her " sick " ) not only fly, but stay

grounded? Does that make any sense? If not sorry. Thanks for any

help or suggestions you might have. Hope you all have a wonderful,

joyous holiday.

Deb