Aurora, the mythological messenger God who carried the dreams of Morpheus is the name given to this rich, amber-flora fragrance with notes of carnation. Although Lyra was the first floral released in the line, Aurora was the first fleshed out flower perfume I created.

Back in the nineties I had sat down to recreate the aroma of carnations shortly following a Natural Perfumery class I had organized at the Bodhi Tree, the original title was Experiment #2. After visiting an importer of rare and exotic essences in Berkeley, California, and smelling an enchanting carnation absolute from France, I vowed to finish Experiment #2.

Aurora has a warm, spicy floral quality reminiscent of carnations. I consider both Lyra and Aurora much simpler fragrances than the ones which followed. In fact “Q”, Chaparral, Vera, Vespertina and Sierra have quite a number of chords which are specific to them. 

I realize now, in hindsight, that it would have been much easier to develop one wood chord used in all of of my perfumes, but alas my inner artist likes complexity. By the way, I prefer to use the word chord, instead of the term "accord", in most perfume circles you will notice they use the French word accord. To be honest, I never quite understood the concept of using a word in a different language than the one we speak in.

"Mystical rays of luminous light

in the form of spice and citrus

flow down from the heavens

to enhance flower and earth."

Aurora is an organic, pure nature fragrance inspired by the aroma of Carnation flowers. The floral bouquet at the heart bridges the rich amber base with the bright citrus and spice notes of the top.

"Star bright, star light,

first star I see tonight, I wish I may, 

I wish I might have the wish I wish tonight." 

The carnation quality is subtle and due to the combination of floral and spice. The main odor chemical in a fragrant carnation flower is "eugenol", this component is found in high concentrations in the essential oil or absolute of clove.

Although one can approximate a carnation type of aroma with just a few essences, Aurora contains over twenty. I added a bit of a precious Carnation absolute from France later on when it was available, it was a nod to the lovely Divina of the Fragrance Bouquet Blog. In December 2008 Divina wrote a lovely review of the liquid version of Aurora, here are a few of her words:

"What beautiful, twinkling magic has been weaved in this amazing, heart-moving fragrance? Because it is surely magic, or at the very least the magic of art and love, that make this fragrance evolve so stunningly on the skin, going through countless transformations that seduce the senses one after the other..."

 

The base alcohol in the liquid expression of Aurora, as with all my perfume "extracts" is organic grape and/or grain from Oregon. The solid contains a base of organic jojoba oil and local beeswax.

I chose a hue from the red spectrum for Aurora's color harmony. Perhaps you have already noticed that each perfume has a color association as well as an illuminated image. Most of the floral perfumes have tones of red. The ongoing challenge is finding the particularly color hue in the crochet thread for the pouches, wax seals, image, etc. Sometimes all this takes time to put together. The process gets even more complex if it is a new perfume that requires a name. The naming is a bit of a drag, very different from naming a painting. Since Aurora was one of the original perfumes in the illuminated line up, my mom Martha and I had a fairly easy time choosing the color hue. The challenge came when we searched for the correct thread in the color, we've actually gone through a few variations, the first thread was multi-hued, replaced by a mauve color and now a brighter red.

Each time there's a change in one aspect of the color it affects the entire system. The waxes for the seals are the biggest challenge, along with how the cards end up printing. The individually designed and hand crochet pouches are utilized for the higher end items like the larger compacts and the flacon.

The name Aurora was chosen for the sparkle quality of the fragrance which reminded me of the phenomena that occurs in the sky at poles of the Earth. The Cree refer to the aurora borealis as Dance of the Spirits, which works rather nicely with the illuminated image and the grape spirits in the liquid and eau de parfum. 

"The stars are putting on their glittering belts.

They throw around their shoulders cloaks that flash

Like a great shadow’s last embellishment."

~ Wallace Stevens

 

 

Aurora, like all my perfumes, is created by hand and thus is at times out of stock. If you are looking for a specific size or format, contact me to see what might be in stock that is not listed on the website.

"Aurora- Sweet and spicy carnation. Fans of Bellodgia and Golconda will appreciate the way the spicy clove-like part mellows down and melts into the skin."

~ Gaia at The Non-Blonde

The illustration we use to illuminate Aurora is a detail of Snow Faerie, an image by Greg, it is featured in his 2009 Calendar titled Divine Nature. See more of Greg's artwork at his website.

Photographs ©Roxana Villa