I'm a bit excited about this one. I've been wanting to do something with Wormwood again for a while so I boiled up some Wormwood and made a Wormwood tea in effect. Then I built a scent around it. I wanted something with a little zing and some life and I think I've achieved that.
Ingredients: Stearic Acid, Olive oil, Tallow (Beef), Avocado oil, Lanolin, Castor oil, Coconut oil, Jojoba oil, Kaolin Clay, Tussah Silk, Glycerine, KOH, NaOH, Water (including the wormwood tea), essential oils.
Fragrance: Wormwood tea, Lime, Ginger, Galbanum, Wintergreen, Oakmoss, Blood Orange, Black Pepper, Cypress, Geranium, Sandalwood, Tobacco, Artemisia, Perfumers Alcohol.
The Lime, Ginger, Galbanum, and Wintergreen give the scent a green, airy, grassy feel while the Oakmoss, Black Pepper, Sandalwood, Cypress and Tobacco give some nice substance. The Geranium, Blood Orange and Sandalwood contribute some luscious sweetness. The Artemisia backs up the Wormwood theme (artemisia is a diverse genus of plants including Wormwood and Mugwort).
I don't have a large collection of aftershave but I was thinking there are some notes in Pb Artemisia that remind me of Alfredus Choice.
Scent sometimes accesses some long lost memories. When I built Pb Artemisia it took me back to times spent at an Aunt and Uncles place in Narrandera. I don't really have an idea why but the association is persistent.
Test shave was fun. The soap base is very closely related to that used by Pb Back Beet and made for a luxurious creamy lather which provided very good platform for a straight razor shave. It was nice to build a soap with some freshness about it, my more recent soap scents have lacked the openness of this scent.