I think you have earned a typically long winded explanation based on my hours of reading on the chemical compounds contained in essential oils, their 'behaviour' and their use in perfumery. I will try and keep it concise and will omit the lengthy, complicated chemistry but I will require more than 1 or 2 forum sentences and a witty re-joinder, anyway I hope you and others find it interesting
You have articulated something very important and actually very interesting....your gradual 'liking' of this scent (obviously this does not uniformly apply to every perfume) correlates to the changing seasons and the corresponding weather i.e. the temperature in a broad sense. I do not in any way mean some kind of mystical woo woo crystal swinging tosh. I am talking of the chemistry and specifically the volatility of each individual oil in the fragrance and about the many compounds contained 'naturally' within each
individual essential oil. Lots of essential oils in a fragrance can mean hundreds of compounds.
If you think about an individual essential oil such as Patchouli for example, that one essential oil in it's pure form is actually a perfume of it's own right - it contains a range of smells due to it having a range of naturally occurring compounds within it. Some of these compounds behave differently when heated, and differently again when it's too cool, but if the temperature is within a certain and fairly broad range they behave in a similar fashion in that they expire at a comparable rate which we call the individual note. It gets better though, much better - some of the most prized, scarce and expensive EO's are the most susceptible to this change due to the nature of their compounds, the volume of their compounds or a mixture of effects. Maybe that is why they smell so good ?
So, the APR
mea culpa....
I released the first 8 or so APR scents in December, many of those scents had no place whatsoever being released or indeed used at that time of the year, in Australia (and particularly in FNQ/QLD) it is way to hot for most of the heavy oils. I am not at all surprised that you thought the SAA was a bit average, the Pork Chop received a deafening silence for the very same reason - too much heat liberated all the vetiver at the expense of the nuanced mid and top note design. Some smart campers jumped on it being perfume buffs and seasoned vets, most understandably did not. Lesson learned!
Suitably Attired Australian is built on a base of Indian Sandalwood, Ambergris and has middle notes of Violet, these are not oils that show their best features in hot weather. Some of the compounds in sandalwood and others in violet absolute essentially become invisible if it is too hot, they are still there but expire before you can appreciate them. A simple analogy: - like drinking warm beer vs cool beer but in a olfactory way if that makes any sense. The warm beer tastes revolting, chill it and it becomes Gods own nectar (and the smell changes).
I like your idea of giving new soaps and splashes a go over a duration of time too mate, sometimes letting them sit for a couple of months can mean a whole world of difference, not always, but often
