We are always having a look at the latest fragrances on the market, whether that is a new washing powder, or a new shampoo or a new designer perfume launch. It helps us to know that we are keeping up to date with all the latest market trends. There is however, something that we have noticed over the past few months – there seems to be a merging of the sexes.

Many of the newer fragrances that are aimed at men seem to have become the new favourites of our female office staff, with many of us naming one of them as our spritz of choice at the minute, in particular Carolina Herrera’s 212 VIP for men and Viktor & Rolfs Spicebomb.

I decided to ask around family and friends and came up with the same results….it seems that spritzing a sneaky squirt of your boyfriend/husbands aftershave is as widespread as borrowing his razor!

Back in the early perfume heyday of the 18th century there was no dividing line between male and female fragrances – in fact the dividing line was one of class and social standing instead. The most powerful men drenched their lapels and handkerchiefs with fragrance – usually a heavy floral blend, whilst the downtrodden masses blended into the background with the unforgettable stench of ‘Eau de Filth’.

The notion of gender in perfumery only came around in the early 20th century, coinciding with the influences of modern advertising methods. Fragrance became intertwined with fashion and so the flapper girls of the 1920′s became the new target demographic. Ms Monroe heaped glamour onto fragrance by the bucket load in the 50′s with her now infamous quote of wearing only Chanel No.5 to bed - it would have had to have been a brave man to wear a floral scent after that revelation!

The first efforts to woo the male back onboard were heavily advertised as a shaving routine add-on. And so the humble aftershave was born and the whole world seemed to smell of either Old Spice, English Leather or Burma Shave.

Eventually more and more colognes (note – NOT perfumes!!) became available embracing notes that were considered to be a masculine domain – spicy, leathery, woodsy and musky.

Fresh and lighter citrus notes have been an attempt to close the gap – think CK1 – and even more recently the addition of woody and musk notes being added to many female targeted scents have closed it even further.

Ancient men and women knew the power of aromatics, smearing them all over their bodies without any regard for whether spikenard or myrrh were considered to be feminine or masculine. Its a matter of what works well on your skin – so the next time you are looking for a new bottle of perfume – why not check out some of the newly launched male intentions – i’m off to top up my spicebomb!!

We have a large range of fragrance submissions here at Carvansons that are designed to be the creme de la creme of the current trending scents – if you have any new products that need a fragrance then please contact either myself or Helen, and we will be more than happy to send some samples for you to have a look at – all of which comply with current IFRA regulations.

Have just had the very tiring drive down to Kuala Lumpur, 5 hrs involved, but Natalie and Wong are happy as the traffic was quite light  – sometimes the journey can have an extra hour or two added! One of the highlights was at the toilet stop. I found a little lizard secreted in the bushes catching the (very large) ants! It was very cute and kept cocking its head toward me as if to say ‘what are you looking at?’ The other point of interest on the long drive back to KL was passing through some amazing mountain formations known as the Lost World of Tambun…..wow, now I feel like i’m in some kind of Jurassic Park sequel!! Apparently there is a theme park secreted within the hills, so thats definitely on my to-do list – it really does look amazing.

So I arrive at the hotel in KL, The Gardens Mid Valley. I stay here each time I come now, I like the familiarity when you are so far away from home…..the bellboy recognises me ‘Ahhhh Miss Julie, you visit us again’ (he remembers me because the first time I stayed we had a long conversation about the English Premier League – he supports United and I support the mighty Wanderers!) I get the same room each time, I don’t even need to request it, they just check my record from last time….same again, its the familiarity that keeps you sane.

Unfortunately even though I have been in Malaysia since the weekend, for some reason my business card isn’t accepted - just what you need after a long tiring day. Anyway they know i’ve stayed there before and are quite happy for me to check in and for me to ring the UK to sort it out and the following morning the card goes through without a hitch.

I am picked up at 9am the following day to try and avoid the worst of the city traffic, and so it gives me plenty of time to get ready. On the way to our first appointment with a large cosmetics company, we pass the local Carlsberg factory. And do you know what??….the adverts are spot on……….Every Friday the workers are given free beer (as much as they want) after they finish their shifts…..now thats what i call keeping your employees happy!!! If I decide to change jobs at any point then it might be worth sending a CV off to Carlsberg just for the perks!!

I also learn about the largest flower in Malaysia. The subject comes up because we are listening to the local radio station (you spend rather a lot of time in the car travelling from one meeting to another), that plays a mix of 80’s and current UK pop music, so you can hum along to Kylie and Jason one minute and then be shimmying along to Rhianna the next. Anyway, inbetween the eclectic music there is a quiz that asks the name of this large flower…unfortunately he gets the answer wrong and thats the end of his chance to win 1000 ringgits, however Nat and Wong knew it, and then begin to tell me about it. It only grows in 2 places in Malaysia and even then, it is very secretive. It grows deep in the jungle and you have to trek a couple of days to catch a glimpse of it. It only flowers once a year and so if you do see it, it is considered very lucky indeed. Natalie has indeed forayed into the jungle for a peek and although she did find the plant, it wasn’t in flower at the time.

It is called the Borneo Rafflesia, and it turns out that it is not only Malaysia’s largest flower but the world’s largest! I found the following information on the internet, and hope you enjoy reading about it.

 In the year 1818, Sir Stamford Raffles was posted as Governor to Bencoolen in Sumatra which was then, the administrative centre for the British East India Company for Western Sumatra. Raffles’s interest in natural sciences was insatiable.

A respected and popular member of the Royal Society in London, Raffles arranged and persuaded a fellow society member – Dr.Joseph Arnold to accompany him on an expedition into the interiors of Sumatra. It was on one of these expeditions that they stumbled on a discovery which was to puzzle botanists for a long time. Unfortunately, Dr Arnold died because of jungle fever before presenting the report to the society.

Habitat

Rafflesia are endemic to Southeast Asia, and of the recorded 17 known species, the Rafflesia flowers have been found only in Indonesia – Sumatra and Java, Malaysia, including Borneo island and south Thailand. Rafflesias have small, brownish, scale like leaves and fleshy, foul-smelling flowers of various sizes from a few inches to a meter big in diameter. Rafflesia is classified as a parasite, which means it just takes the nutrient out of its host.

The Rafflesia can be found in tropical rainforests where the climate is continuously warm and humid, with very high humidity. The Rafflesia is rare and fairly hard to locate. It is especially difficult to see in bloom; the buds take up to 10 months to develop and the blossom lasts for just a few days and how many of these strange plants that survive in primary rainforest is still unknown.

Characteristic

The buds that form before blooming are the size of a cabbage. The large fleshy flower is the flower’s sexual organ. There is a deep well in the centre of the flower containing a central raised disc that supports many vertical spines. The sexual organs are located beneath the rim of the disk, and male and female flowers are separate.

The reddish brown colors of the petals sprinkled with white freckles, exudes the most unpleasant stench, similar to rotting flesh or carrion. Some people believe that the stench attracts flies and insects which help disperse the seeds.  In order for the seed to germinate, it was found that the vine of the host plant must be damaged in some way so that the filaments of the seed may infiltrate successfully. The damage to the host vines could be made by trampling hoofs of large animals. The seeds would then adhere to the passing animals’ hoofs and are transported to other places where they can find host plants to attach to.

So the next time you are out and about in the countryside having a stroll, take a minute out to have a good smell….then thank your lucky stars that the British weather is too wet and cold for the fetid Rafflesia.

So, thats all for my blog today, dont forget to check back for the rest of my Eastern adventures…….

Well, am back after a lovely family holiday down in the beautiful county of Dorset. As I mentioned before, it’s the first time i’ve explored this part of our coastline, and I can definitely say it wont be the last!

I dont really want to extol the delights of Dorset too much, as it means that everyone will want to go and try it out….so Shhhhhhhh…keep it to yourselves, but i have to say the Jurassic coastline was spectacular, and the kids – and myself – spent many an hour rock scrambling, searching (and finding) fossils and caves. The sunshine shone for us the majority of the time, but true to form the day we went out for a beach picnic it was overcast, very windy and quite chilly – but as promised in my previous blog -  we braved the elements ‘because it was our holidays!’

Anyway, whilst collecting our bingo pens from the caravan one evening (luxury I might add!), I caught the end of the local evening news. The main story came from the Eden Project – I dont know whether you heard it or not, and it was announcing that the Titan Arum – commonly referred to as the Corpse Flower, had blossomed after a 9 year wait. These rare plants can reach a height of up to 12 feet in a cultivated environment, and it is unknown how tall they can reach in their native conditions. The titan arum was originally discovered by an Italian botanist, Odoardo Beccari, in Sumatra in 1878. Though found in many botanic gardens around the world it is still indigenous only to the tropical forests of Sumatra.

A mature bucket shaped flower emerges from a huge tuber, and in preparation for the few days of flowering, the plant must shed its single leaf (which can be the size of a small tree) and then lie dormant for 4 months whilst its musters up enough strength to produce umbrella sized petals that open to a diameter of 3-4 feet.

Its distinctive smell can be detected up to half a mile away, and is reminiscent of rotting flesh. This is due to a  concoction of sulfurous chemicals along with the aptly named cadaverene and putrescine compounds, which are also produced when flesh breaks down, hence the name  Corpse flower.

Hundreds of people have been down to the Eden Project to have a look but many of these have to recoil in horror due to its overpowering stench. You can actually see it growing at a staggering quarter of an inch per hour!

Luckily the smell only lasts for the 2 days that the plant is in full bloom. The Eden Project has set up a webcam so that you can follow the birth and death of the bloom without the smell………

 http://www.edenproject.com/come-and-visit/whats-here/rainforest-biome/webcam-titan-arum.php

Have a look and see what you think – its a funny looking thing, and the smell would definitely put you off having your picnic in one of the Biodomes for sure!

As you know - last Monday I was down in London for the launch of {{Intangible}}, the bespoke fragrance created by Carvansons for New York design label A la Disposition.

We have a saying here in the UK, that you can wait hours for a bus and then 2 come along at once, and thats exactly the position I found myself in last week. I had been in close contact with the researchers from The One Show on BBC on and off over the past month or so, as they had been putting together some background for a new show with the legendary Mr Dan Snow called Filthy Cities. The premise behind the programme is that the stinking histories of London, New York and Paris would be recreated and brought to life, marrying historical accounts with modern science in an ambitious attempt to show how these modern cities which were forged in the dirt of the past, emerged from these once filthy cities into the iconic modern metropolises that we all know and love today.

The show will be presented as a kind of travelogue, but of course one that we as viewers will not have seen before. Dan will use state of the art CGI and step into the shoes of professionals such as the pig handler helping to clear the New York city streets of waste, the Parisienne undertaker battling to cope with the human cost of a bloody revolution and the medieval muck-raker responsible for clearing tonnes of excrement from the streets of London. Our job at Carvansons on this occasion was to recreate the rather ‘beautiful’ stench of the excrement from the streets of London….all of you out there that think we have glamorous jobs here can now start to feel a little smug….It is an absolutely horrendously cloying smell and clings to your clothes and hair like a second skin.

I wont spoil the show completely but I can tell you that 3 of the ingredients involved in the programme are…

1. Dan Snow

2. A blindfold

3. A tube of sewage slurry

As you can imagine, I was in quite a high state of excitement at the thought of being involved in the filming aspect of the show, but as luck would have it, the only day that Dan was available for filming was the very same day I was travelling down to London….ah well, you cant win them all I suppose.

All the feedback from the staff here at the office (mainly women I hasten to add) was very complimentary – Mr Snow definitely made a lasting impression on more than 1 member of the office staff! …ahem…Helen!

You will all soon be able to have a sniff of the aromas used in the creation of this programme as they are being turned into scratch n sniff format on a postcard that will be sent out with the Radio Times nearer the launch as an advertising gimmick.

It just goes to show the array of fragrances we actually create here at our factory, from the single note florals and fruits, to the more complex combination fragrances, right through to the types of aromas used by the BBC, and in exhibition centres, museums, zoos etc all over the world – basically whatever your enquiry we can always find a fragrance to suit, as our tagline quite rightly states – You desire, we design and deliver.

For any further information, please feel free to contact me.