Natural scent has been a long love of mine.

For more than a decade scent has hurried my days and haunted my nights, kept me up late, annointed poignant moments as well as those that are more mundane, and defined my career and my life's path through my business, Blissoma. Today I share with you a bit about how I came to stock the dozens and perhaps several hundred essential oils that I now keep on hand in my cabinet, or, as I like to think of it, an entire olfactory world in a small wooden box. From Morocco, Indonesia, India, Turkey, Bulgaria, Egypt, Australia, Somalia and more they come to reside with me, keeping stories of spring rains, winds both sharp and sweet, shifting sun, and the crush of rich earth locked up in their molecules until the moment the bottle is opened and the aroma soars.


Few things in life to me have held as much joy as opening a new bottle or sample of essential oil and taking a long deep whiff. The longer and deeper the better which is not proper technique at all, but I can be a bit of a greedy gourmand when it comes to wrapping myself around a new aroma. The discovery, the moments after the initial sharpness wear off and the aroma begins to bloom deeper in my throat are things that I hunger for in part because it is so transitory.


There is no duplication of how a scent burgeons in one's head. You cannot see it, you cannot even touch this experience and yet it is there. Even food which has great aroma component to it lacks the ethereal quality of a scent experience because you can chew it and feel it going down your throat. Not so with a scent. It may make your heart leap and your head whirl but you cannot hold it. It resides strictly in the realm of the soul, the memory, and emotion. It comes and then is gone like time itself, like the cycles of nature, like life and I am left chasing it down again to fill my nostrils once more. There is the empty and the full and they each lead to one another.


My foray into essential oils began in great earnest in my early twenties. Prior to that I can say that I had an attraction to scents but that I had not been ensnared by it just yet. I do remember that every time we would be in the grocery store there were barrels full of bulk coffee and I would linger at these each time. I grew up the child of a gardener, cook, and homemaker which are all domains of scented life but I also grew up in the days of Glade Plugins, Pinesol, and Apple Pie scented Yankee Candles. My mom was not huge on perfumes or beauty products and I spent a great deal more time with cans of hairspray working on my bangs than I did thinking about how I smelled. My father got a container of Elizabeth Taylor Passion for my mother as a gift one year and my reaction to it was very ho-hum. I had more interest in her hippie boots and vintage jewelry than in perfume at that point. Synthetic scent was everywhere and none of it struck a chord.


After graduating from college I moved back home to St. Louis to try and decide what to do with myself for "real life". I was a ceramics major and I was pretty sure I wasn't going to pursue that field as an actual career which left a lot of open ended questions about what path to take. I was supposed to be trying to save money for when I moved out. What happened was I spent it all.


Every dime that I earned during that time got spent on my first bottles of essential oils that I procured from Wild Oats. I had enjoyed occasionally burning incense during my days at college and always loved the lingering smell of Nag Champa in an otherwise rank dorm room. My father has a very sensitive nose and couldn't stand incense so when I moved back the easiest way for me to enjoy some scent in my environment without aggravating his allergies was with something smokeless. Candles were my chosen method of dispersal and essential oils became my aromas.


I began making candles with an old Crock Pot and a coffee can for a double boiler. I set up on an old desk and measured oils by drops into a pound or two of wax. In those days all my recipes were written in drops. That was the fall of 2000. By January I had moved out into my first St. Louis city apartment and allotted an entire bedroom to my creative activities.


Those who know me know that I really don't do things halfway. I'm either in or I'm out and once I'm in I pursue my endeavors with a constant passion. I followed my scented path in just such a way, ordering essential oils as often as I could even though my fiance and I were eating peanut butter and jelly and oatmeal to get by on our own. I put us into several thousand dollars worth of debt purchasing oils. I expanded my repertoire, ordered larger sizes, and sold my blended candles at whatever sales events I could. The return was modest but that didn't stop me. I loved the feeling I got when I was standing over a pot of liquid, scented wax.... warm, floaty, buzzed and altogether better about life. I wanted more. Lots more.


I still didn't begin to get into scent as wearable art until years into my journey. Even when I started crafting body products my concern was largely aromatherapeutic rather than perfumery oriented. I looked for topical effects and benefits to skin rather than just scent alone. Ever the scientist as well as artist the multipronged approach pleased me most.


My small collection of BLENDS perfume oils launched just in 2008. I created strict parameters for myself in attempting to create a final recipe that would be pleasing and yet over 80% total organic content. The market for organic essential oils is a volatile and unsure arena. Some oils are grown and distilled by only one supplier worldwide, making sourcing an interesting challenge. Still, I was able to put together a palette of 6 different creations representing a variety of moods. I played with oils I had been dying to buy and experiment with for years; the most expensive, unique, and pure I could find. The range is most definitely unique. I wanted scents that were balanced, lasting, and rich but at the same time completely different from the department store concept of "perfume". I never wanted to wear those scents. I had no idea I could enjoy perfume so much until I started making it.


I love the terroir of natural scent, the origin and story and the fact that it came from life. The chef and chemist in me loves the process of blending and the meld of science and art that must happen to understand the materials and their application. Like splashing paint on a canvas, each drop of oil into a test vial creates change and explores an unknown. It is that mystery that keeps me on my aromatic journey much the same as I have been on many others even simultaneously.


I create primarily for myself. I sell because I must and because I enjoy sharing an experience with others. But I am happy alone in my studio with my nose buried in a new blend. I am happy, just me and my plants; me and my aromatic reverie. Fame and power mean little to me as none of that matters in the moments when one is counting drops. In those moments I am of one mind and that mind is full of perfume.





 



Please visit the blogs written by these other participating natural perfumers which is today's blog event sharing how each of us have come to natural perfumery.
Absolute Trygve

Anu Essentials Blog

Anya's Garden Perfumes

Aromatherapy Contessa

Aromatics International

Being Led by the Nose

Blossoming Tree Bodycare

Ca Fleure Bon

DSH Notebook

Ellenoire

From the Bathtub

I'm Just Saying

Les Parfums d'Isabelle

Lord's Jester Inc.

Natural Perfumes

Olfactory Rescue Service

Olive and Oud

Perfume Journal

Providence Perfume

The Western Cape Perfumery Blog

St. Louis is a great place to be gardening. There are many community resources that a budding plant enthusiast can take advantage of if you know where to look.


One of my goals in homesteading and growing as much of my own food as possible has been to take my family as far off the Monsanto and GMO food chain as I can. With the right planning it can be easier than you think to grow your own corporate-free food. Ironically Monsanto has corporate headquarters in St. Louis. I wonder if they know what is sprouting in their own backyard as an effort to fight against their policies?

Supplies for gardening don't have to be complicated. I've been able to acquire many of the things I need for free or nearly free. To spread efforts in our city and beyond I'm going to list the resources I've used. There may be comparable opportunities in your city as well if you just look them up.

Things I have gotten for free:
 
1. Dirt
The City of St. Louis Forestry Dept. has a composting division where city residents can call for community dropoffs of city compost and mulch. It may not be the most nutritious compost but it makes a good basic dirt to which you can add more nutritive elements. I used city compost in my raised bed, all my pots last year, and on the Farm on the vacant lot. This year we got 3 loads delivered so far. All you have to do is call! This picture is of many of the pots on my parking pad that I filled with city dirt last year.

There are also designated drop spots and they will tell you where you can find piles that they refresh regularly if you just want a little bit. The pile at the Bell Garden at Bell and Vandeventer is almost always stocked because that is the main Gateway Greening headquarters garden. For the Compost division call: 314-613-7200. Mulch is also available.

2. Seeds and plants
I happen to have a mom that is a super gardener. Each year I've gone out and dug up some of her hardy perennials to landscape my yard. It takes some patience as they look a little rough the first year, but they are FREE for goodness sake! It doesn't really hurt her plantings if I dig judiciously. By year 2 everything looks smashing. I have gotten ground covers, ferns, Solomon Seal, grasses, and daffodils this way.

Neighbors have also given me free Irises and other items when they are dividing their plantings. If you are reasonably friendly with someone that has hardy perennials you could offer them something nice of yours in exchange for dividing some of their plants. Baked goods? Help mowing the lawn? Whatever you feel like you can do.

I purchased some seeds last year and then from what I grew I saved as many as I could. This means a one time investment and then every year following you have free seeds. I will probably never have to pay for a pepper seed or green bean seed ever again! The main thing you have to do is just keep your varietals a bit separate and make sure you sort and save in an organized fashion so you know what you are planting the following year.

If you do have to purchase seeds please don't buy them at a big box retailer. Skip the Burpee and head straight for heirloom, open pollinated seeds. Often your locally run garden center may have a selection of independent seeds rather than the GMO varieties you'll find at Lowe's and Home Depot.

Seed Suppliers I have used include:
Botanical Interests (I am a sucker for the beautiful illustrations on their packets!)
Seeds of Change (a little pricey, but very good plants so far)
St. Clare Heirloom Seeds (cheap, basic, totally indie and has lots of cool varieties! I got a lot from them this year and so far am pleased with how they are all doing)
Baker Creek Heirloom Seeeds (a MO based company, has lots of unique plants, AND is sold at my local food Co-op where you can even get seeds using your EBT!)

Looking for more? Check out this forum post listing lots more seed supplier options.

All these companies are MONSANTO FREE. The plants will generate seeds that can be used again next year, meaning you can help preserve heirloom, non GMO strains of plants and support biodiversity and sound ecology.

3. Pots, cellpacks, and trays
Every year the MO Botanical Gardens has a pot recycling program where people can bring their plastic pots that might not be able to be recycled in the normal local plastic recycling programs. The dropoff location is in the parking lot of the Monsanto Center just west of Vandeventer. They start accepting pots during the first week of May.

Most people drop off pots, but I TAKE pots! :) The people working the recycling stream don't care at all if you cart off as many as you can use. Many of them are in great condition and you can get everything from pots big enough to hold a small tree to cell packs suitable for starting your seedlings. You can go and scavenge for pots anytime from about 9-5 and the parking lot is generally open. They may not be the worlds most beautiful decorator pots, but it is a great way to get started planting if you don't have the cash to fork out $50 a pot for the designer ones at the garden stores.

Again, ironically this program is run by the Monsanto Center which controls a lot of the research and plant cataloging activities that happen there. I find a small amount of justice in the fact that the recycling program has provided me with many of the items I need to get myself off their food system.

The cellpacks have been awesome for starting my own seedlings. So far both last year and this year I have not bought a single live plant for food production. Just seeds. The amount of money this has saved has been tremendous! If live plant costs $3 to $5 and a pack of seeds costs just $2 or $3.... well I can get a whole row of plants for less than the cost that some folks are spending on just 1 plant. Or if I saved the seeds then that row is free.
If you don't have a pot recycling program nearby you can use the plastic fruit containers that are used for packaging strawberries, cherry tomatoes, and grapes at the grocery store. Instead of trashing or recycling them wash them out and save them all year. They make perfect little greenhouses as they are ventilated and drained. At least half my seedlings are done this way.

4. Compost
You can make your own compost which could save you the cost of having to buy it. Compost and Manure are my number one fertilizers and this year I'm not planning to use anything else. I generate a lot of herb, coffee, and veggie scraps and they all turn into soil-nourishing compost. If you don't cook as much from home you could contact a restaurant nearby you and see if they will save their cooking scraps for you. You might have to pickup frequently to get them to do this for you but the payoff is the free plant food!

5. Tools to use
Gateway Greening here in St. Louis has a tool lending program for members and community gardens. Everything from shovels to rakes to tillers can be borrowed.
The Bell Demonstration Garden is the biggest tool lending hub. Check out their webpage and get in touch if you need to use something. In Old North St. Louis the 13th St. Community Garden also has tools to lend, and so do other gardens designated as lending hubs.

6. LAND to garden
In St. Louis if a vacant lot is owned by the city LRA department you can get an official garden lease to use the lot. Ok, so this may cost you $1 for the lease or something silly like that, but it is basically free. As long as you are willing to work many of the city neighborhoods will be quite happy to have you contributing to the neighborhood in such a positive fashion. It is a good idea to talk to your alderperson as well and let them know what you are doing.

7. Grants for supplies
Gateway Greening in St. Louis also provides garden grants to community garden groups that are starting up. The applications are due in the fall. Admittedly the application is 30 pages long, which stopped me from applying last fall. But it won't stop me this year. They supply financing for hardscape materials, seeds and seedlings. Contact Gateway Greening for more information.

Something you may be able to get for nearly free:
Manure! If there are horse boarding facilities near your house you may be able to get them to give you manure for free or nearly free. A stable near me will let you come shovel your own for $3 or for $10 they'll dump it in your open bed pickup for you. You may have to rot it yourself but it's one of the best ways to feed your plants.

Feeling inspired yet about what you can do for FREE in your garden? I sure am.

Hopefully I'll have time to share more soon. For right now I have to go transplant some things while this gorgeous weather lasts. (In St. Louis that won't be long!)
Love and happy gardening!

Today I am proud to share with you that Blissoma and my family are participating avidly in the Urban Homesteading movement and spearheading the development of a community garden.
 
Our path began 4 years ago when we began searching for a building to purchase. Our budget was very limited and we needed a great deal of square footage. We were unable to consider real estate in some of the more trendy, populated areas of St. Louis because of these practical restrictions.

Eventually our building search led us to North St. Louis City where we found our current base of operations. Old North St. Louis and Hyde Park have an array of large buildings that were priced within reach for us because the area has largely been considered a dangerous urban ghetto by locals. The attrition of population and decaying architecture has left vast vacant lots interspersed between the remaining buildings.

Some might think of North City as a strange place and often I am commended by casual visitors for my bravery in purchasing property here. I respond that bravery had little to do with it, really, as the area is not nearly as dangerous as people think and had all the resources we desired. The moment that I saw all the empty land I instantaneously envisioned massive gardens on all of them. A blank canvas has delightful appeal to someone that loves to create, and this neighborhood was just that. It was and has been poised for reinvention and many residents have been at work behind the facades of what looks aged and decaying. We are restructuring, refinishing, and recreating.

The first few years here were spent on interior building improvements. I have spearheaded the improvements to the house myself with a marginal amount of outside help and construction work can be all-consuming. The building is essentially a very slow gut rehab with every surface and system in the house needing at least some work and some needing complete replacement.

Last year I reached a juncture where it made sense to take the work outside. So, without official announcement, I decided it was time to begin gardening - finally!


I saw Fresh and Food Inc. last spring and it lit quite a fire. Rather than just being disgusted with our current food infrastructure I decided it was time to do something, and that it was indeed within my power to take action towards change. I am sharing our projects in the hope that others that may be teetering on the edge of action will also be heartened and empowered to act as well. I am a busy entrepreneur, mother, and rehabber, and now organic food gardener. There are sacrifices that I have had to make but the rewards are tremendous and I enjoy the activity as well. It is providing a platform for my daughter to learn about plants, worms, science, and sustainability and furnishing as much delectable produce as we can consume as well as some for the neighbors.
I was working on a very, very tight budget last year, but financial restrictions did not stop me. I salvaged much of what I needed and the small investments of our limited money came back to us completely in food.

I am going to do my best to detail and share our activities this year. Given limited time and a choice between planting and blog posting I'll probably be planting, but updates will come as often as I am able.


This last week I seeded our raised bed that we built last spring. The photo above is from last June when we planted it after completion. By fall it was overflowing with plants. I definitely got things too close together but I have problems disposing of seedlings - so hard to get rid of beautiful little live plants just because room is limited! I am told that this year the growth and results should be exponentially better because the soil will have had time to establish the proper ecosystem of micronutrients and flora.

I often hear people say that home gardening is so expensive compared to the yield. My answer is well, yes, it is if you are purchasing all your plants at $4 and $5 each from a big box garden center. Every plant we grew last year I sprouted from seed, making the cost to yield ratio really work in our favor. I am no sprouting expert but I was able to get a successful system down. This enabled us to spend very little, grow an immense variety of plants, try again and again if something happened to a first batch (caterpillars, storms, disease), and choose organic and heirloom varieties that yielded seed for this year, making my seed investment for this year even smaller. I'll probably never have to buy a bell pepper seed again and I've had enough to give to others as well so they can sprout and grow freely.

Our yard is actually quite small, so I have maximized the space by trellising plants up fences, creating a hanging garden on the porch, and putting pots on every square inch of available patio. If you think you don't have enough room for food production you might want to think again, as there are many ways to maximize space and garden creatively.

By contrast we now also have what we call "The Farm" or "The Hundred Acre Farm" in a loving tribute to A.A. Milne's Winnie the Pooh and the Hundred Acre Wood. The Farm is a massive vacant lot across the alley from our backyard. It used to look like this:
Row houses from approximately 1900 stood decaying when we first moved into our house. Then they were torn down....
This picture is a night shot of the bricks stacked in pallets for reuse, and the final building of the 4 yet standing. Here is another view from our backyard of the final building on the day it was knocked down.
It was sad to see these valuable pieces of architectural history disappear. The land sat vacant for the last 2 years with mostly weeds and scattered trash adorning it. My latent ambitions grew and grew. Finally after maximizing my backyard and chattering about my guerrilla farming dreams for months we tilled a patch of the lot last August for fall planting.
We began with just simple crops of spinach, bok choy, kale, and anything we could manage to grow in the limited few months before the cold set in. The soil is mostly clay, new dirt brought in to fill the stone basement foundations of the prior buildings. We brought in several truckloads of compost and manure and laid down approximately 4" in which to grow our first round of crops. We'll be adding more, I'm sure. Everything grew beautifully and we harvested as much as we could eat. Here is a picture of the last bits of produce on the land before we froze hard last fall:
Today I begin preparing the same plot for our early spring crops. I've got many of the same items as last fall to go out as well as new varietals. Beautiful red cabbages, Red Core Chantenay carrots, miniature Romaine lettuce, lots of greens, and the leeks that actually survived the winter and are already growing. I'm excited to start planting so I'll save further news and pictures for another day! The sun will only last so long and there's a lot to do.

I have lots of schemes in my head for flowers, paths, fruit trees, berry bushes and more for this piece of land. I'll be excited to share our progress with you. For now it is time to get growing on our homestead. Have a blessed and beautiful Saturday and we hope you'll get out there and grow something.

Stress is a culprit for all kinds of problems and in today's society is rampant in our everyday lives. Our stress systems were really not designed to be used on such a constant basis. Even as recently as just a century ago people might have more commonly felt their emergency reserves kick into action in situations where life and limb were truly threatened. A bear attack, a bad fall, or perhaps combat situations would have all been legitimate times to activate extra resources and take emergency action. 
 

I was recruited to provide a primer for brides on stress related acne for WoW! Glowing Bride in 30 Days because of my expertise in natural skincare. I've been living a holistic lifestyle for many years and as with many things your skin's condition is very related to the rest of your well-being. 

Do you know the shelf life of your skincare?
Natural products have a much shorter shelf life than conventional products that are loaded with petrochemicals and synthetic preservatives. We think that is a good thing! After all, you should be treating your face to the best and freshest products possible.

Blissoma skincare uses enzymes and plant extracts to keep our products free from contamination. Even with this preservation, however, you can expect our products to generally last just about a year to a year and a half from the date of production. This varies by product and the stresses to which the item has been exposed.

A shelf life of just a year and a half is dramatically different from many conventional commercial cosmetics which are tested to last 3 to 5 years. Even those need to be tended to and weeded out periodically, though. Remember that lonely bottle of foundation, moisturizer, or any other item in your medicine cabinet that has been there since the dawn of time? Allow me to be your friendly reminder to discard old product and avoid exposing yourself to the hidden bacterial or fungal dangers that may be lurking there. 

My general rule is if I haven't used a particular item for a whole year I discard it. Any items not part of your regular routine are superfluous. While going unused they will just sit and breed trouble. Not to mention that a streamlined medicine cabinet makes morning and evening bodycare routines SO much easier! 

Our Blissoma line generally packages products in containers that keep fingers out of the product and minimize the air to which the product is exposed. One exception to this is our clay mask, which is in a wide mouth jar. The thicker quality of this product just would not allow it to be pumped well, so it had to be placed in a container where it could be scooped out. Because it will be repeatedly exposed to air and any bacteria present on fingers whenever the mask is used we recommend that you use it completely within 4 months of initial opening.

We have insitituted a batch labeling system in accordance with good manufacturing practices. On the bottom of each product will be a sticker noting the batch number for the product and our recommended expiration date. As an example for one of our deodorants the number may read like this:
101509005589A
exp 4/2/011
 
The first portion of the number tells you when the batch was produced. This item was made 10/15/2009.
Here is the shelf life of each of our product types from the date of production:
Moisturizers, Toners, Fresh Mild Rice Cleanser, Amend Antioxidant Lotion, Deodorants, and Backyard Bliss - 1 1/2 years
Refine Clay Renewal Treatment - 1 year, best if used within 4 months from date of opening

I'll be back with Part 2 of our Skincare Shelf-life Primer soon. Until then, be fresh - be beautiful!