Perfumistas like me often debate the ideal conditions for perfume longevity. What precise temperature and level of humidity is optimum? Well, I can tell you what temperature and humidity is not at all optimum....
Hurricane Weather.
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| Hurricane Weather, MRobb |
I've gone through what I call Speed Prioritizing My Life twice in a year, first for Hurricane Matthew, then for Hurricane Irma. In both cases, I had to leave my home and was told that, due to storm surge, I might never see my home or neighborhood again. In both cases I got to return to a damaged, but habitable, abode. Did my perfume collection suffer? OK, that sounds like the most trivial silliness, and on one level, it is. But most of us have collections, and all of us have possessions that just, for no logical reason, make us happy. My perfume collection and tiny perfumery lab has been a sanity keeper for decades.
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| A few of my lab creations. |
So...civil and military authorities are telling you to get out NOW. You have a couple of cars in reasonable shape, some gas in the tank, a family, probably pets, and a whole bunch of Stuff. What do you take with you???
This is why I call it Speed Prioritizing Your Life, and it happens for anyone dealing with a natural disaster, like hurricanes, fires, tsunamis. Earthquakes, you don't get any warning, so they don't count.
Here's what I took for Irma: Sauf Contre Bombarde 32, possibly the finest incense perfume ever created, L'Artisan Parfumeur Traversee du Bosphore, because it's immensely comforting, and there is a charming family story connected to its creation, and Ormonde Jayne Champaca, because I'm nuts for that one, and a bottle of Angel that one of my children gifted to me in London, again, connected to a lovely family story. Those were all I had room for. I couldn't take my scent library or anything from my lab, except for my book of formulae for perfumes I've come up with over the years. Oh, wait, I took a bottle of frankincense eo, because I'm a Frank Nut.
We had all agreed, if the storm surge was severe and our homes and boxes of Stuff headed out into the Atlantic, we'd have a beach salvage party afterwards. Would I find some of my collection out there in the waves? It was a pretty funny image!
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| OK, Guys, where's my Stuff??? |
So as it turned out, my home was sort of OK. But with a third of it blasted out, and none of it with A/C for awhile, in days of tropical heat and humidity, the collection did indeed take a hit. What died?
Pretty much anything with natural citrus or florals. Toast. Gross, nasty, burnt and moldy toast. Thrown out with the furniture and drywall. What survived?
Everything based on resins and spices. Not surprising, because these have been used since ancient times to preserve. In Egypt, preservation of the dead for millenia was managed with these fragrant substances. So they are fine. I'm wearing them.
Lots of synthetics like the woody-ambers and the musks were also fine. I think they'll be in our ecosystem, intact, for millenia! Whether that is a good or bad thing is left to be discovered....
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| Pondering an Uncertain Future.... |
