Gen 2 Development: Bar 2
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Another bar, another vtuber! Who is it? Not telling yet!
So far, here in the early days, I prefer to watch a vtuber I enjoy, get an idea of what scents they might like, or what scents I think of when I think of them. But this particular vtuber had a very different idea. They approached me, they gave me an idea of the kinda scene they wanted to set with the soap, they gave me scents to work with. I had no idea who the heck they even were. But I liked their pitch, so here we are.
The Concept:
Their pitch was a sort of a Japanese forest scene. Their scents: Sakura and sage.
Now as fate had it I had already experimented a bit with a cherry blossom fragrance. I didn't like it. Its smelled too... well, soapy. It wasn't right. So I set it aside in my rather large and growing "not-in-active-use scents" box. When approached I broke it out again. Nope, same bad impression of it.
So I got two more cherry blossom fragrances from different makers. One was the same harsh soapy smell, a no-go. The other one... that was pretty good. But there's a problem in that.
Sakura is a rather delicate aroma. Sage is very much not. I have sage essential oil, and it is strong stuff. It would be insanely easy to blast the cherry blossom aroma right out of existence. I'm thinking I'll have to add it in, a drop at a time, to a half ounce of the sakura and see where it lands us after each drop or two.
On the other hand, there's another way to handle this. A sort of bridging scent to bring the two together. My mind went to palo santo.
Palo santo is a tree that grows in South America. Its a slightly citrusy wood scent. The citrus could reinforce the sakura, and the wood would tamp down the sharpness of the sage. Okay, so you probably won't find that tree in a Japanese forest. Personally, I think the ending scent is the more important result.
The Results So Far:
Yeah, I was right about the palo santo. It works pretty much like I expected. Arguably it might need slightly more sage: Will need to experiment further. But what I have right now smells pretty nice to me, and to the people I've made sniff it (my partner, and her parents). I could stick a fork in it and call it done, but I want to try a version without the palo santo just by way of comparison. Who know, maybe it'll be better.
I only had a sample-sized bottle of the good cherry blossom, so I need to wait until my big bottle of it arrives, hopefully later this week. Then I can experiment a bit more.
To Do:
Coloration. I have a nice dark green for the sage. I have a light pink, but it may still be a bit too dark for my liking. I'll need to look into that if I don't like the way my current light pink comes out.
I still want to experiment with making a version without the palo santo, just to compare, and the version with the palo santo I might want to try upping the sage just a little bit.