Vivienne Westwood's "Naughty Alice"

I remember when I was really young exploring my grandmother's garden picking violets, roses and geraniums and how divine it was taking in the intoxicating scents.  She showed me how to crystallise violets and rose petals in a mixture of egg white and sugar; and later, making a rose geranium cake with fresh geranium leaves crushing them into the flour to release the oil.


Today, when I use essences to flavour ganache it reminds me how much she has influenced me and also how making ganache for a macaron is not too dissimilar to making a gorgeous perfume.

"...Perfume is described in a musical metaphor as having three sets of notes, making the harmonious scent accord. The notes unfold over time, with the immediate impression of the top note leading to the deeper middle notes, and the base notes gradually appearing as the final stage. These notes are created carefully with knowledge of the evaporation process of the perfume.

• Top notes: The scents that are perceived immediately on application of a perfume. Top notes consist of small, light molecules that evaporate quickly. They form a person's initial impression of a perfume and thus are very important in the selling of a perfume. Also called the head notes.

• Middle notes: The scent of a perfume that emerges just prior to when the top notes dissipate. The middle note compounds form the "heart" or main body of a perfume and act to mask the often unpleasant initial impression of base notes, which become more pleasant with time. They are also called the heart notes.

• Base notes: The scent of a perfume that appears close to the departure of the middle notes. The base and middle notes together are the main theme of a perfume. Base notes bring depth and solidity to a perfume. Compounds of this class of scents are typically rich and "deep" and are usually not perceived until 30 minutes after application.

The scents in the top and middle notes are influenced by the base notes, as well the scents of the base notes will be altered by the type of fragrance materials used as middle notes. Manufacturers of perfumes usually publish perfume notes and typically they present it as fragrance pyramid, with the components listed in imaginative and abstract terms..." source Wikipedia. 

thestylepa

Our favourite perfume at the moment is Vivienne Westwood's "Naughty Alice".  This is a very feminine but sexy perfume with notes of black rose, violet and ylang ylang.  I've created macaron with single notes of rose and violet noir but when I get my hands onto some ylang ylang essence I'm going to have to create a blue "Naughty Alice" macaron because I just adore Vivienne Westwood.  I also love it because when I was little I was really, really naughty!

The gorgeous bracelet that comes with the perfume.

My version of a Vivienne Westwood Naughty Alice Macaron is coming soon... so keep posted!