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I use the term “stank good” lovingly. Until the end of his days my granddad called perfume and eau de toilette “toilet water.” As I kid, I thought he used that term because - according to the theory I’d formulated - the water in the outhouse toilets back in the day was perfumed to keep them from smelling.

I didn’t know outhouses didn’t have water. Gimme a break, I was a kid.

Anyway, when my granddad would smell a perfume he liked, he’d jokingly say that it “stank good.”

Hey, that’s a good name for a perfumery: Stank Good Stuff.

I’ve spent the past couple of weekends cleaning out my materials stash in the cellar. I sorted through my horde (hoard?) of essential and fixed oils, floral waxes, bottles, you name it. It was a mess. Since it had been a while since I’d made anything, some of the oils had gone off. Actually, some oils that most certainly should not have gone off had done so. I’m going to have to rethink some of my suppliers because I think I’m getting ganked. One bottle of sandalwood, that should have lasted for years, smelled as if a there was a hint of some type of chemical-like substance coming through, like kerosene or something.

I made room for new perfume bottles I ordered from Dominique Dubrana down in Italy. Dear lord, that brother is living the life. Check out his perfume organs here and here. If you read Italian, check out this article from Panorama.

Dubrana offers a 2-day English perfume course twice a year depending on how many folks sign up. He needs at least five. I’ve been begging and pleading folks I know to sign up to no avail. So, if you’re going to be in Europe next year and have a hankering for hangning out in Rimini, let me know.

I also reserved my place for a course in September at the Grasse Institute of Perfumery. I visited the school when we went to Grasse back in 2004 (?).

And, to make matters worse for my credit card, I’m patiently, patiently waiting on G W Septimus Piesse’s “The Art of Perfumery, and the Methods of Obtaining the Odours of Plants; with Instructions for the Manufacture of Perfumes for the Handkerchief, Scented Powders, Odorous Vinegars, Dentifrices, Pomatums, Cosmetiques, Perfumed Soap, etc” to get here. It’s a first edition from around 1855.

Yes, I was sweatin’ hard when I clicked that button. Hmmm…don’t know if that’s a good combination with “odorous vinegars.”

My dream book is Dioscorides’ Materia Medica. But, as you can see by clicking this link, the cheapest full-version one is over US$1400. That’s not going to show up in my mailbox anytime soon.

Off topic: Prediction - Al Gore will win the Best Documentary Oscar for An Inconvenient Truth. He will accept the award by announcing that he’s throwing his hat in the ring for the Democratic nomination.

Hey, stranger things have happened.