CaFleureBon Profiles In American Perfumery
JoAnne Bassett of JoAnne Bassett Fragrances
September 18, 2011 — Read the full article on CaFleureBon →
JoAnne Bassett's fragrances are AMAZING. Managing Editor Mark Behnke reviewed her scent during the Natural Perfumer's Guild Outlaw internet project and was so impressed he wanted to understand her creative process. Editor in Chief Michelyn Camen chose JoAnne as one of the "Green Goddesses" of perfume. As Chandler Burr once quipped — "why do so many American perfumers tend to name their fragrances using French names?" — after reading about JoAnne, you will understand that she is indeed "entitled."
Profile
My Father's family comes from France and has been traced back to Charlemagne. My Mother's family comes from Germany. The Bassett family came over on the Mayflower and more family came one year later on the Fortune. I am a blue blood. A Bassett house is the oldest house in Hyannis Port, MA. There is royalty on both sides of my family. My roots come from very old families in Europe.
I was born in Southern Minnesota and we were farmers. We had a very simple life with large vegetable gardens and very old flower gardens. We had old roses, lilacs the size of trees, peony bushes that were always covered with bees, flowering almonds, spirea bushes, irises, lilies, and on and on. Living in a climate of four distinct seasons we had different trees, bushes, and annuals flowering with the seasons. I loved the apple blossoms and mini purple irises as a child. I remember all of the flower smells wafting through the house. They intertwined with all of the cinnamon, nutmeg, vanilla, chocolate, coffee, and baking smells. My family loved to bake and cook large meals.
My Mother was a "fragrance queen" and wore Evening in Paris and Youth Dew. I will never forget going into her purse to put on fragrance. She wore fragrance every day along with lotion and powder. My Father told her she should just fill the bathtub and roll in it. She wafted wherever she went. This was completely different from other farm women I met. They usually wore fragrance on Sunday and for a special occasion.
I had a field day growing up in a house of 3 older sisters. There was Tabu, a lilac soliflore, and a rose soliflore, and many others. As a small child I received my very own fragrance on my birthday. It was Daisy from Avon. I was so proud. It had powder, lotion, and fragrance just like Mother wore. Needless to say I started with fragrance at a very young age. I learned about layering after going to my sisters' rooms and trying on the bottles I could reach. A girlfriend let me spray on her Jungle Gardenia and I fell in love with it. That smell stayed in a heavy sweater of mine for years.
In the summer we would go "up to the lake" in Northern Minnesota. We also visited relatives and stayed on lakes in Wisconsin. There would be new smells for me to investigate. The lovely pine trees, birch, and sumac and many other wood and moss smells gave me new scent memories. I also remember the smell of cleaning fish, fishing with the stinky worms from the bucket, and picking up shells. The smell of lake water was so different than the water in the creek or the fresh rain water. More than once I got poison ivy or poison sumac from wandering in the woods with bare legs.
On American Perfumery
I love being an Indie Niche Perfumer in America. I can choose the raw materials I want to work with, and decide how I want to create my fragrances and sell them. From a young age I appreciated the life force of a rose, and the incredibly beautiful scent of the flowers wafting in the sun. I choose to create 100% natural perfumes. Being a healer, artist, alchemist, and artisan perfumer I utilize the plant energy and impart my inner knowing in creating the perfume. I create Custom Couture Perfumes and enjoy the freedom to use the ingredients that resonate with my clients. That is the benefit of being an American perfumer at this moment of regulation in Europe.
My perfume Indulgence is what I feel represents America. The dictionary defines indulgence as the act or an instance of indulging; gratification: indulgence of every whim. We certainly indulge ourselves in America. We have access to almost anything we could ever want. My Indulgence is also formulated with the costly essential oils and absolutes. It feels luxurious and I feel beautiful wearing it. It is an indulgence of the senses with May roses, tuberose, neroli – orange blossoms, vintage Mysore sandalwood, vanilla, citrus, spices, and others.
— Michelyn Camen, Editor in Chief, CaFleureBon
Read the full article on CaFleureBon →
Interview with JoAnne Bassett, a Natural Perfumer
Featured on Fragrantica
By Elena Knezevic — November 8, 2011 — Read the full interview on Fragrantica →
JoAnne Bassett is an independent perfumer from California. For a long time she worked as a stock broker and never even thought of perfumery as her call and profession. But a creative sparkle, if only it exists in a person, will always find a way to break out.
JoAnne was raised on a big farm in Minnesota, among dozens of varieties of flowers and blooming trees, in the loving embrace of a family who valued traditions and enjoyed living. The house was filled with the delicious smells of baked goods, flower aromas and perfumes.
"I've been using perfumes as long as I've been able to reach it and open it. When I was 5 years old I got my first perfume as a present from my mom. I wore perfumes every day of my life, and one day I put something on and I couldn't do it anymore. I got allergic to perfumes. There was something inside them that made my nose, my skin and my eyes irritated. I started to use natural oils and play with them, mix together and apply on my skin — people in the street started asking me what I was wearing."
JoAnne names her perfumes in French — a nod to her adoration for French perfumery and the French blood in her veins. Her father was French, an offspring of a noble family with roots going deep, all the way to Charlemagne.
"I've always learned by doing. At the beginning I mixed oils in almond oil, but they didn't last long, so I started to put them in jojoba oil. As a child I played with flower petals: I made floral waters, potpourris, little soaps with rose petals. Now I use flowers from my own garden as before. I have gardenia, roses, honeysuckles, and I make tinctures, macerations in jojoba oil and grape alcohol, and enfleurage. I do it myself and also have my own distiller."
JoAnne creates her perfumes exclusively of natural oils, and most of them she buys directly from small artisan producers she's met on her travels to France, Spain, India, Madagascar, and beyond.
"I have bought very little from big companies, and only natural oils, because I really would prefer to support the producers and little farmer distillers. I was a farmer and I would prefer to help them."
"I come home and make perfumes — I can make an entire collection in one afternoon. If you have an idea, don't wait. Do it."
The French Collection
Colette, Camille, Chantelle, Contessa
The French Collection was JoAnne's first. "I had a lot of private label perfumes, but I didn't have some for myself. So one day on a new moon I blended my French collection." The perfumes are inspired by famous French women who have a "certain air of sophistication. I believe they are my muses."
The Royal Collection
Josephine, Madame Pompadour, Napoleon, Petit Trianon, Magie d'Or, Malmaison, Marie Antoinette, Versailles
The Royal Collection was born of memories from France. "I was in Paris for the very first time and I felt at home, I belonged there… I went to Versailles and felt like I've lived there before, I walked these alleys before, and I recognized the smells coming around… Names just came to me and I created all eight in one night."
"I always try to choose the right ingredient which would be somehow connected to the person or place." Napoleon was born in Corsica — JoAnne put immortelle and juniper berries into the composition to reflect the smell of his homeland. For Madame Pompadour: "I put 39 ingredients over the top. She was a mistress to the king, a spoiled woman — I use my imagination to use very special ingredients to reproduce her aura in perfume."
"Well, all I do is expensive. I use organic oils, I grow my gardenias, roses, I distill them, I travel to get rare oils. I do it with love."
Read the full interview on Fragrantica →
Perfumer's Workshop: Creating Bespoke Fragrances
Featured in CaFleureBon
October 20, 2015 — Read the full article on CaFleureBon →
The incredibly gifted Natural Perfumery Guild Professional perfumer JoAnne Bassett of JoAnne Bassett Perfumes has been creating bespoke perfumes for over 22 years and has been an instrument of change in her clients' lives by way of her fragrances. From her earlier aromatherapy Perfume Potions created with specific intentions in mind to her modern day custom couture bespoke parfums, Ms. Bassett has shared her talents and fragrances with clients worldwide.
Knowing the beneficial effects natural perfume has on people, she goes through a very organic process with her bespoke clients, asking questions and relying on her sixth sense to ascertain what the client is in need of and tailors a beautifully scented perfume that is a joy to wear and can help bring about positive growth in her client's life. When she had her perfume boutique Le Bijou in La Jolla, California, JoAnne was able to meet with clients there to smell various raw materials and take them on an aromatic journey. Now she relies more heavily on her ability to sense the needs of her clients and the feedback they provide throughout the process via phone, email, or Skype.
Her perfumes can range from energizing, enlightening, empowering, comforting, and more. JoAnne has great knowledge of natural essential oils, absolutes, tinctures and other essences that go into her perfumes. She sources only the highest quality raw materials. Her high level of experience and her love of natural perfumery is what makes her bespoke fragrances so special.
Featured alongside Dawn Spencer Hurwitz, Mandy Aftel, Sue Phillips, and Tanja Bochnig.
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Scented Snippets: JoAnne Bassett’s More Life Collection
Featured on Fragrantica
By Ida Meister — November 19, 2012 — Read the full review on Fragrantica →
Our dear Jeca has acquainted us with this new line so well… I'd like to rant a little myself. ;-)
I was thrilled to receive my package with its precious contents. There are many reasons for that excitement: JoAnne Bassett's compositions breathe a classicism to which she contributes her own iconoclastic touch. She uses only the finest materials she can find, in her inimitably original way. And the hand-blown glass bottles are not to be believed. I'm happy enough with my little family of vials!
Ecstasy Parfum
What a joyous, playful introduction! Sweet orange, clary sage, and red mandarin simply sing with gingergrass—sweet and spirited. Combined with lavender, the feeling is overwhelmingly pastoral, a delight. That JoAnne chooses a white Bulgarian rose otto is where the ecstasy comes into play, for me [years ago, I walked out of Enfleurage with 2 precious ml's of that otto as a birthday present—that's how dear it is!].
You have to smell that rose to believe it; your eyes roll back in your head. The rose/jasmine sambac love affair only augments the pleasure, and swan's-downy billows of benzoin, vanilla yield hours of plushness.
Intimacy Eau de Parfum
The true oakmoss lover's consummate bliss. Vintage is rich and voluptuous, NOT a yawn. The Golden Standard of Mysore sandalwood embraces vintage jasmine grandiflorum, Bulgarian roses, rose de Mai, orris root, such beautiful resinous patchouli to accompany the oakmoss/amber/musk/vanilla base.
This is dark, deep, complex and alluring; I think I could go through a great big bottle of this one.
Serendipity Parfum
Elegant and enveloping. Wrap yourself in the venerated essences of tuberose and cassie, delicious rose de Mai, while cardamom and neroli entice. Seamless frankincense and heartwoods beckon: agar, sandalwood, balsam. Tangerine teases neroli while vanilla gentles the whole.
Heaven knows what went through JoAnne's fertile mind when she created this one. It's vying with Intimacy for first place on my arm and my affections. I just keep applying MORE, to experience that glorious floral rush.
Italian Smoke Eau de Parfum
Move over, gentlemen. There's enough for all of us.
Here is a golden tobacco note full of the Italian sun, as implied by the warmth of neroli, sweet orange and jasmine grandiflorum softened by vanilla and a wonderful sandalwood. If you seek a shy scent, this isn't it; it's a fingerprint of fragrance, full of ebullient personality.
Vert Eau de Parfum
"And when we find ourselves in the place just right—
'Twill be in the valley of love and delight."
—Simple Gifts, a Shaker hymn
Provençal paradise, plus cocoa. So many herbs, shrubs, citruses! These many essences—most of them are native to Provence—provide us with that which refreshes the soul. And then… JoAnne adds cocoa for that unexpected shadow, and white cognac for sumptuousness. Bottled natural beauty, happiness in a flacon.
Opulence Eau de Parfum
Opulence lives up to its name: we are spoiled rotten with Only The Best There Is. Take my adored Mysore sandalwood, the precious Bulgarian white rose otto, Bulgarian damask rose, orange blossom, and an ocean musk accord…
Well, I'll be damned. I'm speechless. We require a painting for this sort of perfume: it defies description. Not for the faint of heart, Opulence is a passionate love sonnet to the Rose, with her best beloved ladies-in-waiting gavotte-ing in full attendance.
JoAnne, thank you for the opportunity to explore these fragrances. It's lovely to be transported by a truly good soul with a nose to match.
Read the full review on Fragrantica →
Scented Snippets: JoAnne Bassett Royal Alchemy Collection / Sacred x Six
Featured on Fragrantica
By Ida Meister — September 19, 2014 — Read the full review on Fragrantica →
I have puzzled over these half dozen delicious fragrances for over a week now; I still don't know which I love most. Perhaps it's like that for JoAnne: how can you choose one child over another?
Sacred Frankincense 1
Notes: Omani frankincense, Moroccan rose absolute, elemi, Peru balsam, high altitude French lavender, davana, yuzu, Roman chamomile, French linden blossom absolute.
Incense can be tender. It can lilt and charm and lull with so much gentleness it might as well be a lullaby. You could detest the stuff on principle and still be smitten by SF1. It's like a wildflower-fresh young woman with dimples and brains to go with that irresistible smattering of freckles over the bridge of her elegant nose. I just love this one.
Sacred Frankincense 2
Notes: Omani frankincense, Indian champa attar, Turkish damask rose otto, butter CO2, lemon, fresh hydro-distilled ginger, Nepalese rhododendron, galbanum.
Galbanum and Ida: a love story. How could you possibly feel blue while wearing this? If ebullient verdancy weren't enough, the tonic glory of lemon and ginger will surely uplift you. The florals are fairly seamless here, serving to soften while accentuating the sunniness of this perfume.
Sacred Frankincense 3
Notes: Omani frankincense, Cambodian oud attar, Mysore sandalwood heartwood, Tunisian orange blossom absolute, gaiacwood, copaiba balsam, clementine.
Heavenly. Contrasts, contradictions all loving one another in an orgy of aroma. How many exquisite materials can you combine, and none cancels out another? SF3 feels thoroughly authentic, a truly Arabian/Moorish feel. Resins and blossoms and heart-breaking woods.
Sacred Frankincense 4
Notes: Omani frankincense, vintage hydro-distilled Omani frankincense, incense cedar, holy basil [tulsi], vintage Corsican juniper berry, petitgrain bigarade, Egyptian geranium, black pepper, red mandarin, balsam fir.
Profoundly sylvan, herbal and contemplative: all that one would hope a traditional incense to be. A plethora of finest woods zinged with geranium, citrus, spice. There is a certain grace to it, a deft balance of the soothing and the spirited. A lovely tranquillity.
Sacred Frankincense 5
Notes: Omani frankincense, rosewood, French beeswax absolute, Chinese aglaia absolute, French vanilla absolute, blood orange, Bulgarian damask rose otto, Indian night queen absolute.
Intense. Drily woody, SF5 means business. This is strictly for gods and goddesses. Backbone, character, grandeur.
Sacred Frankincense 6
Notes: Omani frankincense, Indian CO2-distilled ambrette seed, Nepalese green spikenard, vintage patchouli, bay rum, Spanish steam-distilled cistus [rockrose], immortelle, black spruce.
Sweet satori. Culled from many corners of the world, the spice trade is alive and well and living in Southern California. Dream of India, of Corsican pirates, of the Old Testament, the Seychelles, the Forest Primaeval. It's in every single drop.