Adventures in alchemy and an indirect review of Oakmoss Lavendula (Saint Charles Shave)

By Thomas

In a recent discussion on bourbon, a friend noted that at his restaurant, they serve bourbons, and then they serve their bourbon – which is a good, solid bourbon...with a few changes. They open up the bottle and shove in a few things to infuse with the bourbon, to add new dimensions of flavor. I now have two mason jars of bourbon with various peels and pods soaking in them, and the results are promising.

So I turned my attention to SCS’ Oakmoss Lavendula. I was on a big lavender kick when I ordered this (blind...ahem), and when I first tried it I loved it – for the first 45 seconds. Big lavender blast at the beginning, followed up with oakmoss. This oakmoss, while fairly convincing, seemed to be placed too far-forward, too aggressive.

I found a bottle of lavender oil, and topped off the bottle of OL. Lo and behold, the lavender was now too far forward, shrill and screechy and tiresome, and then again, back we came to the oakmoss. Still too perfume-y, too foppish, a lace-edged handkerchief in a velvet coat pocket. It doesn’t stick around long, either – but I’m not really shedding tears over that.

One day, while I was checking on the bourbons, I noticed that I had some extra vanilla pods – have you smelled these things? They smell gorgeous – not like the extracts you get at the stores. There’s a raspy-earthy quality, kind of a butterscotch/caramel rich fullness in the pods that begs to be added to perfume. So, I split a pod and pushed it into a large vial with a healthy slug of Oakmoss Lavendula. And waited. And waited. And waited. Weeks passed, in fact.

Eventually, my patience was rewarded. The vanilla added depth and richness to what was originally a lean and dry scent. The opening is still sharp, strong lavender, but the vanilla tempers it. At lunchtime, it’s still around, well-balanced – lavender/vanilla/oakmoss and humming along nicely. It’s not quite Jicky, but you know what? For what little I spent, I really don’t care. What I have now is clean, simple, sunny, long-lasting, reasonably-priced, and I don’t have any qualms about tweaking it further if I so choose. This is kind of fun.

Notes: Oakmoss, Lavender, Earth, Fruits