House of Enfleurage

Home
United States
Issaquah, WA
House of Enfleurage

Directions Website

Botanical perfumes using enfleurage & wildcrafted tinctures
Custom perfume bar events & a monthly Scent Layering Library
Rooted in Tiger Mountain, WA

09/06/2026

I call this The House Rose because it was growing here long before I began choosing roses for perfume.

I still haven't identified it. It blooms in loose clusters of soft blush flowers, that start orange, with irregular flashes of deeper pink, and its fragrance is noticeably fruity rather than the dense, old-fashioned rose scent of Baronne Prévost.

Knowing the cultivar name would be satisfying, but scent is how I really know this rose. I recognize it by that light fruitiness before I notice anything else.

For now, The House Rose suits it.

09/03/2026

Black Cherry dianthus changed my usual enfleurage process.

I normally remove the green calyx when preparing small flowers like lilac. But these dianthus have a deep, spicy fragrance that reminds me of clove, and when I removed the calyx, the petals alone no longer smelled the same.

So for this first charge, I kept the calyx attached and placed each flower face down against the fat. Leaving green material may give the extraction a greener character, but removing it seemed to take away part of the scent I wanted to preserve.

I don't know yet whether this will produce a useful pomade. For now, I'm following the scent, treating it as an experiment, and recording what happens.

08/30/2026

Not every flower in my garden becomes perfume.

This Rose of Sharon is enormous right now, covered in ruffled pink flowers. I keep leaning in to smell them because they look like they should be fragrant, but this one truly smells like almost nothing.

And that's fine. I grow many plants because I want to preserve their scent. This one is here simply because it's beautiful, and for a few weeks each summer it becomes an entire wall of flowers.

08/28/2026

Grand fir has one of the most surprising scents in the forest.

Its needles are distinctly green and resinous, but they also have a fresh citrus note. After trimming my grand fir, I clipped the fresh needles and small twigs directly into a jar and covered them with organic cane alcohol.

Over time, the alcohol will pull the aromatic material from the plant. The finished tincture can add a bright, forest-grown note to botanical perfume that feels different from a heavier, darker conifer material.

I love being able to preserve useful material from ordinary seasonal pruning instead of letting it go to waste.

08/26/2026

I love picking flowers from my garden.

Several of my roses are blooming again, so I gathered the most fragrant flowers and divided them between two projects. Some went into organic cane alcohol for tincture, while the rest were separated into petals and placed onto an enfleurage tray.

The basket lasted only a few minutes before I started pulling it apart, but it was too beautiful not to photograph first.

08/23/2026

These may look like ordinary geraniums, but each one smells completely different when you rub the leaves.

This little collection includes Prince Rupert, with tightly curled leaves and a sharp resinous-citrus scent; Apricot, with bright pink flowers and a softer fruity scent; a bright lemon-scented variety; and a green, pine-scented variety.

The flowers are pretty, but the fragrance is concentrated mainly in the leaves. Scented geraniums are part of the Pelargonium genus, and the range of aromas they can produce is remarkable.

08/19/2026

One tiny insect, and the evidence of an earlier life stage elsewhere in the garden.

I found this vivid green leafhopper on my fig tree. Later, while looking at The House Rose, I noticed a row of delicate white forms attached beneath one of the leaves.

They looked like tiny insects, but they are empty cast skins left behind as leafhopper nymphs molted and grew.

Leafhoppers feed on plant sap, and larger populations can leave pale stippling across foliage. A few insects or cast skins do not necessarily mean serious damage, so for now I am simply watching the leaves and enjoying how unexpectedly beautiful the adult is up close.

The garden is always showing me something I wasn't looking for.

08/16/2026

Baronne Prévost has become my favorite rose in the garden, and my favorite rose to use for enfleurage.

Its petals are unusually thick, which gives me more time to work with them. After a full day on the tray, they still smell like Baronne Prévost. They don't quickly shift into the dry, tea-like scent that some rose petals develop as they sit.

That matters in enfleurage. I want the petals to release their true floral scent into the fat before they begin contributing something tired or vegetal.

It is also simply an extraordinary rose: richly scented, old-fashioned, and strong enough that one flower can scent the air around it.

08/15/2026

One morning's rose harvest, divided between two different ways of preserving scent.

I separated the fresh petals by hand, placed some into organic cane alcohol for a tincture, and the rest onto an enfleurage tray. The alcohol tincture will extract aromatic material directly from the petals over time. The enfleurage tray lets the petals release their fragrance slowly into fat before that scented pomade is washed with alcohol later.

Both processes begin with the same fresh roses, but they don't necessarily produce identical materials. I'm keeping them separate so I can smell and compare what each method captured once they're finished.

08/12/2026

Not every plant I bring home is destined for perfume.

We went to the nursery this week, where the boys spent some time petting the resident cat while I picked out plants for a new garden bed. None of these were chosen for enfleurage or tincturing. I just thought they were beautiful and wanted to make another part of the garden feel more finished.

Back at home, the basil is growing well and several of my roses have started blooming again. Some plants become perfume materials, some end up in the kitchen, and some are simply here because I like looking at them.

A little of what’s growing around here this week.

Address

Issaquah, WA
98027, 98029, 98075

Website

http://www.houseofenfleurage.com/

Alerts

Be the first to know and let us send you an email when House of Enfleurage posts news and promotions. Your email address will not be used for any other purpose, and you can unsubscribe at any time.

Want your practice to be the top-listed clinic in Issaquah?