Latest Haul: My New Hobby, Woodworking (Product Review

 So, the last haul that I brought in stirred up some trouble, in the form of a reddening skin condition on my leg. That blog article ended up dovetailing in to the context of this latest haul of mine, the woodworking tools and gear haul for the LED Backlit Sparrow Spiritual Mini Meditation Woodcut Panel project, essentially a reimagined take on a throwback decorative piece that I had in my old apartment and loft.

The original backlit spiritual woodcut panel art piece, which I custom outfitted with a base, glass panel backing, with LED strip lights inside, with stuff from IKEA. The woodcut panel came from Marco Polo Imports, in Santa Monica, now closed. (2011)

My 2026 contextually upcycled new take on a spiritual-themed and decorative meditation backlit wall panel, this time, in miniature form, so that I could accommodate doing the project from within my assisted care living group home housing environment situation. 

The project represents a change of pace, from “whatever” I was doing, previously… I guess it was a bunch of other product hauls and pigeon feeding, for the most part. Anyways, I gave the sparrows a feature part in this concept, as well as the medicinal flower inclusion, symbolizing a transition in to a different hobby, and perhaps some products in development along those lines. 

So, I initially imagined the mini sparrow woodcut panel, as part of a conceptualized product marketing campaign and branding mockup of ideas and imagery, through consulting heavily with Google Gemini artificial intelligence. I floated the idea of the original woodcut panel, from its origins in Southeast Asia (Indonesia, perhaps), and I wanted the theme to be representative of my friends, the birds, along the way, with a different flower that I’d been heavily researching and studying, over the past several months, leading up to today (early April 2026), the new flower being Michelia alba, a highly fragrant subtropical tree in the Magnolia family, that was found in my mother’s first home country of Hong Kong (Great Britain, China). 

My mother and I were both in to gardening, back in my teen years, growing up, and it was my retreat in to a change of pace, and it was something to work on, in between my school studies and getting in to trouble, here and there, myself. Eventually we purchased a Michelia alba tree, after seeing them available at San Gabriel Nursery. The trees were on the higher end of the price range for trees of that size, ostensibly due to the rarity that it was, here in Southern California, and for its prized fragrant flowering blooms, which appear throughout several months out of the year, in the scarce gardening regions 10 and 11, which is basically Southern California, Florida, and perhaps a few other small, scattered locations around America. Prior to purchasing one of the trees, I would commonly visit the trees at the gardening center to smell the flowers.

Here is what Gemini and I came up with, for a reconstitution formulation (a highly valuable feature):

### 10-Gram Trial Batch (Weights)

Since you're ready to mix, here are the weights for a **10-gram sample**. This is the safest way to test the balance without wasting your precious Orris or Lilytol.

| Ingredient | Amount for 10g Batch |

|---|---|

| **Linalool** | 5.30 g |

| **Lilytol** | 0.80 g |

| **Phenylethyl Alcohol (PEA)** | 0.70 g |

| **Benzyl Alcohol** | 0.60 g |

| **Benzyl Acetate** | 0.40 g |

| **Beta-Ionone** | 0.30 g |

| **Ocimene** | 0.25 g |

| **Geranyl Acetate** | 0.20 g |

| **Ethyl 2-methylbutyrate** | 0.15 g |

| **Indole (10% in DPG)** | 0.15 g |

| **Alpha-Terpineol** | 0.15 g |

| **Jasminlactone** | 0.12 g |

| **Beta-Caryophyllene** | 0.10 g |

| **Heliotropin Replacer (10% dil.)** | 0.30 g (This is 3 parts) |

| **Orris Butter (10% dil.)** | 0.10 g (This is 1 part) |

| **Methyl Benzoate (10% dil.)** | 0.05 g |

| **DPG (to finish weight)** | 0.33 g |

| **Total** | **10.00 g** |

Perhaps this gives readers a sense of the smell of the flower. It’s described as very sweet and fruity, while having some facets of other white flowers. 

So, I set out in trying to recreate my favorite visual piece in my loft and in my apartment, in a renewed form, a miniature woodcut panel featuring sparrows and Michelia alba flowers. 

To do this, I had to investigate the tools I would use, in order to complete the job. My search happened around the time of Amazon’s Big Spring Sale, and I found some great deals on tools and parts. 

———————

Break. Taking a break. Here’s some stuff to look at, in the meantime.     

The basic rotary tool kit, with bits, burrs, and a flex shaft.

Some wood carving burr bits.

Drill milling bits.

A 60° V groove bit

A tungsten carbide flame burr bit.

Some other wood carving bits. 

One of 10 various angle V groove bits.

Colored acrylic panels, for a choice of backdrop lighting for the finished art piece.

The original work’s carbon paper, which is used to transfer the tracing of the image on to the woodcut panel, prior to cutting it. 

The carbon outlines and details of the image, on the woodcut panel, with the cut out parts blacked out. 

The original work piece template, as a printing.

A prior version of the art piece, on the board, as a silhouette of the cut out portions.

An earlier version of the carbon tracing.

An imaginative pre-visualization of what the wood panel on backlit colored acrylic could look like. 

A color corrected original image of the art piece.

A grayscale image of the work, for bit depth judgment and for tracing. 

A 3D render of the flat image, as a pre-visualization tool.

Some Dremel 106 bits, for surface detail work.

A long and narrow carbide burr, for chucking out wood more effectively.

Neodyminium magnets, for attaching the acrylic panels to the wood piece (potentially). 

A more recent, angled view of the woodcut panel, where a good portion of the outlines has been completed.

The backlight framing shadow box, with a 5 meter strip light (one white color only).

The frame box, in prototype form, with mounting hardware holding the colored acrylic panel in place, with the backlights on.

10 mil Mylar sheets, for diffusing the light, prior to it hitting the acrylic panel.

Now, about 10 days in to the project, you can get an idea as to what the end product will look like. I’ve gotten a little bit further on the woodcutting panel, and I may have made some slight errors, in cutting out some of the wood parts, such as the birds’ beaks, in one or two cases, but perhaps that will be fixable before the woodcutting is done. I put together the backlight frame, after much shopping around, and I settled on a 5 meter USB-powered white only strip light, which was very cheap, from Temu. I tried some RGB colored puck lights, but the diameter of the lights wasn’t quite sufficient to cover enough surface area, so I guess I’ll use those in some other way. 

Overall, I’m pretty satisfied, so far, with the progress of things; I spent several nights and a couple of days out, doing the woodcutting outdoors, and creating the backlit LED box portion of the project was another task entirely. It’ll take some figuring out, still, as to how the woodcut panel will stick on to the acrylic, and I imagined that it could be done using neodyminium magnets, which are very powerful, for their size, so I purchased some. The entire piece is loosely constructed, mostly because I’d like to have the option to try out different colors of the acrylic panels, since this is the only prototype version of the product that I have, so far. 

Hopefully, in the next few days, I’ll have the silhouette carved out, and we can preview what the woodcut panel will look like, when mounted on top of the light box. 

This is what the woodcut looks like after several work sessions and 11 days later.

I went out and did a work session for a couple of hours, and I’m pretty pleased with the results, so far. The mistakes I had made are reparable, and I’m almost through cutting flush lines out of the cutout sections. I think I might be able to preview the work on the backlit panel this evening, if I put in one more work session, prior to this evening. 

My first rough cut of the silhouette of the woodcut panel, on top of the backlit panel. 

So I spent a couple more hours on chucking out the cut out spots and straightening the edges up, between the form that was to stay put, versus the cut out spots. Someone had mentioned that it’s difficult to make out the subject matter, in this portrayal of the woodcut panel, so I’m thinking that it could be the color of the wood itself, or of the acrylic panel, or perhaps the piece would do better if it had spotlights or dome lights, overhead. I don’t know if I should try to define the forms of the subject matter more so, using fine drill milling, along the surface detail lines, I hadn’t planned for that. Essentially, the original woodcut panel was a more motif-based piece, based on foliage and flourish types of effects of the cut patterns, centered around a lotus flower - much simpler, and the foreground detail was still recognizable, despite that the piece was backlit. 

Next, I placed a white acrylic panel underneath the woodcut, for comparison with the original large form piece. I did some mockup dramatic color shifting, along with boosting some image component sliders here, lowering some others, there. I wanted to take a peek at what the piece would look like with some stain, along with more emphasis on the pencil lining that still exists on the wood, and here, I emphasized the contrast and black point. It gave me a sense of depth to the otherwise flat edged silhouette panel, as though the grooves had been defined by further woodwork (that still needs to be done). In any case, this visualization of the piece gives a far more relatable image, for its detail, and for its color, which would be achieved by applying some wood stain. I think that the piece will look something like this (at least, hopefully), or perhaps a bit better, for being naturally wrought, rather than digitally altered. I just wanted to get the piece to a place right around this spot, to check on the visual effect of the backlighting and to check out different colored acrylic panels, for reference. 

Here’s the panel with a spotlight, and another image with a dome light. Both add definition and detail, in otherwise natural light, and they’re both plausible display scenarios, for the end user.

Natural light and coloration, with a spotlight.

Natural light and coloration, with a dome light.

So, what remains to be done is the surface detail of the piece, making grooves and edging things off, here and there. Outside of trying some stain on the wood panel, which would come later, at the end, or close to it, some surface lighting adds a lot of definition to the existing cuts and tracing lines. 

Here’s what the kit looks like, in the dark. 

Next, I tried a turquoise panel. I’m pretty fond of this combination, in the dark of the night. The nearly black silhouette goes well against a luminous backdrop, and it reminds me of a Bash command line terminal aesthetic. 

Update: Sunday, April 26th, 2026.

I did some experimentation with completing the detail portion of the job, now that I had a decent silhouette worked out. Prior to that, though, I sanded down the corners and edges to remove the bits of wood that were sticking out. For the detail, I worked with Genmitsu v-groove bits, which are basically a set of angled bits, each a different angle, out of a set of 10. I used the sharper ones, maybe 20-30° degree angle bits, for engraving the surface layer portions, as though I were tracing over it with the rotary tool. I wasn’t sure how it would turn out, but I finished it up, earlier this evening, and I put some stain on the wood, and it looks fantastic, in my opinion! Take a look. 

The woodcut, with its first layer of stain.

Here’s the woodcut panel on top of the backlit acrylic box frame, with some spotlight effect on it (otherwise the surface detail is darkened, a lot). 

I guess that the piece could be done over again, I was still learning technique as I was doing this first piece of mine. Maybe some of the parts could be gone over one more time, since there’s some small discrepancies between this woodcut and the original image. The piece looks a lot better miniaturized, which was kind of my concept, to begin with - mini meditation woodcut panels and 3D prints. It’s not all that much poorly done, after examining it some more, I think I just missed a few things, for the most part. 

This is the current look of the piece, the morning after.

Here it is, with a yellow acrylic panel.

After letting the situation (i.e. some of the birds look cartoony, and I suppose I ran the rotary tool a bit ragged, on some of the design features. Aside from that, there’s a few spots that still need hollowing out, and I caught wind of the memory of wood putty, which could be the missing link on some of these surface scoring and engraving blunders on the leaves and birds. There is, also, trim around the edges of the entire relief, which is comprised of bas relief floral and flourish motifs. What’s left to do is figure out if I’m rescuing the piece, or ruining it, by doing more “stuff” to it. Obviously a whole new second try on the piece with a new wood panel would probably turn out better than the first, but I have to figure out if I’m going to try this one again, or if I’ll move on to a different design. 

Continuing forth in critical analysis of the work that’s been done, so far, it came up that the piece is lacking depth and layers of bas relief, which are implied in the original generated image, so I might probably try to excavate some of the surface level of some of the design, to begin with. The wood piece is pretty sturdy, so I think it could hold up well, and have some more work done on it. 

Here’s the lavender-colored acrylic panel, with a dark silhouette of the woodcut. I feel that this one is pretty compelling, it reminds me of Halloween.

The pigeons get cooling off stations, during a SoCal heatwave.

In a turn of fate, to contrast with recent weeks’ days of rain, we here in DTLA have been getting by, now, through a heat wave. Some of the other feeders at Pershing Square in Downtown LA, along with myself, have been keeping up with providing a refreshing pigeon bird bath cooling station accommodation, especially this past week, given how hot it’s been in Los Angeles, at the cusp of the Spring Equinox. Check out the pigeons enjoying their day in the sun, while some of them take advantage of the cool water pans, splashing around and cleaning themselves.

@jay.ammon Pigeons at Pershing Square in downtown Los Angeles are having a great time after a meal, perching on the bushes, concrete, and railings, and some of the birds cool down in some water pans left out for them. #coolingcenter #spring #dtla #birdwatching #cutebirds ♬ Sounds of Pigeon (feat. National Geographic Soundscapes, Soothing Sounds, Nature Sounds New Age, Relaxing Nature Sound & White Noise Sounds For Sleep) - Pigeon Sounds & Animals Sounds & White Noise Ambience

A double haul of fragrance components - Late January-Early February 2026

 The past couple of weeks, or so, have been a whirlwind of fragrance sprayer ingredients mixing. I’d found some very affordable (and, authentic) old favorites that I like, on eBay, namely Spicebomb Extreme, which is for men, and Absolutely Blooming, for women (although I’m using it for myself). I decided to dip in to ladies’ perfume, to boost my room’s aesthetic, and to have some features of femininity in my close proximate area (on me). I’ve been reading that the fragrance is apparently discontinued. Despite these fragrances being old favorites, I started to feel a bit limited, in scent choice, when going out, and I was getting tired of layering the same fragrances on top of each other. 

I was longing for some novelty and versatility, so I went with a concept of one of my own creations, a very skeletal prototype of a men’s fragrance, which I named Eau Pigeonoid, at least, for the time being, that’s what it’s named. The basic concept was that the fragrance opens with some citrus brightness, and, subsequently, a woodsy, coniferous, sweet resinous scent, over a chocolate and tonka aroma, which was somewhat a tasty gourmand musky effect that helped ground the composition. 

I wanted to make some changes to the formula, so, instead of my original 8 ingredients, I consulted with Google Gemini about the fragrance, in intervals, revealing segments of the original Eau Pigeonoid, combined with some features that I wanted to add, such as rum extract, ambrocenide, which I found to be a very popular deep and rich amber fragrance ingredient, and I had some Ultravanil, as well, from an earlier purchase, that I wanted to throw in to a new composition. I hadn’t really used these ingredients in a fragrance composition, just yet. 

So, in the course of brainstorming the new version of a fragrance, based upon the general themes of the original, given my additions that I wanted to make room for, Gemini and I worked out a fantastic ingredients list, where I could pull out all the stops, in the case of this purchase of fragrance ingredients. Ambranum is one of my favorites out of the list below, with its resinous incense-like character, like a raw copal resin sort of take. Patchouli Fractions was another stand out favorite, and it went well with Ambranum and Benzoin Ollifac (the Benzoin, from the original recipe. 

Since I wasn’t too fond of how cloying the original Eau’s citrus opening was, I wanted to have a more ephemeral and fleeting, natural citrus character to the fragrance, so I went with a natural California Lemon and Lime Terpenes. I’d become intrigued by the potential of implementing terpenes in to my fragrance compositions, rather than trying to sort through a bunch of synthetic or altered aroma chemicals, of which there are many available. As I said, the citrus was initially a bit too much, in the original fragrance composition, and it stuck around a long time, and it made the composition take on sort of a smeared mix mash of fragrance components, whereas I envisioned differently, using terpenes, as they were reputed to have generally the same, or desired, type of effect in a fragrance composition, yet, being that they’re natural and not particularly oily (terpenes can be extracted from essential oils, as one of the components of the oil). With the citrus accord I had, including yuzu, petitgrain, and bergamot, I attained a fresh citrusy opening to the fragrance, as the initial highlight of the scent experience, which, now, starts to settle down and really fade, after about 5 minutes, or so. 

I made a couple of different mockups of the new version of Eau Pigeonoid, since I felt that the first one had become too muddy, and it smelled like old men’s aftershave, which is okay, sort of, although I wanted something more cutting edge, and more well-defined. I made a second bottle, which I was happier about, and this time around, I knew the formula better, by memory, so I spent less time conceiving of the number of parts that ought to go in to the fragrance, what order they’re put in, and, I had hoped, with the addition of BHT crystals, the citrus would keep its definition and character, while fading away to allow room for the subsequent woods and sweet musky effect.

I found it surprising, after having made these batches of the remake of Eau Pigeonoid, that Gemini could function so adeptly in the world of fragrance, being that it’s machine based, and, for the fact of that, in general, machines aren’t made to have a sense of smell. For the rum extract component, for example, Gemini recommended giving the rum a new life, with the addition of an oak wood component. I had the choice of trying the absolute, or the CO2, and Gemini recommended the Oakwood CO2, since it had a better character and consistency, within a formulation. I had forgotten what sort of reference I could have, prior to purchasing these ingredients, of a memory of Oak wood’s scent profile, and, upon receiving the product, and sampling Oakwood CO2, I was immediately reminded of the rich, boozy sort of scent of oak casks, for storing and aging rum, for example. The character of oak wood would be a prominent feature, that is to say, in a concept of a true rum aroma.

I bought a few musks, this time around; not the most expensive ones, but, a variety of cheaper and mid-grade musks, since I wanted the dry down of the fragrance to be somewhat light, yet distinct and ethereal. Ethyl Maltol and Ethyl Cyclopentenolone were used in very trace amounts, to achieve a distinct sweet and caramel character to it. I knew that these ingredients were intriguing novelties of this fragrance formulation, yet, also, I imagined that any more than a couple of drops, or a mini scoop of crystals, ought to suffice, since I didn’t want it to smell cheaply sweet. In my original formula, I used Benzoin Ollifac and Tonka Bean Absolute or Key Accord for sweetness. 

5-Methyl-2-Phenyl-2-Hexenal took some getting used to, as a cocoa/chocolate component, as it seemed quite bitter, on first impression. Now, it seems more like natural roasted, ground cocoa bean powder, rather, which is good. I was looking for a cheap alternative for a colorless cocoa component, and I tried out Perfumer’s Apprentice’s Cocoa Essence (Natural), which I found to be very cost effective, and, unlike cocoa absolute, which makes the fragrance liquid milky and thickly colored, I was able to implement cocoa notes without compromising the color of the fragrance composition using these two ingredients.

I added some smokiness to the composition, with some Guaiacwood oil, which comes with a pasty consistency. Part of the reason I reformulated my second try at doing this fragrance was that the second original formulation had a bit too much smokiness to it, although I liked the effect of the smokiness in the mix. Other woods that I implemented were Operanide, Iso E Super, Palo Santo Key Accord, Coniferan Pure, Prismantol, and Patchouli Fractions. I truly was fond of the classic, lighter effect of the patchouli fractions, and I applied it fairly liberally and regularly to the formulation, since I didn’t want it to get buried and left behind. I used Cashmeran somewhat like Ambranum, both of which ended up being primary components of the fragrance mix. I threw in a bit of frankincense and myrrh, to complement the resinous aroma that I was going for, here. 

There were probably just several other ingredients I used, in addition to the ones mentioned, although likely in much smaller, trace quantities. 

SKU:	Product	Quantity	Price	Ext. Price
ac-1098-sz1	5-Methyl-2-Phenyl-2-Hexenal-4ml	1	$7.25	$7.25
fr-1-sz2	Almond Fragrance Oil **-15ml	1	$6.00	$6.00
bl-155_sz1	Ambranum-4ml	1	$17.75	$17.75
ac-1104-sz1	BHT Crystals-8g (0.28 oz)	1	$6.50	$6.50
eo-108_sz1	Blackcurrant Absolute **-4ml	1	$25.00	$25.00
ac-720-sz2	Cashmeran® (IFF) **-15ml	1	$16.75	$16.75
fr-20-sz2	Cassis (Black Currant) Fragrance Oil **-15ml	1	$6.00	$6.00
bl-212-sz1	Cassis 345F (Firmenich) **-4ml	1	$11.75	$11.75
na-6436-sz2	Cocoa Essence (Natural) **-15ml	1	$12.75	$12.75
ac-1059_sz1	Coniferan Pure **-4ml	1	$6.00	$6.00
ac-920-sz4	Coumarin (crystalline powder) **-30g (1.05 oz)	1	$9.50	$9.50
ac-9862-sz1	Ethyl Cyclopentenolone 50% in PG (Firmenich)-4ml	1	$8.00	$8.00
ac-1200-sz1	Ethyl Linalool-4ml	1	$6.25	$6.25
ac-501_sz1	Ethyl Maltol crystals-8g (0.28 oz)	1	$5.50	$5.50
ac-421-sz1	Galaxolide (Musk G)-4ml	1	$6.00	$6.00
eo-7310_sz1	Guaiacwood (Multi-Origin)-4ml	1	$6.50	$6.50
ac-6000-sz1	Habanolide® (Firmenich)-4ml	1	$6.25	$6.25
eo-6505-sz2	Lemon - California **-15ml	1	$14.75	$14.75
ac-2424-sz2	Lime Terpenes (Natural) **-15ml	1	$12.25	$12.25
ac-1194-sz1	Limediene (Bedoukian) **-4ml	1	$21.75	$21.75
ac-1222-sz1	Muscone (Firmenich) **-4ml	1	$14.50	$14.50
eo-217-sz1	Oakwood CO2 Extract **-4ml	1	$9.00	$9.00
ac-1284_sz1	Operanide (IFF) **-4ml	1	$9.75	$9.75
ac-9851_sz1	Patchouli Fractions-4ml	1	$9.75	$9.75
ac-27421-sz1	Precyclemone B (IFF)-4ml	1	$6.50	$6.50
ac-1185-sz2	Prismantol (IFF) **-15ml	1	$15.75	$15.75

Order Notes: None

SubTotal: $277.75 Shipping: UPS Ground $13.03 Tax: $25.89 Total: $316.67

Some of my current fragrance mixing components, at home.

Later, in early February, I got an inkling, probably from my lengthy discussions with Google Gemini, and, also, for going through most of my ingredients collections I’ve acquired, again, so far, of that the narcissus flower could be done much more justice than could be had, with trying out narcissus and jonquil absolute, both of which I tried out, in small quantities, and, which left me disappointed, being that they both smelled very green, somewhat spicy, and stemmy. I don’t recommend, at all, trying out narcissus and jonquil absolute, this being the case. As it turns out, there is no essential oil in narcissus flowers, which is sometimes the case, with some of the fragrant flowers that are used for their fragrance, so, gas chromatography mass spectrometry analyses much more suitably suffice for recreating the fragrances of such flowers that don’t have essential oils to them. After all, narcissus is known, by and large, for its attractive flowers and richly fragrant scent, of which, paperwhite narcissus have a particular character about its fragrance that immediately sparked nostalgia and longing, the moment Gemini had mentioned it, as our discussions went along, during the course of development. 

Although Gemini had neglected, initially, to mention para-cresyl acetate and Para Cresyl Phenyl Acetate (PCPA), one a liquid, the other, powdery crystals, I uncovered that these two components were not only available, from Perfumer’s Apprentice, but that they are also largely considered to be integral in the formulation of a narcissus flowers reconstruction. Indeed, PCPA has a very characteristic floral scent that lends itself strongly to the scent of narcissus flowers. Gemini did not provide the perfect formulation, right off hand, that is to say, but, in the end, it took on my research item additions (PCPA + para-cresyl acetate), and it successfully worked out a beautiful formulation recipe for reconstruction the natural, live fragrance of paperwhite narcissus flowers.

SKU:	Product	Quantity	Price	Ext. Price
ac-814-sz2	Benzyl Acetate (Natural)-15ml	1	$14.75	$14.75
ac-580-sz2	Benzyl Alcohol FCC-15ml	1	$11.00	$11.00
ac-1106-sz1	Cedarwood Terpenes-4ml	1	$7.00	$7.00
ac-1250-sz1	Eucalyptol (Natural) **-4ml	1	$6.00	$6.00
ac-1035-sz1	Indole (Pure) Crystals **-8g (0.28 oz)	1	$6.75	$6.75
na-6699_sz1	Linalool (Natural)-4ml	1	$6.50	$6.50
ac-1129-sz1	Methyl Benzoate (Natural)-4ml	1	$9.50	$9.50
ac-2240-sz1	Methyl Isoeugenol-4ml	1	$7.25	$7.25
ac-2143-sz1	Ocimene **-4ml	1	$8.00	$8.00
ac-1036-sz2	Para Cresyl Phenyl Acetate Crystals-8g (0.28 oz)	1	$16.25	$16.25
ac-2551-sz1	Para-cresyl acetate-4ml	1	$6.25	$6.25

Order Notes: None

SubTotal: $99.25 Shipping: UPS Ground $13.06 Tax: $9.68 Total: $121.99   Payments: Gift Card $100.00 CREDITCARD $21.99

The final formulation recipe for the reconstitution of paperwhite narcissus flowers, obtained via Gas Chromatography Mass Spectroscopy headspace analysis of the air surrounding the fresh flowers. I made only 10% of the listed parts, for my batch of paperwhite narcissus fragrance oil, since I was just experimenting with creating a headspace flower reconstruction. 

Ingredient	Parts	Note
(E) -beta-Ocimene	500	Neat (Pure)
PCPA (10% Solution in IPM)	400	<-- This delivers 40 parts of scent
Benzyl Acetate	200	Neat
1,8-Cineole	80	Neat
Indole (10% dil.)	60	(Already diluted)
Linalool	50	Neat
Benzy Alcohol	30	Neat
Methyl Benzoate	20	Neat
Para-Cresyl Acetate	10	Neat
Methyl Isoeugenol	10	Neat

In truth, the recipe turned out fantastic, as a powerfully diffusive authentic replication of the smell of paperwhite narcissus flowers, with no unnecessary components kept in the formula. I highly recommend this project, which costs about $100 to do, from Perfumer’s Apprentice, for DIY and aspiring fragrance makers. It came out very strong, and one spray of the concentrate, diluted at 25%, at minimum, ends up lasting about 2 hours, or so, on the skin. It smells great, and it’s a suitable season-themed project to do, being that flowering plant bulbs are being sold in gardening stores, around this time of year, paperwhite narcissus bulbs, amongst them. 

A line art illustration of paperwhite narcissus flowers.

Update: more instructions and tips for making your own reconstitution of paperwhite narcissus.

One thing that I should mention is that you’ll need a solvent to keep the oils (and powder - para cresyl phenyl acetate is a powder) diluted in, especially the para cresyl phenyl acetate. One thing to note is that para cresyl phenyl acetate powder is tough to work with - it won’t dissolve easily, at room temperature. I read that putting a glass container in a hot water bath will help the PCPA become diluted, but I didn’t have a glass container like that handy, so I tried plastic. It didn’t work all that well, so I tried diluting the PCPA is more isopropyl myristate, a scentless solvent, related to isopropyl alcohol, somewhat, and it also has the capability to allow dissolved materials to permeate the skin - you could notice some warming effects from some oils, and I found that the paperwhite narcissus oil’s “feel” is somewhat cool, surely on account of the Eucalyptol (1,8-cineole) being present in a kind of small amount. The skin permeation feature of it isn’t too powerful, though. The isopropyl myristate also feels fairly emollient, not quickly evaporative, like isopropyl alcohol. 

So, anyways, I tried diluting the PCPA in more isopropyl myristate, and I didn’t have much success getting the crystalline powder to become diluted in the solvent, although shaking it up in a closed small plastic container did work better, and I got a fair amount of the powder dissolved. I only made 10% of the recipe listed, and I did it as drops being one part. You might want to have a 0.00 scale handy to measure out your portion of PCPA, which I roughly calculated, for a 10% by drops equivalent weight ratio for the ingredient, to be about half a gram, although I had to account for undissolved crystals that were left in my dilution container, so I added about 1/10th to 1/4 gram more, and the base amount for the formula, which worked out well, was about 1/2 a gram, so up to 0.6g-0.75g of PCPA for the 10% reconstitution formula. The amount of isopropyl myristate I used was pretty heavy handed, at 4 mL. I somewhat wrongly estimated how much workspace I was allowing myself, given that I was working with 5mL spray bottles, as my workspace.

Para cresyl phenyl acetate crystal powder, and a 5mL spray bottle. 

Giving myself 4mL of isopropyl myristate made it so my container would be overfilled, given the other oils that need to be mixed in, so I ended up splitting the contents between two containers, and, at the end, when I was done mixing the ingredients together, I just poured the contents out of and back in to one another, to mix it easily. So, if you have 4mL of isopropyl myristate to 0.5-0.75g para cresyl phenyl acetate, that’s plenty to dissolve the crystals in, although you have to consider your workspace bottle’s own particular volume capacity. The thing is, is that, shaking the crystals up, in the solvent, helped to dilute the crystals more than putting my plastic spray bottle in a hot water bath. This dissolving step is important, because the solubility of the crystals affects the diffusion of the ingredient, when sprayed. It’s quite a powerful ingredient, when sprayed. You have to make sure that the crystals are dissolved well, or else your spray bottle will become clogged with solids, and you would have a hard time measuring out equal portions of concentrate in to separate containers, which is how I did my process - with multiple containers. 

About half a gram of para cresyl phenyl acetate - a suitable amount for making 10% of the above described formula, which is plenty, to last you several weeks, to several months or more, even if you sprayed it all the time, when you go out.

Aside from dissolving the crystals, following the recipe is fairly easy and straightforward. You’ll want to have some kind of plastic or glass dropper, to count out the drops per part you’re putting in to your container, and it’s simple to follow the recipe, using 10% of the numbers listed, to create a small amount of fragrance concentrate, which will happen to be a very powerful concentrate, with enough of it to suffice making anywhere from 16 oz. to a half gallon, or so, of dilute hydrosol water. I left my concentrate very powerful, at a 25% dilution, but Gemini advised me of that 1mL of this concentrate would make 16 oz. of hydrosol water.

If you’ve never mixed fragrances with professional ingredients, you might find some of the ingredients to smell strange, some of them powerfully diffuse and fragrant. Don’t worry, though, the recipe makes an authentic portrayal of paperwhite narcissus flowers, and I’d say that all of the components are necessary, even if you only use 5 drops, 1 drop, etc. for some of them, and 4mL is the minimum you can purchase, from Perfumer’s Apprentice. Note that if you’ve never mixed wanted to make this formula in huge bulk, there’s Consolidated Chemicals and Solvents’ Ocimene, being offered in 250mL-1 liter sizes, for cheap prices. You would only require the minimum sized 4mL bottles of each ingredient, to do this project. You definitely should not use the fragrance concentrate undiluted, be sure to mix it in to 4 parts solvent for each 1 part concentrate, at the very minimum. A larger set of travel-sized spray bottles might make more sense, if you don’t like to go heavy on the fragrance. 

If you wanted to, just for fun, you could compare the fragrance concentrate to the real flowers, ideally in fall or winter, although some shops may offer the bulbs year-round. The bulbs are very easy to grow.

Paperwhite Narcissus flowers in bloom.

Oh! I forgot about indole, which also comes as a powder, for this formula. This powder is much easier to dissolve, and it will dissolve easily, without any hurdles or obstacles in the way. 1 part indole powder (1/10th of a gram) to 9 parts isopropyl myristate. You could also opt for perfumers alcohol, or 190 proof alcohol, for the solvent, instead of isopropyl myristate, but, in general, the initial investment for starting out with a small amount is much higher with the alcohol, and you might also only find large amounts of alcohol (relatively) available.