Scents of a woman Travel Video duration – 6.49 minutes The Art of Scent St. George, Bermuda Travel Video Search for the Good Life Fashion St. George is one of the prettiest places in all of Bermuda. These old building painted pinks and blues and greens, reflecting the colors of Nature. The streets are steeped in history. And so is the art of perfumery. The Bermuda Perfumery Hello Hi there I love this one. What’s it called? Isabelle Ramsay-Brackstone Owner, Lili Bermuda It’s Southwester. Southwester is a brand new fragrance we just launched last week. It has some lovely coconut milk, a bit of guava and some sea salt. It’s lovely. The displays are so charming and the whole building is charming. How old is this building? It’s a three hundred year old house, one of the oldest houses in St. Georges. It’s all beautiful, made of Bermuda cedar and carved stone. St. George is a World Heritage Site from UNESCO and Stewart Hall is one of the oldest houses in St. Georges. And so do you sell all your perfumes here? Yes. All our perfumes are sold here. We make them. We create... You make them here? Yes we create everything. We them in our own perfumery... If you want, I can show you. You can show me how you make them? Absolutely. I like to come here because this is where I show people how we work. How our art becomes reality. What is this? What are these charts? These are what we call genealogy. So I like to put these on, so that people can see – which family of scents they like more than others, and then we can determine which one, from my collection. Most of my fragrances are very floral because, as a perfumer in Bermuda, my art reflects my environment. Has anyone ever asked you to create a custom scent for them? Absolutely. We customize fragrances and they are very complex. I mean, each of our fragrances contains from fifteen to a hundred different ingredients. A perfume is a symphony – it has a beginning, a middle and an end. And so we’re very patient with our customers. It takes very big commitment from them, because they have to come back to us and really explain to us the emotions that they want to have in their perfumes and they have to co-operate with us very much so that we can do that for them and give them the perfume of their dream. So the perfumery is not actually in the house? No it’s right here; it’s an old little house which was built as a servant house to the main house. This garden is gorgeous. Thank you. Is this were you find your muses? Absolutely. My beautiful roses, oleander, passion flower, frangipani.. That’s a honeysuckle. (Laughter) I’d like to see the perfumery. Come in All our essential oils are made by specialized companies. We like to use the best available oils. However there’s no one to make Bermuda Cedar oil for us, so we do it ourselves. So basically, what I have here, what I’m going to do is to make a tincture out of the Bermuda Cedar. So what I have in the bottle is Bermuda Cedar, sawdust and wood chips and I’m infusing just simple alcohol, special alcohol that you make perfume with because it doesn’t smell anything, and then I’m going to let it soak for about 48 hours. What is the purpose of soaking the wood with the alcohol? What happens is that the alcohol extracts the smell of the cedar and then I’m going to filter the tincture out of the bottle, so there’ll be no wood chips left. And then I’m going to use that to make my cologne. I’m going to blend this tincture with some solvent as well as a bit of rosemary oil, bergamot, lavender and then I’m going to let it sit and macerate for about three months. What are these bottles over here? Yes. The bottles are the perfumes and eau de toilette at their final stage of maceration. So we let them sit like that and age for between three to six months so that all the ingredients harmonize themselves to each other. When they are ready, we do a final filtration and then we do all the bottling and packaging upstairs, of our main house. So, Kirby right now is filling the bottles. Hi Kirby How are you? Good. Thank you... So this handsome gentle man is your husband? Yes. So, Kirby fills the bottles. Right now, we’re filling 32° north which is a great men’s fragrance. And then, we put the pump in the bottle. Which is also done by hand. Yes. And then we will go and crimp the pump on the bottle. So what are the finishing touches that you do on the bottle? Well, then we have to polish it and then tag them, put the cap on and this it. And then, each one gets a little tag. I love this. It has the name of it on there. Absolutely. They all have their own colors. Ready to go, just put in the box and that’s it. So this is ready to go home now? Yeah, with the box, yes. Isabelle, who comes to visit your shop? A lot of visitors, locals alike. Everybody passionate with the art of perfumery. People looking for something very unique, they come to see us, fall in love with our fragrances... I’ve fallen in love, myself and I’m taking this one home with me.