McAlester News-Capital, McAlester, OK

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    perfume de la susan
February 1, 2007

Personal fragrance can help you stand out from the crowd

By Susan Woolsey

Even though there’s snow on the ground and it’s the first day of February, there is a scent of sun-warmed gardenia in the newsroom.

It’s wafting through our stuffy noses and reminding us all of springtimes past.

There’s also a hint of Hawaiian rain, sending our thoughts to shores much warmer than those of Lake Eufaula just a few miles north.

And in the conference room, where Karen McGaugh opened small vials of perfumed oil, there still lingers a bit of peach blossom, almond and freesia.

McGaugh is an Urban Botanic consultant who makes it possible for anybody to create their own personalized perfume, body lotion, bubble bath and shower gel — just like J.Lo, Paris Hilton and even the mega-rich Olsen twins.

“It’s about celebrating individuality,” McGaugh said of creating one’s own scent. “It’s all about you, and treating yourself.”

Whether you do it individually, or with some friends to help out, it can be a lot of fun.

The first step is to take a personality test to find out if one is floral, fruity, herby, leafy, spicy or woodsy.

But that’s just a starting point and nothing is set in stone. “Sometimes people take the test and find out they’re herby, but they actual choose a floral,” she said. “That’s the great thing about this — you choose what you want.”

After the personality test it’s time to start sniffing through the 66 different aromas that are just waiting to be blended into personalized scents.

It’s a process that can seem a bit overwhelming, but if you end up with a scent that isn’t what you thought it would be, “Just throw it away and start again.”

McGaugh recommends choosing three to five scents “that you really like, then start putting a few drops of each at a time in the mixing glass.”

Someone who is considered herby may want to start out with lavender, chamomile and tomato leaf. A woodsy type might choose cedwarwood, Egyptian musk and myrrh. Florals might choose gardenia, jasmine, mimosa and wisteria.

The scents can be mixed in any order and don’t have to stay in certain classifications.

For instance, gardenia from the floral group, Hawaiian rain from the leafy collection, plus a scent called naked from the fruity one makes a clean-smelling scent that everyone in the newsroom seems to like — or if they don’t, they’re nice enough not to mention it.

Once the scents have been chosen, it’s time to stir the mixture with a wooden stick and smell of it. Add more, a drop at a time, or, if it’s perfect, move on to step four.

“This is where we duplicate the scent and add it to the product,” McGaugh said, adding the gardenia, naked and Hawaiian rain mixture to a bottle filled with a clear liquid, shaking it and finishing the creation of a scent that the consultant said is unique and hypo-allergenic.

“It contains no formaldehyde, no alcohol and no butane,” McGaugh said. “We use the best ingredients and stay away from the toxins.”

And, the scents are made up immediately, so “you don’t have to wait for your order to come in,” she said. “There is no ordering.

“You choose your scent and walk away with it.”

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