Castello di Potentino
Scent and Scentabilty with Celia Lyttelton
Starts on: Saturday, April 28, 2018
Ends on: Sunday, April 1, 2018
Price: Starting from - based on available rooms and number of guests, fill out the form for total price.
Scent and Scentabilty with THE SCENT TRAIL author Celia Lyttelton. Explore your sense of smell and create your own perfumes whilst enjoying delicious aromatic food and wine tastings.
The four-day course at Castello di Potentino will be orchestrated by Celia Lyttelton; she is a scent critic and the author of THE SCENT TRAIL, How One Woman's quest for the Perfect Perfume Took Her Round the World. Published by Bantam and Penguin.
Celia Lyttelton is an art critic and scent correspondent. Her book The Scent Trail: A Journey of the Senses, a definitive account of the history of scent and a travelogue, was published by Transworld in 2007. It is Published in the U.S by Penguin and it was also published in Canada, Australia, Japan, Korea and Italy.
She has written for numerous magazines, papers and journals around the world, ranging from,Vogue, Elle Decoration, Tatler, World of Interiors, Harpers & Queen, The Spectator, the auction house magazines Bonhams and Christies, and Talk magazine to Art & Auction in the US, the Evening Standard, Telegraph, Financial Times, Western Mail, The Irish Times and Independent in the UK. She is also the UK’s first scent critic for International News. She has had her own blog on the Huffington Post and she is currently a writer for Timeless Travels and Archaeology, the Guardian, Homes and Antiques, U.K. and The World of Interiors. In 2015 she received a research grant from the Society of Authors. She is currently researching a book on a modern British artist and his circle. Celia is the author of two books on contemporary art, THE NOW ART BOOK and FLOATING WORLDS, both of which were published in Japan.
Having spent ten years writing about 'looking' (at Art) she decided to switch senses to that of smell and discover the world of perfume and combine it with her love of traveling to far flung places from the incense groves in Socotra in the Arabian Ocean to the Phoenician damasc rose fields in southern Morocco on the edge of the Sahara.
Currently, she is working with CNN on a program about Middle Eastern scents and the history of Perfume in the Levant and Asia Minor. She helping to make an archive of perfume formulas to be made into a library of all the great perfumes that have been made over the millennia which is located at Arlington House in London. She teaches courses of the art of making scent and makes bespoke scents for friends and clients from her olfactorium of rare oils and unguents.
Fees include:
- Full board and lodging in the castle for four nights.
- Transfers to Potentino from Florence and back again
- Two sessions a day with Celia Lyttelton during which you will learn:
- The basic principles and about the equipment for perfume-making, getting acquainted with pipettes and blotters.
- The seven families of perfume
- How to unleash your own sense of smell
- How to determine your own perfume profile
- How to make a scent from aromatic bases
- How to build a pyramid of notes and familiarize yourself with the gamut of odours
- To explore and work around specific aromatic families and their raw materials
- To make and blend accords and devise formulas and compose a scent and much more.
- To use the castle's Alembic to make an essential oil from the local herbs and plants
- Wine tasting with the castle’s winemaker Charlotte Horton with a special emphasis on the articulation of taste and smell
- Each student will have an olfactorium; a box of essential oils and blends from which to experiment and make their own bespoke scents.
If you have any questions before you book, do not hesitate to email us alexander.greene@potentino.com or telephone us on +390564950643.
Day 1 Thursday
Fly in to Pisa or Florence and transfer to Castello di Potentino
Evening
Welcome dinner.
Day 2- Friday
Morning
A brief History of Perfume and Aromatics; followed by a practical session grasping the rudiments and equipment for perfume-making, learning how to use pipettes, blotters and putting a 'fan' of blotters together to make an accord.
Afternoon
Learning about the raw materials and the difference between essential oils, absolutes, gums and resins and composing a classic oriental perfume, an eau de cologne and a Chypre base; (the trial bottles will be evaluated the next day.)
Evening
Wine and olive oil tasting concentrating on aromatics and the articulation of taste followed by a light dinner.
Day 3- Saturday
Morning
How a scent is composed of top, middle and base notes, building a pyramid of notes with which to make a scent using pyramid formula diagrams and mood moods.
Afternoon
Composing and blending accords with a 'perfumer's palette' of oils for your own bespoke scent with two or three trial bottles.
Evening
An aromatic, scent inspired dinner making use of local herbs and spices and if the weather permits foraged ingredients.
Day 4- Sunday
Morning
Having divined a scent, give it a name and further fine tune it. Gathering from the pastures and outlying vineyards scent bearing-plants and herbs to distil in an alembic and see how essential oils are produced.
Afternoon
We forage for ingredients and then make an essential oil using the castle's copper alembic.
While the alembic bubbles away, we start on the composition of a scent from a Renaissance recipe using the essential oils distilled in the alembic as an aromatic base.
Evening
Dinner cooked by a local guest chef with local cheeses and cured meats.
Day 5- Monday
Morning
We finish the renaissance scent started on Sunday before heading home.
I would encourage anyone to come and stay in this fabulous castle.
Celia is a wonderful guide through the world of aromas, with years of research and knowledge to share. As well as teaching us the practical skills of creating scents, she educated us with tales from the history and art of perfume, and entertained us throughout the day with funny and fascinating stories from her travels around the world.
Altogether it was just the best fun, with great company and amazing dinners, and one of the most enjoyable courses I have been on.
I now have my very own perfume called Memory and I will treasure it!
Staying in Potentino and learning about making ones own perfume with the talented knowledgeable enthusiast Celia Lyttleton.
My senses of different aromas, notes which have lain dormant were awakened, with the ambience is this stunning chateau, surrounded by their own vineyards, which we also sampled.
I came away with ancient concoctions, natural essences and a deep sense of wanting to make my own scent. All thanks to the generosity of tutelage from Celia who wrote the famous book The Scent trial and Alexander Greene, the owner of this awe-inspiring chateau. I personally felt a whole new being, learning about all the totally different essences that one can use to make your own aroma- a perfume.
Staying at Potentino, the natural herbs, recipes to entice the palate along with wine tasting is one of my most memorable days to recollect. I was so inspired that I have a new idea simmering away, I highly recommend this incredible adventure in learning about essences, oils and staying in Potentino.
Emily Naper -