Daphne Camf

All natural bespoke perfume and other natural handmade products from Melbourne. Email or DM for custom perfume enquiries. [email protected] IG: @daphnecamf

[daphnecamf]

This is one of the most unconventional perfumes I’ve made, owing to two particular ingredients. Feel free to stop here if you’re uncomfortable reading about animal-derived ingredients, or are squeamish in general.

Traditionally, musk notes in perfumery were literally derived from the musk of animals. Nowadays they’re comprised of synthetic ingredients in commercial perfumes.

Castoreum is a type of musk extracted from the anal glands of beavers. I was randomly given a small sample of castoreum (still unsure why, to be honest), and since Sally wanted a perfume that was musky, warm and skin-like, she was ok with me using castoreum in her scent - better than letting it go to waste. It’s a dark brown, watery absolute that smells predictably but subtly animalic, blending easily with other notes.

The second atypical ingredient in this scent is the base note of Ambroxan, which I solubilised at a fairly hefty portion. Ambroxan is the modern replacement for ambergris, another outmoded traditional perfumery ingredient - solid secretions from the bile ducts of sperm whales, found either floating in the sea, washed up on beaches, or in the abdomens of dead whales (although it usually leaves whales via the bowel). Like castoreum, ambergris was once commonly used to imbue perfumes with a musky, earthy scent.

Ambroxan however, is a naturally occurring terpenoid, a molecule usually attained through extraction from clary sage. It smells nothing like clary sage though but rather, how (I assume) ambergris smells - musky, skin-like, slightly sweet. To my nose it also smells a bit like clean laundry, with faint leather notes? Commercial perfumes built specifically around Ambroxan include Molecule 02 by Escentric Molecules and Not A Perfume by Juliette Has A Gun.

The resulting perfume I made is amber-y, animalic, musky and luxurious smelling, with strong incense notes. I included jasmine at an extremely tiny proportion purely to add sweetness to all the heavy, churchy, resinous notes - not enough for the perfume to fall into the floral category, or to even smell discernibly like jasmine.

[daphnecamf]

I’m doing custom orders again - technically I didn’t exactly stop but mostly focused on making refills of existing bespoke scents this year, since I had a fairly severe case of lockdown lobotomy brain .

My friend Anne pretty much gave me free reign making this room spray which made me get slightly adventurous. It’s a bit more perfume-y than most room sprays. If you look inside my fridge, its contents are 25% medication, 25% food, 50% handmade tinctures in various states of completion (they take 6-9 months to be ready for use). Just rows of bottles and jars containing ugly looking but pleasant smelling liquids.

A few arbitrary pieces of information about this room spray: clary sage is contra-indicated in pregnancy (it can induce labour). Vanilla oleoresin is vanilla extract minus the solvent (alcohol) used for extraction. It doesn’t have the dessert-like, gourmand scent of vanilla extract used in cooking, but a far subtler, more softly rounded scent.

[daphnecamf]

I made a room spray for a band I play in - SaD.

Comprised of an arrangement of heavy and light scent notes, its deep, moody base notes of frankincense and vetiver are balanced by the delicate sweetness of peru balsam and mildly herbaceous hints of juniper. As well as scenting and grounding your living space, it can also be used as a body spray (patch test first).

$30 + postage - includes digital download of new album ‘Saturn Rules The Material World’.

Design by SIMONASPRGRFKA

[daphnecamf]

I do 10ml testers upon request for bespoke perfumes for customers who want to further customise a scent before committing to a larger size. This perfume is summer nights in a bottle ie jasmine-based. I used a subtle combination of woods - Australian sandalwood is slightly bitter, while rosewood is sweet (hence its name). Rachel mentioned liking eucalyptus so I added fragonia (a flowering shrub native to Western Australia) for a floral-based eucalyptus-like zing💥, minus the eye-watering intensity of eucalyptus essential oil.

[daphnecamf]

Nat was after a room spray centred around sandalwood. I always like contrasting woods with citrus, and added a small amount of palo santo to highlight the pungency of sandalwood. I feel like “pungency” is the only appropriate descriptor - both woods possess a quality less commonly found in other woods - a combination of mildly sweet, indolic notes and a slight, almost petrol-like pungency (in a good way). It’s been satisfying creating more room sprays lately - scenting peoples’ living spaces at a time when we’re spending a significant amount of time housebound.

[daphnecamf]

Custom room spray for Yuka who wanted something floral and light.

[daphnecamf]

Bespoke perfume for Sharryn. We initially started with 10ml so I could tweak the formula if necessary. With this iteration I made some adjustments according to her feedback - less orris root tincture, more smoke and vanilla notes, and the addition of rose. It smells a lot more decadent than the original formula. Some of the absolutes and essential oils used come in a deep brown shade, rendering the perfume a slightly murky brown. I didn’t filter it since I didn’t want to filter out some of the more viscous absolutes that don’t solubilise as easily. It smells better than it looks.

[daphnecamf]

I made this room spray for my beloved friend Simo Soo’s birthday recently. You know that memed Internet catchphrase that says someone “should be protected at all costs”? That phrase applies to Simo without any irony whatsoever. The raw crystals in the pic - rose quartz, clear quartz and black tourmaline - represent the tiny crystals inside the room spray - tourmalated quartz is clear quartz with stripes of black tourmaline.

[daphnecamf]

Next Wave Festival are holding a lucky dip with a luxe list of items you could win if you enter before June 30th - including a 10ml vial of Choya Nakh.

Choya Nakh: a vanilla-based natural perfume oil featuring essential oil of roasted seashell, which lends a smoky warmth to the fragrance. Other notes include green tea, neroli, rosewood and ylang ylang, in a base of organic jojoba oil.

[daphnecamf]

50ml natural hand sanitisers are back in stock. $4 each plus $8 postage within Australia. Pickup available within Melbourne (DM me). Also available without the essential oils for those with sensitive skin.

Ingredients: alcohol, aloe vera, essential oils of tea tree and lavender, grapefruit seed extract

[daphnecamf]

A musky, vanilla-y, tobacco-y, slightly smoky concoction for Sharryn. I use vanilla in minute amounts even in scents that are vanilla-based, since it’s so strong and can tend towards smelling a bit too gourmand - instead I surround the vanilla with other vanilla-esque notes to try and create a more nuanced vanilla tone. I’ve kept the formula for this one relatively simple with the option of further customisation if needed.

Ingredients: orris root tincture, essential oils of choya ral, vanilla, amber, tobacco absolute, labdanum absolute

[daphnecamf]

I made this custom perfume for the partner of a customer recently - I’ve found solace in my concoctions lately since every other industry I’m in (music, makeup artistry, etc) has been impacted massively during these times. Grateful to have creative projects I can work on at home.

Jasmine is the dominating scent in this fragrance - this perfume is a cloud of floral, underpinned by citrus notes. The additional notes in the scent are used sparingly, sitting subtly within the formula.

Ingredients: orris root tincture, essential oils of neroli, amber, bergamot, frankincense, mandarin, jasmine sambac absolute, green tea absolute

[daphnecamf]

My natural hand sanitiser has sold out - the stores were out of the kind of aloe needed (100% natural, no additives) so I resorted to partially decimating my aloe plant to finish making orders. Will restock as soon as possible.

[daphnecamf]

I know there’s conflicting advice about making your own hand sanitiser but I personally think it’s fine as long as it contains at least 60% alcohol. Feel free to correct me if I’m mistaken. Technically you can make this quite easily yourself, but since I have access to very large quantities of ethanol I thought I’d offer it for sale, since the shelves in most stores have been stripped bare.

This 40ml bottle (slightly battered from repeated refills) contains 70% ethanol, aloe vera, plus tea tree and lavender essential oils and grapefruit seed extract for added antibacterial action. Won’t dry your hands out.

I know times are tough financially for many people, especially the self-employed and unemployed. I’m selling these for $4 for 50ml, $3.50 if you provide your own bottle. I can sell in person (PM me) otherwise postage is $8.50. If you’re really struggling financially, message me and I’ll whip one up at no cost. I believe there may also be a few larger bottles of these still available at Perfect Splash?

Wishing everyone good health during these trying times - let’s work together to flatten the curve.

[daphnecamf]

Whipped up this bespoke scent for Nic to gift to the lovely Margarita for Christmas. Its main note is vanilla, which dries down to reveal soft woods and a hint of white flowers - the florals are used sparingly to sit in the background of the scent, since so many of the notes of this perfume already contain sweet undertones.

Ingredients: handmade benzoin tincture, essential oils of vanilla, Australian sandalwood, cedarwood, amber, rosewood, frankincense, jasmine sambac absolute, neroli absolute

[daphnecamf]

‘Saudade’ is back in stock at Muses Of Mystery, both in store and online. I’m grateful and humbled by the feedback I’ve received about this scent - I decided to make something according to my own personal olfactory tastes, so it makes me glad that others share the same appreciation for its amber-y mood. Because Saudade is 100% natural - composed of handmade tincture, essential oils, and absolutes, some subtle variation may occur between batches, which I see as neither a good or bad thing, but an inevitable part of the slightly wabi sabi nature of adopting traditional techniques in natural perfumery.

Ingredients: handmade orris root tincture, cucumber hydrosol, essential oils of amber, amyris, petitgrain, frankincense, greenheart wood, lavender, cedarwood, neroli, ambrette seed, clary sage, labdanum absolute, oakmoss absolute

[daphnecamf]

I made this room spray for ultimate power couple Phill and Julia recently. I made a point of using green tea absolute because it’s one of my favourite absolutes. It doesn’t smell how you’d expect it to smell. It smells green, but it doesn’t smell like tea (since it’s extracted from the fresh leaf and hasn’t gone through the drying and fermentation process of the kind of green tea you drink).

Ingredients: alcohol, distilled water, essential oils of frankincense and petitgrain, green tea absolute