Ninjaneering

As you can see from my tags, Ninja is something I rather adore. Adore? No. Obsess over. It is a rich, sultry, sexy, intoxicating, lush spicy oriental fragrance that is discontinued, dammit. Gone, but for the rare bottle you can sometimes find on Ebay.

As an aside: Ninja is never an inappropriate gift for me. Like a good bourbon, it’s something I would always appreciate. Just so you know.

Ever since I was a kid I mixed up potions. Some of them smelled great. Some of them made dangerous sounds and behaved oddly. I had a chemistry set with poisons in it — they let kids have poison in our chemistry sets in the 70s, remember? Mine had cyanide in it. I played with it for hours, looking at slides and mixing diatomaceous earth with Coke to see what would precipitate.

I was all set to be a Mad Scientist but high school chemistry kicked my butt. So I became a frustrated artist instead. My Muse is really fickle, making me do all these crafty things. I paint. I draw. I sew. I make musical noise sometimes. I pick up rocks and turn them into jewellery. And… I make stuff that smells nice.

Had I but known of the world of industrial fragrance, I would have struggled until I achieved chemistry, so I could make laundry soap that smells of patchouli and musk instead of “spring mountains”. I would have happily created the next best thing to Old Spice. But no, I did not know of that, and there are no fragrance schools in the United States.

So I dabbled in the spice cabinet. Our stove had a pilot light and I would sneak out everything that smelled good and sprinkle some of it on the pilot light cover (which got hot), and see how it smelled with this, smelled with that. My dad was into herbology (hey, 1970s) and had a lot of suppliments around. I’d sneak a capsule of this, a pinch of that, and try it out on the pilot light too. I was careful not to get caught at this but I think they noticed the fragrant haze hovering in the kitchen.

Later on I learned of essential oils from a neighborhood health food store. As a young adult I bought some herb and aromatherapy books and began learning about these materials. I came into perfumery from the aromatherapy end, and when I came across a book on making incense, it made a big impact on me. My book collection has grown to include several shelves of herbology, potpourri, incense making, aromatherapy, perfumery, and quite a few books on making bodycare products as well.

These days, I craft incense, I moderate a group on incense making, and I make oils for personal fragrance, healing, and spellwork. Sometimes I teach others how to make incense, in addition to all the other stuff that Miss Muse has me doing. I had to go into the metaphysical industry — I had no other choice. I tried to be a tax attorney but she stomped her little Muse foot and said no way, you are doing this with your life.

Sigh.

But what can you do when your primary sense is Smell? I am not kidding. It is an affliction and a blessing at once.

What follows is a review of one of my favorite fragrances in the whole world, recently posted on the Basenotes forum.

Ninja is a spicy, sultry, powdery oriental fragrance somewhat similar to Cinnabar and Opium, but with much more pronounced spice and a tenacious cling.

Parfums de Coeur first registered the trademark NINJA for use June 26, 1981. They renewed the mark March 21 2003, although production of Ninja had been discontinued. The mark is set to expire March 21, 2013. Since this is listed as officially discontinued on their website, it seems likely that they will allow the name to lapse.

I spoke with an employee at Parfums de Coeur in July 2011 and discussed Ninja’s future. It is my firm impression that they fully intend to never produce it again. I told them there seems to be a small mob of women who would clamor to buy the first bottle if they brought back the original formula — I stressed “don’t change ANYTHING”. I also let them know that I would be willing to pay department store prices for this fragrance. This is a quality perfume and should never have been released for $9.95, it should have been a midrange item even then. The employee seemed to perk up at this and said she would definitely pass that along to marketing.

Ninja is one of my all-time favorite perfumes. As a redhead, I have problems with fragrance evaporating from my skin within minutes of applying it. Ninja seems to just soak right in and stay there. I can smell it hours later.

A bottle of this smashed in my closet in high school in the 80s and I can still smell it when I visit my parents’ house. The cinnamon and cloves in it have kept that closet moth-free and this is where my mum stores all her wools.

When I was in high school, I owned a red acrylic sweater and sprayed it with Ninja (both were holiday gifts). The perfume contains a high concentration of cinnamon oil and I think it bonded permanently to that sweater. My mum still has it and you can still smell it faintly, although it has been laundered many times.

Did I mention it has a long life? 25 years is incredible.

As an independent (and still kinda green) perfumer I am attempting to recreate Ninja. A friend and fellow Ninja fanatic who hoarded the last inch of her last bottle for the past 10 years has let me borrow it to smell while I work on the formula. This is like trying to reverse engineer chocolate chip cookies without an ingredients crib. Every attempt I make in this Ninjaneering project I get closer. The failures are beginning to smell pretty good, but it’s just not Ninja yet. It’s like glimpsing an old lover in a crowded terminal, there for a minute then gone.

Ninja is primarily labdanum, a rich deep amber smoked out with birch tar and softened by storax. There is myrrh, oppoponax, and black pepper, vanilla and nutmeg, clove, cinnamon, and carnation. Just a bit of bayberry, bergamot, patchouli, and sandalwood. A hint of very dry frankincense and neroli. Jasmine and balsam peru and just a touch of peach. The main notes are amber, cinnamon, and carnation.

This would make an amazing snack… What you couldn’t eat, you could drink as a tea. Chai tea and gingerbread and spiced fruit chutney. The smell of Ninja is intoxicating. If you are partial to spicy orientals, this one will rock your world.

Stay tuned for further developments. Someone is going to make Ninja again. If Parfums de Coeur doesn’t do it, I will!

Trademark info here:
http://tess2.uspto.gov/bin/showfield?f=doc&state=4001:v1njru.4.143