Seeking Balance

2021
Eau de Parfum
Diane St. Clair - St. Clair Scents

Diane: This perfume, Seeking Balance, was initiated in the Spring of 2020 when so many of us were living in isolation to help reduce Covid cases. A good friend of mine, multi-sensory artist Erika Senft Miller, asked, “When things shift, how do you keep your balance?”

How to represent “seeking balance” through the olfactory medium of perfume? After making trials combining a variety of clashing notes to represent the opposition to norms that Covid rules ask us to live with, I changed course. I decided to seek balance in aromas that calm us, ground us and center us through breath—odors of earth, woods, resins, and roots under our feet; calming flowers and plants; fruits and citrus oils.

This perfume is a collaboration with Erika Senft Miller who created the unique artwork to accompany this perfume creation. This was done through a process of dialogue about the meaning of balance and a back and forth response, changing the art in response to modifications in the scent.

Dave: Oily citrus opens into fresh lavender and a complex rose accord that’s linked by buttery ylang ylang and labdanum to a resinous, rooty base of oakmoss, vetiver and orris. Calm, present, grounded.

Seeking Balance Notes: Bergamot, mandarin green oil, lemon oil, Tahitian lime oil, galbanum CO2, lavender absolute, lavender maillette, rose de mai, Turkish rose absolute, rose geranium oil, cassie absolute, ylang ylang oil, jasmine organic extract. labdanum, oakmoss, vetiver roots, carrot seed, orris root.

"Seeking Balance" by Erika Senft Miller