Starter Kit. Idea 23 of 500. Cluster 2
Your own perfume, blended from Sri Lankan cinnamon, vetiver, citronella and sandalwood oils, in a bottle with your name on it
The mechanism, from the book
The craft cannot be copied and the object can. In Europe people queue to watch glass being blown and then buy the glass.
The first step
Buy small bottles of cinnamon, vetiver, citronella and sandalwood oil from producers you can name, and learn from a trained perfumer or chemist which blends are safe on skin. Set up a table in a guesthouse or a spice garden where a visitor blends a scent, names it, and takes home a labelled bottle. Run it for ten visitors at a trial price. Paid sessions are the proof.
- Who pays first
- A visitor at a spice garden or a boutique hotel who wants a souvenir nobody else has, with their own name on it.
- What leaves today
- An oil sold by the litre earns little; a bottle blended here by the visitor, with their name on it, sells the making as well as the oil.
Ask first
- National Medicines Regulatory Authority. Ask whether a perfume blended for visitors counts as a cosmetic that must be registered.
- Department of Export Agriculture. Ask which producers supply these oils and how their quality is graded.
Check before you spend
Confirm which oils are safe on skin and at what strength, the label on every bottle, the venue's permission, and insurance for skin reactions.
Find out these three numbers
- What would a visitor pay for a bottle they blended and named?
- What do small quantities of each oil cost from producers?
- How many visitors a day pass the spice garden or hotel?
A comparison from the book
The list. Chapter Fourteen
"experiences rather than sights, courses rather than meals, souvenirs that are actually from here"
A scent made from the island's own oils is a souvenir that is truly from here.
The test
Does it keep value that now leaves the island, or build the proof that lets somebody else do so?
From the appendix of Why Not Sri Lanka? by Dr Maheshika Halbeisen. The idea and the mechanism are the book's; this kit was written for the site.