We recently caught up with our glamorous friend Cat of Deep Midnight Perfumes who makes blowing on feathers look much more elegant than we could:
Here are some scintillating questions for our favorite perfumer:
What have you been up to lately? How have you been holding up these past months?
Well, I am constantly coming up with new ideas for scents and experimenting and being busy with the business. I have also been enjoying a journaling group and crafts online with friends, and I have been attending online Zoom offerings from various places. I consider myself lucky to be an avid reader, and books have been a constant source of comfort during quarantine. It has been hard and sad in some aspects, mostly not being able to see family and friends as often as I would like and having concern for those I love. But it’s always a good idea to remember that behind the clouds the sun still shines.
Have you created any new scents you can tell us about? What inspired them?
The new Halloween and fall 2020 perfumes have been in the online shop since the end of August. FEATHERS IN THE MOONLIGHT™ is a seven sample set of Halloween and autumn perfumes based on our interpretation of the English rhyme “Counting Crows.” Crows are one of my favorite animals, and this set is about you and your interactions with the crows through wearing the perfumes. The set has great variety from fall gourmands to fruity florals to spicy and earthy notes.
The second new set is HALLOWEEN BEASTIES™. This is a fun and creepy three sample set with scents that run from cozy and gourmand to strange and unusual. They were inspired by everything from ghosts and goblins to bats and cats. Plus the names give us a little giggle too.
I know Halloween/Samhain has been a big inspiration for you. Can you tell us about the past scents you’ve done?
Currently we have fifteen Halloween and fall sampler sets and about seventy Halloween or fall themed perfumes. Some customer favorite sample sets are CREEPY CARNIVAL™, HAUNTED SOULS™, and VICTORIAN HALLOWEEN sets.
The very first Halloween sampler set was the HALLOWS EVE set. They are all still popular scents. One of my very favorites in the set to this day is SAMHAIN NIGHT Perfume™. It’s the perfume I created to honor my ancestors on a night when the veil between this world and the next is the thinnest.
2020 is your ten-year anniversary of Deep Midnight Perfumes. How are you celebrating?
We celebrated our 10th anniversary in June of this year and the transition to our new website has been wonderful and exciting. The anniversary sale and celebration were such a success that we decided to follow up with a fall sale! All items in the shop will be 15% off from September 24th through September 30th (11:59 PM Central time). We will also have goody bags again which will contain another limited edition Deep Midnight enamel pin designed by the talented Jess of Read & Wonder. We think it’s quite spectacular. The goody bag will also feature a soft black lace mask (styles will vary) and a glass-domed tree of life stainless steel adjustable ring (styles will vary). The value of the goody bag is approximately $35 and will be included in the first sixty orders during the sale dates that total a minimum of $65 of sale priced items before shipping and taxes are calculated. The sixty bags are on a first come first served basis at the start of the sale, no earlier. Here is a peek at the goody bag:
Our current issue’s theme is Natural Magic. What does that mean to you? How does scent fit into that?
Natural magic means quite a few things to me. I’ll touch on two meanings for me. One is our connection to the beautiful and natural world around us and the seasons of the year. There is the simple magic of nature itself: birth, life, death, and renewal. We share that with all livings things and are thus connected to all living things. That is some potent magic: the web of life and nature, and both the fragility and resiliency in all things.
Another is the natural magic of intention, some call it meditation, some call it wishing, and some call it prayer. We set our intentions in our daily thoughts about people, places, events, achievements. We can choose the things we wish to manifest in our lives, concentrating our intentions upon them and working towards that goal. This is a natural magic, but that does not mean it comes easily.
The sense of smell is one of the strongest of all the senses. Scent triggers memory, and especially in times when truth matters, memory is the most potent magic. The shamanic traditions of many cultures involved memory work, an oral tradition, and it is no coincidence that these people were seen as mystical. Memory is a window to another world, the past. It informs the present and enables wise decisions about the future. The magic of scent can help take us to that other world.
What are some scents in the pipeline?
We will release three winter holiday scents, but we can’t talk about them yet! They will be fun and wonderful though!
What is the strangest scent you’ve attempted to recreate in a perfume?
We have released a lot of unique and unusual scents. Rotting fruit that can smell appealing at the same time is a difficult one to master. But it can be done with the right combinations of notes, making the scent mysterious, strange, and exotic. The same can be said of using a wet soil note, with the right combo in can be exceedingly beautiful and haunting.
But I have to say that creating the scent WAITING FOR ADA™ from HAUNTED INNS COLLECTION™ was not an easy task. Peanut butter, jelly and hot chocolate with the elegant twist of antique linens and old wood in a historic hotel is not as easy to create as it may sound. A peanut butter based scent can be difficult—you want it to be at once recognizable but sophisticated enough for a unique perfume, and not smell like a messy five-year-old. WAITING FOR ADA™ captures this old world hotel and the nightly ritual of the treats they serve to guests.
Any favorite crafts or recipes this season that you can share?
I love making pumpkin bread cupcakes! The recipe is pretty easy and quick.
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 and 1/2 teaspoons pumpkin pie spice
1/2 cup canola oil
2 large eggs
3/4 cup light or dark brown sugar (packed)
1 cup canned pumpkin puree
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
You can sub unsweetened applesauce for the oil, in the same amount. The cupcakes will have slightly less spring and moisture.
Preheat your oven to 350°F. Line a 12-cup muffin pan with cupcake liners.
Whisk all of the dry ingredients and spices together in a large bowl. Set aside. Whisk the oil, eggs, brown sugar, pumpkin, and vanilla extract together. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and whisk until completely combined.
Spoon the batter into the liners to 2/3 full. Bake for 20-22 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool completely before frosting.
I like frosting them with a spiced cream cheese frosting. I use one package of cream cheese at room temperature to 1 ½ cups to 2 cups of powdered sugar, I don’t like the frosting overly sweet, but if you want, you can add up to 3 cups of powdered sugar per package of cream cheese. I like to add a little flavoring extract of choice and also more pumpkin pie spice to the frosting. Yum!!
I would like to thank Enchanted Living for making our world a little brighter and more beautiful, and Katina Elizabeth Photography
for her magical fantasy photo of me with the crow feathers. And of course thank you to my dear customers who make what I do so enjoyable!
Happy fall and much love to you all, Cat
