The Haus of Waft was created to explore the world of incense, perfumes (mostly the natural variety) and other pleasures of our most honest sense, smell. When we are met by a scent, the information we receive is not “filtered” like our other senses. When we see things, we perceive them in a way we can understand it, the same with hearing, but even if we don’t completely comprehend what we are smelling, we still get the total effect. Even when we will come across an imitation of a scent, such as a synthetic rose oil, we can discern that it is not true rose, once we learn the scent differences between the two. We are able to pick up the pheromones from other people and animals, even though we may not realize it, our noses can tell that these pheromones are organic, natural, this is why most chemical reproductions of pheromones, no matter how detailed, will not have the same effects on a person as what is produced by a living creature.

I have always been fascinated by the way things smell. Scent triggers memories. The vaporous aroma of wet asphalt after a rain, near a river, with the essence of honeysuckle in the air at dusk will always make me remember my days as a carefree teenager. Tobacco smoke, with the hint of sweet cotton t-shirts, will always make me think of a certain male relative, it makes me feel loved. And fresh cut wood will as make me think of my childhood home in the winter, where  right before the first frost I would go with my dad and my brothers to the local sawmill to get the scraps to burn in our big woodstove. Everyone has a scent that makes them think of something, like brown sugar may make one think of their grandmother because she frequently made cookies,etc. There is so much more to scent than people realize.

Although any smell, nice or not, can mean a lot, I will be focusing on nice. My first effort (and the most important) on this site, will be to review incense and for this to be a resource center for those wanting to learn the basics about incense and perfumery. Incense and perfume are multicultural human phenomenons, about every group of people or culture has enjoyed some form of them. I am no way an expert on incense, so this is an exploration for me. However, when I review, I will be looking for certain qualities in the product itself. Is it natural? Are the ingredients of decent quality or am I going to end up with a raging headache because this stick or cone is chock full of poor cheap synthetic fragrance oil?  Is it worth the money I paid? Is it very smoky? ( Although I wouldn’t really be too upset if it was). Does it burn for long, or is a quick burning incense? Is it easily attainable or did I have to dig through the vast pages of the internet to find it?  These are probably not the only things I will look at, but definitely will come to my mind when I review it. And since I really like things that have nice scents, I will occasionally review other odoriferous things, like perfumes and candles.

My second effort will most likely be something that won’t occur for a while. I plan to open a small online store here. It will most likely be very small starting out, if not for its entirety. The products that I hope to offer will in no way effect my review. I will not  give a incense praise just because I;m offering it for sale, in fact it would be the other way around. I will sell a product that I know is of decent quality at a decent price. But as I stated before, this is my second goal.

My third goal is. . . . . a secret. I will make it known when I feel the time is right.

*If you are a perfumer or incense maker, you are welcome to send me sample to review,  I am very blunt in my reviews, and although I do enjoy samples, I will review your product like I bought it at a store: honestly. If you want me to review your products, send me a email at aer@hausofwaft.com. I would also like to put out there that I generally favor natural and botanical products, but I have, as you may see in some of my reviews,  given products that were not 100% natural good reviews.
* If you are a creator of quality incense or a perfumer, and want to add your link to my resource page, drop me a line via email. For suppliers wanting to add a link- Drop me a line also, but also forward or link me some testimonials from customers so I can be assured of the quality of your products, and it may be helpful if you included who your suppliers/distributers . I apologize on how jerky and pretentious that may come off ( and nobody despises those traits more than I) but I want people who may starting their aromatic adventures to have reliable, safe, authentic, and trustworthy resources. Please understand that it is only because I want to protect blooming perfumers and incense creators. This is because I wish had had a safe list when I started out. Example, and yes, I am about to ramble off into a story- When I was very first starting out with experimenting with natural aromatics, I wanted to make a body oil that not only would nourish my skin, but would smell decadent. Basically a homemade treat that would double as a moisturizer and a perfume. So I set out trying to find  rose and sandalwood (Santalum Album) essential oils that were affordable, and not in large amounts. I knew that their were fakes and adulterations out there,so I made a effort to keep that in mind. I went to Ebay for some reason, and I found a “TOP RATED SELLER” on Ebay carrying-duh dumdum- small vials of rose and sandalwood EO’s. Yeah, and they were cheap. It said in the product descriptions something like “Authentic Rosa de Mai Essential Oil” and “Pure Santalum Album Essential Oil, High Quality Mysore Sandalwood”. I get my “deal’ in the mail a week later. The rose oil was not as I remembered, it had a back note that almost made sick, and the sandalwood was off. Anyway I was bummed a little that they may be not be as top quality as I thought. Well I mix and use my body oil, a friend of mine comes over, and sees that I have some of the rose oil left in a vial, and applies it to the inside of her elbow. A little later, she starts itching where she had placed the rose oil, and it is red. I know that sometimes EO’s in their concentrated stated can irritate the skin, but my friend’s stepmother was a aromatherapists, who knew her stuff. She took one look at her stepdaughter’s arm and smelled the bottle, and said ” Aer’s this is fake as hell, pure synthetic”. My friend had extreme synthetic sensitivity, so this is why it caused such a bad reaction on her, and not so much on me. The sandalwood was checked out by her stepmother, she stated it was real, but of a very low quality, and diluted down like crazy. See why I am cautious when providing info about suppliers on my site?
If you want you can send me a sample of your products to check out your are more than welcome too but please be prepared to stand behind your product. I apologize again being this way, but that one experience (plus some unfortunate other ones) have my guard up, I am not a snob, not even in the littlest way.

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