Woodsy fragrance - Too sharp/harsh, ideas?

I would suggest what this blend needs most is some musk to round it out a bit - ideally use more than one. I would also reduce the amount of birch tar further (if necessary pre-dilute it - I normally keep mine at one tenth the strength of most materials because it's so powerful).

You may not want any, but the blend is also lacking in top-notes so you could consider using some citrus to give a fresher feel to the opening, although if you add vanilla that will also help as vanilla works from top to base.

Happy to help.

To buy musk there are three suppliers I can suggest, one is me - I can do small quantities of any of several musks that I stock for my own use and I also have a pre-made woody-musk base that you could try. Other options are De Hekserij, who have several musks in their stock list and Olfactik who stock two musks. Both will supply in small amounts though I'm not sure about minimum orders or shipping costs.

With vanilla I would suggest one of two options - either buy some vanilla absolute pre-diluted or use vanillin or ethyl vanillin instead - the latter comes as crystals that dissolve easily in ethanol and DPG (vanillin or ethyl vanillin in DPG is essentially what you'd get if you bought a vanilla fragrant oil anyway).

Now regarding soy candle making, candles are not my area of expertise but I do know that by no means all materials work satisfactorily in that environment - David Ruskin may be able to advise - I know he has experience with fragrances for candles.

Now that I know you are seeking a camp-fire type fragrance I see that you'll need the full birch tar. When I made my own woodsmoke fragrance I found cade oil, traces of guaicol, plus Kephalis, cyclohexenol, cedramber and Iso E Super were all helpful as well (I can help with supplies of all those if you only need a little, with most I have plenty in stock).

Neroli is a lovely material and makes a very fine top-note, however it's quite expensive and I wonder if you'd be getting full value from it in this context. I would try some sweet orange or bergamot first, supported in either case with some pettigrain (which will help integrate the citrus with the woods), only if you are not satisfied with those would I try the more costly neroli.

Sounds like a you should end up with a very interesting accord from it and I like the idea.

Have a splendid weekend yourself!

Regarding my musk blend, if you were planning a room-spray I'd say it was idea, but to go into a candle I'm not so sure. For one thing I make it at a standard 10% concentration in ethanol, which wouldn't be any good in wax and for another there is some vanillin in it, which I believe causes candle wax to discolour (yellow or even brown) though I'm not certain of that - as I say candle scents are outside my experience. With that in mind coumarin rather than vanillin is probably a good tip, though I don't know whether it too discolours and of course you may not mind what colour the wax is anyway.

Auratouch I use and is very good indeed, but pricey, cosmone I like a lot too but again it's costly. I don't use auranone so can't comment on that one.

Musks work best in combination (one reason auratouch is so effective - it contains five musks) so I would use a few. Exaltolide although a solid is easy to melt using a water bath and is a lovely musk, Romandolide is liquid and easy to handle but not particularly cheap - in this application you could use the cheaper galaxolide instead as it's not going to be on anyones skin - in that case get it at at 50% in DEP so that it's easy to use. Finally I'd add a very small amount of ambrettolide to round out the others.

I can supply you with small amounts of both coumarin and linalool as I have sufficient in stock - just drop me a mail. I really wouldn't waste money on an expensive tonka absolute in this as I think you'll have trouble with dissolving it and it's subtle quality will be lost in this application anyway.

I'd suggest you want 10-15 drops of the musks and 20-30 of the top-notes to be in proportion with the others.

More later as my train is nearing the end of the journey and I need to pack up the laptop!

Not to interrupt or go off-topic, but when you mention "10-15 drops", what is this in relation to? I'm assuming you will be diluting the mixture with ethanol eventually? What is the final size or the end-product?

If it goes into a candle it probably won't be diluted but used neat directly into the wax, or possibly diluted with a carrier oil. I don't think you can mix ethanol with candle wax.