“I do not mind getting dirty hands. I think as creators we need to engage with the materials that we choose to express ourselves. When I mix fragrances and
pour my creations into flacons, I build an intimate relation to my produce and connect to the perfume lovers who will ultimately cherish them.”

Today, I share a detail with you, a  cut out of page 5 of the upcoming brochure about Andy Tauer’s Tauer Perfumes. The above text goes with a picture that I personally love very much. I did it over the weekend, it shows my hand and an citrus blossom, is somewhat pre- photoshoped and trust me: No flowers were harmed taking it. The flower was not cut. The red tonality will need a touch more optimization in photoshop but this will come at the end. The text might also need a few adjustments, as I am not native. But I hope you get the message.

Yesterday, I decided on the overall guiding layout for my little brochure adventure, and the story that I want to tell on how many pages. And I did the first 5 pages: At least defining the pictures and raw text. The fine tuning happens towards the end. Thus, yesterday was sort of an early creative day (instead of Friday). Today, well… today will see me in the factory, finishing the Orange Star bottle labeling action and filling some samples, as we run out of a few of them. I guess, I will first have to finish a few difficult emails, though.

And I will have to fight getting off the computer. I love to compose pictures and text. I am so tempted to start working on page 6 and 7: My packaging and how I present my creations. Page 4 and 5 focused on products being hand made in Switzerland, and on the craft of perfume creation: on me being the composer, creator of all the fragrances. There, I try to make readers understand that I compose , and how I do it (just a glimpse) as this is what most others do not do anymore. And a course for a week in Grasse or at Givaudan is not the same. Most so-called niche fragrances and brands are composed by an industry behind. This does not mean that the scents are not good: It is just a difference.

Page 2 and 3 are of introducing nature, bringing about the groove of Tauer, Andy, with a word on inspiration and what’s behind my scents.

Finally, not having decided yet: Maybe I do the citrus flower in a 3D lacquer, that doesn’t really cost more. It brings out a 3 D effect and would be sort of cool. On the other hand, the appearance of the picture is more natural without. We’ll see. Not important. Like many other things that keep us busy.

So here comes lesson two, figured out while watching home order tv,  announced yesterday: Core values. Super important. Especially for super small fishes like me, swimming in a pretty large pool with lots of perfumes and people dealing with perfumes.  Trust me on this: We live right now in a phase where a lot is happening in this pool. And as this pool is getting very populated, more populated on a daily basis, it is super important to remain very loyal to the values and principles that I (we) care for.

And it is very important to get the message out, that the world out there knows about these values that I cherish; or better: that we cherish. We= a few selected artisanal perfume creators, and our loyal fans and clients. There, when it comes to communicating these values, I have to do some homework: The little brochure thing that I want to get done in the coming days needs to focus there, too. I want to print a few copies for myself, not only for my Italian business partners: I do not really have any kind of  introduction booklet about myself and what I do and why I care etc. Maybe, one day, when I have a bit money left, I can do it super professionally, with the help of my designer, and come out with the perfect image brochure. For the time being, and as a test: We do it ourselves. Right now, once this post is online, I will be thinking about a few visuals (photos) and illustrations that I want to draw myself to give the brochure a bit of an artistic touch, too.

Having talked about values: Today was a day where I more or less unhappily or happily (very undecided there) said NO to an interview request by a respected blogger. I did so because of a previous post, where -without any intention to harm or bother me and other perfumers- I ended up in some sort of a game, a pitching game between two perfumers. So,  I said no to the question for an interview. Mostly because I wanted to make statement: I have values and what I have seen there is not really part of this coordination system of values of mine. I think there is so much out there happening  in the world of haute perfumery that we do not need these games.

Me not, for sure.

At some point one has to say no, or like my designer friend once said: Every chance is a chance to say no.

So, yes: I guess this was a serious post, but I mean no harm. Today’ s picture: A quick shot of a gardenia flower with my phone, seen yesterday evening in my house. It’s scent: heavenly. The queen of spicy mushroom cream!

Yesterday was a super grey day here in Zurich. Rain pouring, cold temperatures, bad news:You name it! I was sitting in the factory most of the time during the day, filling bottles, answering mails on the side, and enjoying the whiffs of Orange Star emanating from the manual dispenser that I use for bottle filling: 10 liters, giving some 180 bottles as I always add about 4-5 ml more. After 20 bottles I was reminded of a deeper meaning of life, got bored and did a quick ipad sketch, of the first bottle that got a sticker. Usually I add the sticker when I am done with all bottles, but I made an exception for the sketch.

Home, later in the evening after -I do not know how many- mails- I got sort of tired and fell into TV induced stasis, watching for about 30 minutes the AHH BRA sales show on Mediashop.tv. Quite an amazing accomplishment this Ahh Bra! Only finest European fibers were used to make it, one size fits all and  yesterday, if ordering two, I could get two for free. And don’t forget the colors: Lots of choice and only the finest color pigments used to make the colors last and shine for years to come. The Ahh Bra is made of from one piece of fabric, and feels very comfortable and is made from entirely non transparent material that feels very comfortable.

I think I learnt something again, yesterday. Actually I was reminded of a few things. Thus, this morning, when drinking the first coffee, after having screened the mailbox and after having surmounted that early morning fear of the social media, I checked facebook.  Eearly in the morning, before Lounge-Radio.com induced tranquility, the social media can be tricky. It is like coming home from a trip and opening the letter box. I get a lot of messages, which is nice, but early in the morning, you know…

Thus, I learned a lesson and opened facebook and realized that my background picture is the same since years, it is a sketch of a human eye,  and not product related or related to my craft or related to what makes me and my creations special. And my profile pictures is me from the eighties: missing the focus on today. Thus,  as much as I like my eye sketch and myself in the eighties: Time to implement the ahh bra lesson number 1: Focus. Facebook profile picture and background picture changed.

Tomorrow, we’ll work on lesson two: Core values.

“gschpaessig” is Swiss German, for “strange, odd, bizarre, beyond what you would expect” with a negative connotation.

Gschpaessig can be many things, like facebook posts. Actually, the longer the more, gschpaessig fits well on many, many facebook posts.

Gschpaessig is also adequate for the world of fragrances, the industry behind it, and the tectonic shifts that we see these days, if we dare looking closely. Most have been said here before: So I won’t rabble and babble about the state of things there.  In politics, gschpaessig is quite adequate these days, too. Gschpaessigfits perfectly in our time; it  describes pretty well the odd, very green lights on the stock markets and the money flood from reserve banks pumped into all kind of markets. There, I am convinced, we witness a dangerous (but maybe alternative less?)  dance around a bonfire that is nourished by the savings of those who still believe in money.

Gschpaessig, indeed.  So gschaessig, that I am considering getting invested mid-term again in put options. Which, on the other hand, the W.-factor finds gschaessig.

How can you make money by investing into the hope of markets falling? Gschaessig, and probably ethically difficult to justify.

Gschpaessig was also the reaction of the same W.-factor, to my latest take of Tuberose that I want to add to the upcoming line Sotto la luna. My guinea pig is always very honest and I am happy about that.  I wanted to give the ” tuberosa sotta la luna ”  a bit more depth and darkness. The previous trial was very much ok, but not quite as close to perfection as I wish it to be. So I tried a few things (including overdosing a base ingredient which sometimes does the trick), that did not work out, and I will go, after 3 trials that brought me into weird territory far away from any flower, back to the version 16 and try to add depth and darkness there.

Sotto la luna: The first scent or two or three will find their way in some way into my line towards the end of this year or early next year. Depending on my resources. Maybe  I will start rather exclusively. So there is still some time, and the next trial will see me adjusting the chord that I created for the tuberose. It is a partial base (a chord) that covers part of the spiciness and  some floral aspects, but little of the lactonic part of the flower (except for Jasmine abs.). I decided to go a bit higher with the spicy part there, broaden the floral powder and dark  intensity by introducing more ingredients, and I decided to basically leave the base untouched.

Not that there is any hurry, though. Right now, I need to start working on some information to be printed onto paper, for Pitti. Let’s call it a little brochure; where I need and want to explain what and where and why and all of it accompanied by some illustrations and pictures, like the one on the side going with today’s post: Deadline end June, to allow for the translation.

I should work on the text. Seriously. Sort of now. But I so far I only come up with pictures for this little side project. Gschpaessig.

So , yes: Technically I should be in the factory since about an hour. I should be down there (10 minutes with the bike, downhill) and fill bottles, continuing there where I stopped yesterday: air du désert marocain. Air du desert followed Incense rosé, that I filled the other day, lots of bottles. Today’s picture shows you a dozen of them. And then, I should be putting labels on them and put them into a box and put them in the shelf before packing them later. Then, I should move on and do the same with Incense extrême.
Practically, I am still here, in front  of the computer, having tweaked an experiment formula  in my ever-growing excel list of perfume formulas.  And I think I will start putting this experimental formula into one of my 30 ml brown glass bottles. I was thinking a long time about this particular formula, and how to change it to the better. So I am a bit impatient to see how it might turn out. It is about time that I get somewhere there: I am working on it since more than 12 months.

The list, by the way, is an excel list and I mentioned this to a journalist in Bucharest, too. And yes, there was some disappointment in her face. I guess writing my formula into a dark brown old leather enclosed booklet with rusty iron buckles might do the trick. But then, excel is really very helpful. It counts for me, and makes it easier to end up with a formula that is based on 1000 units. These 1000 units are 12500 mgr=12.5 gram.  the 12.5 gramm are there for historic reasons, when I was still working with milliliters. These days, everything happens in grams and milligrams, as volumes are not additive. This means, that 1 liter of water and 1 liter of ethanol does not give you 2 liters of a mixture. Funny, he?

So, yes: milligrams. Trying to find harmony there, in excel, and expressing what I feel it should be like. The take is on tuberose again, trying to come up with a bright sensual  tuberose shining under the moon.

Regular readers of this blog know what I am talking about: Sotto la luna. Flowers under the moon. My take on them. Sotto la luna will, like the HOMAGES, be a line within the line of tauer. And I will talk more about it. Tuberose will be the third scent that I have in mind to go in there. Sotto la luna will be a little bit like my private collection. My flowers, the way I love them. And as it is a bit my intimate private thing, I will do some things differently there.

But first things first: factory.

Today, we got a DRAW, but it is restricted to winners with an US delivery address, and to perfume loving fans with a facebook account. Sorry about that. Let’s consider it a test…

And I have a very special, limited OFFER for my perfume loving friends with an US shipment address:

OFFER:
FREE Tuberose soap with any full bottle order: Order any full bottle of any scent from my line in my online shop and get a free “perfume in a soap: majestic Tuberose”, shipped to you at no extra cost, no questions asked. The offer is limited to the first 20 full bottle orders on my online shop. Once, this offer expires, I will announce it here on my blog and on my facebook site. The perfume in a soap comes as  a 100 gram bar, is hand made and wrapped by me in Switzerland. It is not available anywhere else and is an experience of its own, with a tuberose perfume (featuring natural rose and jasmine) created by me, in a total concentration of 3%; it is a luxurious experience.

DRAW:
The draw is straightforward:
- SHARE the post that you will find on my facebook site where I present the special soap offer (LIKE does not count).

- Make sure that you have an US delivery address in case you win, as I will only ship to a winner with an US shipment address.

- Et voilà: you are in and have a chance to win a full bottle of  my AIR DU DESERT MAROCAIN, boxed and ready to ship to you. I will pick one winner in the next couple of days from all the SHARES.

Fine print and conditions:

There is no need to buy anything to participate in the draw. Winners will be selected on a pure random basis and we will contact the winner by email or by sending a facebook message, and announce that we picked a winner publicly, without providing any information about the winner. The draw is open to anybody with a shipment address in the US. Winners will be selected from all facebook users who shared the post independent of their friend status.

Thank you for sharing! 

Today we get another shipment out, from my super mini factory consisting of two rooms, downhill of where I write these lines. It is kind of an average medium sized shipment, 8 boxes, with some 24 perfumes each, but as we have enough palettes narrowing the room for storage, I put it all together on a palette. One of the logistics wonders when transporting things with trucks: It does not really matter -within certain limits- how heavy or bit your shipment is. And thus, a single parcel 60x40x40 and a palette is (almost) the same price.

And now, as I hope to get this shipment out of sight today, I need to head down to the mini factory early in the morning. Here in Switzerland people get to work early. Like sometimes really early. And truck drivers seem to love to drive early in the morning when there is no heavy  traffic in town, yet. But sometimes they like to drive in the afternoon. Bottom line: You never know when they are coming by.  And thus, we are ready down there. I get some help today, and together we will fill some bottles: Incense rosé today. And boxing a few air du désert marocain.

And while we do so, I will probably think about a couple of things. Like X-mas, summer holidays, and the rose samples that I got: Rose essential oil from Afghanistan, rosa damascena, bio (organic) quality, one reduced in methyleugenol, one the non treated quality, both absolutely stunning. Like: really good. I like the idea of farmers planting roses in Afghanistan instead of poppy and right now I am considering getting some. Availability is rather limited. Thus, I am thinking “for X-mas”, to create an X-mas special scent, maybe skipping the vanilla ideas for X-mas. Or maybe doing a vanilla rose combo. Although, I would probably find a better name than vanilla rose combo.

Finally, today’s picture, being totally unrelated: Jasmine flower, blooming outside, taken with my phone’s camera yesterday in bright sunlight, and treated with photoshop this morning at 6.30, in order to be pretend to be at least a tiny winy little bit creative these days. I like the dramatization of a simple picture by rendering it black and white and adding contrast. Seriously: Never trust any picture.

Funny enough: Shocked by really cool temperatures over the weekend, this flower lost its scent. Almost entirely.

It will be in 4 month sharp that I will be at Pitti Fragranze 2013, on a stand organized by and  together with my distributor Profumimport. I mention this here, and will continue doing so a couple of times, as I learned that there are rumors spread in Italy that I won’t attend this year’s Pitti Fragranze show. I personally think that rumors are actually worse than lies. The internet is filled up with both. Unfortunately, the internet of rumors still misses the flush button.

So there we go: Of course, I will attend Pitti Fragranze, and I am very much looking forward to watching the sunset over one  of the bridges over the Arno again, and in order to do so, I reserved the hotel already.

Thus, my Italian distribution partner, profumimport, and me started discussing how to present my products this year. You know: What picture. What installations. What scents to focus on. I think this is very important, the longer the more, as we communicate core values through images and the way we present ourselves at this fair.

This year, yes, this year, I would really like to make a point, when presenting my scents and myself. I discussed this also a lot in Bucharest with perfume lovers and and whoever was interested recently. And I got the question a lot from journalists, in Bucharest and other places.  People and perfume lovers and journalists and retailers trying to save their shops against the constant erosion by Marionaud and Sephora et al. and brand owners get the longer the more confused about what is happening in perfumery, also there, where niche actually started, in Italy

Roberto Drago, founder and creative mind behind Laboratorio Olfattivo, who is very knowledged and who is in this fragrance universe since many, many years, brought it up to the point: We see the end of the Italian niche market coming. What we experience is the beginning of a new secession,  and we have yet to find out how we are actually going to name it and how are working our way into and through it. Niche 2.0 was the term he used. I hope it will be an artistic renaissance.

Things got very confusing. The messages sent to the market got so messed up that even retailers and consumers often do not know anymore what small scale, artistic, artisanal, passionate actually means. And yet, when I talk to perfume lovers, it really matters to them: So many perfume lovers got tired of seeing everything everywhere being praised as the very special and unique scented experience.

Thus, when asked by the journalists, what makes artistic perfumery special, and how to find it, I recommended: Ask who created the scent (I am not talking about who supervised it), and then ask who actually produced it, where,  and where it got packed. And then ask yourself where you might find it, and what the consequences in terms of numbers are. And wonder if and where you see ads and what kind of ads. This way, you end up with a coordinate system that might guide you if you search artistic perfumes.

So I am preparing slowly but surely for Pitti Fragranze. Trying to answer visually and subliminally the above questions, hoping that the message gets across.

Welcome back from Bucharest where I spent two days, talking to some of the most passionate, curious, warm and charming perfume lovers during Alexandra’s event, organized for the 5 year anniversary of Créateurs d’émotions, THE artisanal niche perfumery in Bucharest really.

The event was just great. There was an installation, where you could explore a particular scent (Lonestar Memories in my case) listen to a poem and music selected to go with the scent, in all privacy on one side, but sort of exposed on the other side. From the party, you were hidden, from the street, people could watch you through the glass windows. And you know what: This is what perfumes are all about. It is about a private, very personal act of enjoying scents, and it is about making a public statement that everybody on the street will get when passing by you.

Here is a picture of a perfume lover enjoying Lonestar, taken from the street.

smelling and listening, and enjoying Lonestar Memories

The event was very, very well visited, and you would not believe how much I enjoyed being there. Here a few more impressions…..

HIEROGRAMIE

when the event started there was still room to take a picture…

And this is Alexandra, who organized it all!

Alexandra Paven

today’s picture, bear’s garlic growing around the foot of a fir tree, highlights to one of the weekend activities: Bear’s garlic pesto, made with fresh, naturally grown bear’s garlic, collected in the woods up on the hills nearby. We were a bit late this year, but after the heavy rains on Thursday and Friday I figured that now is the time. No or never.

Walking through the woods after the rain, with the sun warming the fresh May leaves, shining on brown earthy spots on the ground, is quite a scented venture. And approaching bear’s garlic patches adds a yummie twist to it. Mouthwatering sulfides, that go so well with the mushroom aroma of warmed earth.

So that was one of the highlights. Other highlights were EU related excels that I tried to fill with meaningful information. This, unfortunately, is to some extend impossible, as the whole EU cosmetics regulatory system is so out of touch with the real world.  But then, you have to give to Cesar what Cesar wants. So I did that, too.

While jogging, another activity on the weekend,  I started getting out of my EU worries mode, and got into X-mas planning mode. It’s the time of the year when I have to make first decisions about X-mas and whether I want to come up with something special, like a special scent, a special soap, gift sets, whatever. So I thought, it would be nice to do a scent for the occasion. But contrary to my all natural cologne “Cologne du Maghreb”, it would be great to get an X-mas special that is heavier, woodier, richer, like “vanilla” centered. And I figured that I need to address stock and budget stocking up, as soon as I am back from my trip to Romania which is scheduled for tomorrow: Celebrating 5 years of my business partner Createur d’émotions! Hurray! (click here to say hello on their facebook side…) And greetings and meeting friends and perfume lovers there, too and enjoying spring in Romania.

So, let’s Christmas sit on the side for a moment and enjoy spring: For my German speaking friends, there was a lovely review and article in the “Duftprobe, inside the Magazin of the Rhein-Neckar Zeitung” (click for the pdf) , this weekend, featuring Mitsouko, Chanel 19 and Carillon pour un ange. Just wow!

Enjoy!