It is sample making day today (and was yesterday). And I promised to myself: Once I finally filled up my stock of everything in sample size, then we mix the next eau de rose and this time it will be good. And if not, then we move on and play with the newest toy, which is a flip video thing.
And I will finalize the sample card for the Mémorables. I guess this will be the next post. Until then: enjoy your day!
A quick continuation on the pentachord musing.
First I am in love with AromaX’ idea of replacing a perfume pyramid with a symetrical (C2?) 5-angle.
Second I am in love with the idea of going to the extreme. placing 5 molecules (isomers allowed) into these five angles.
Thirdly: This is just a game for the time being, allowing me to hide and run away from a yet to be mixed eau de rose trial version 11.
Forth: even a pentachord is not simple. No way to cheat. The first trial needs an adaption. less violet flower, more ambergris. But a nice side effect of working in pentachord area….I just have to mix 5 components. ….
So we were jogging on Sunday and I do not exaggerate when I declare the second part of this venture to a survival mission in the melting snow sludge. Thus, when things get rough the best you can do is sing or otherwise find a little getaway for your mind like thinking perfumes. I guess this -together with a bonding aspect- is one of the reasons why they sing in the army.
At least they did in College Station, TX, where I spent a fabulous year back in 19something, not singing myself though. Or they tried to make us sing 25 years ago when I was doing my Swiss army service, but with Swiss guys it did not work out really; not enough pain I’d guess.
Anyhow, we jogged and talked about the 5 thing fragrance, (not channels 5) but a fragrance built around 5 pillars, outlined yesterday on this blog). The line of thought moved on towards a pentachord fragrance. A fragrance, or an entire line of fragrances, built with 5 components only that are one chord, a pentachord.
A five note fragrance whereby every note is one component. While jogging we thought about violet, orris root, ambergris, wood, vanilla. Other pentachords are possible. Like a simple flower pentachord . Or a pentachord for the Swiss alps or a forrest pentachord, you name it. The compression and limitation as incentive.
An interesting line of thought, and a creative challenge, helping to get on in melting snow.
I mixed my first pentachord yesterday.
Ok, I admit it. Yesterday was a jogging-cooking-eating-and Civ IV day, with almost no perfume related tasks except for a few mails that needed to get out.
But while jogging through woods on a thick fluffy white snow carpet that was so fluffy, that only a Las Vegas motel carpet could compete, the W.-factor and me engaged in serious talk. About the number 5 and pentagrams and stuff. You know: The fifth elephant.
5 is better than 4 is better than 6. It is an ideal number and a nice fragrant project might be to build a fragrance around 5 corners: violets, orris root, ambergris, crisp wood, soft vanilla. Of course, these five corners are my preliminary take on it. Thus, while jogging and entering dirty swamp area as the snow changed its aggregation state into something less defined, a sludgy mess, we came up with the fitting bottle (pentagram) and a name. When jogging, building an entire fragrance line is so easy.
Rome.
Milano.
More details will follow…this IS exciting. And I look so much forward to a real, good, yummie pizza.
And now: Happy boxing and packing of dry desert air. More musing on packaging, I guess, will follow next week. Until then: I send you fragrant wishes for your weekend. Maybe it be sunny.
What follows is the state of works for the packaging; for the rose chyprée and other fragrances (like the “gabriel” ) ending up in small 15 ml bottles. Pro memoria: Packaging = 1 card board fold box, and a piece of paper, A5 printed, folded around the box and a ribbon. The goal: Make a nice looking, functional, affordable packaging.
The prototype advances and thanks to all your comments and input and thanks to some private discussions we go this way:
- white text on black
- hand written name
- golden ribbon
I figured I will sub brand the little volume fragrances in the new bottles and let them run under the name:
Tauer Perfumes|miniatures.
What runs under the name miniatures will come in the same type of bottle, packaging, labels etc. And for Tauer Perfumes|miniatures I created sort of a little picture (replacing the m of miniature) that highlights why I do what I do when I do miniatures (see picture that follows)…
Any input is very welcome.
Picture: the packaging from the left side, featuring the Tauer Perfumes |miniatures
Picture: The packaging with the hand written name, slightly more readable
Picture: Packaging from the right side
Picture: Packaging back side, with some allergene and safety information
The last time this train sees me traveling to Berne this week. Tomorrow and for the rest of the week, we will talk brands and sub- brands and colliding issues, and continue playing with my tablet drawing thing and some photoshop experimental trials. Well, and depending on how things go, maybe some orris and wood and stories developing around it. We will see.
While thinking woods: I feel it is about time to stop worrying about the stock markets. It is fruitless. These months just happen to be our generation’s test; of our patience and endurance.
And here’s the hint of the day for your investments: I wait for the day when the news anchors will not worry about the stock markets on a minus 2 % day. Waiting for total indifference. That’s the time to get in again. Will take a while, though….Until then: thinking woods.
Enjoy your day.
I sneaked off my mail box yesterday evening to finally mix part I of the clean (soapy) eau de rose thing. Omitting the chamomile and thyme completely. The plan: Move on from there, which translates into sleep over it and learn to life with the pain. Thus, there is a bottle, almost filled (25 ml) of a soapy soup that waits for a few final drops of whatever.
“SOAP!” , the W.-factor said before going to bed, and I got so tired of working in clean area that I reached for knize ten, a pure, ***** (5 stars at least) delight, leading over to thrilling dreams of armies, festive banquets, and a chemical lab that was all mysterious and overgrown by green wet plants.
Yes. Green.
So I imagined this morning that is a Freud’s (or Jung…) sign: I need to add a hint of a leathery army note (chinoleins), gourmet note (berries), and a touch more green like ivy leaves or galbanum.
Another line of thought. Maybe it is time to let this one sit for a while and start working in dirty zones again, you know: woods and leathers. …to be followed.
It is this time of the year where I would like to leave my life in winterland, for a few weeks until spring breaks out, leave winter’s icy grip, snow, cold air, slippery roads and no bike to the train station. Yet, a couple of days more we have to stay in there. One day, one fine day, I will make my end-winter-fantasy become reality, and I will buy a house in a dry sunny place and start dreaming of cool air. ;-)
Missing this desert retreat so far, I imagine mid-end March, when I will fly away… to Düsseldorf on a not so secret mission.
Anyhow: Mornings like these in mid February let me grab whatever there is spicy and warm, this morning it was eau d’épices, version of Nov. 26, diluted at perfume concentration. Potent potion.
wishing you a warm sunny day.
And we have another reading recommendation for this weekend: of spices and souks is the title of Kim’s post about the l’air du désert marocain in her blog Thinkingshift. I am very honored by this review.
I wish you all a lovely weekend.
Picture: Spices market seen in Tunis a while ago.