Welcome to a perfumer's blog on perfumery

I think I talked about my rose trials, the “eau de rose trials”, many times. You know: The rose, eau de rose, the rose avec framboise, the clean one, the powdery one, the one with aldehydes, the one that the W.-factor was in his innocence identifying as soapy, like “Oh you should make a soap out of this one”, the fragrance built around steam distilled rose oil, all of this in one bottle.

I think I also mentioned that I am observing a negative time dilatation phenomenon in my little world. Time is running faster than normal and like traveling close to speed of light I see things passing by, leaving a smear of light, and puff!, they are gone and there comes the next galaxy. I know when I have cooled down the engines again, I have to follow those warp traces, travel back and have a closer look at some of the stars I just passed by.

But in all time contraction, I managed to work on the rose. I introduced a few changes, adding to the complexity, adding a few naturals to make it richer. I lifted the head by bergamot, lemon oil , a hint more lavender, and some Bourbon geranium, replacing the geraniol that was just too wimpy and whimsical to stand next to the rose oil from Bulgary (that is, by the way, a tough one to work with. An expensive steam distilled oil, almost spicy and lasting on skin forever). Synthetic ambergris (what else!) was finally pumped up with with the Vanilla C02 extract bought recently, added to the base, to make all a bit rounder. In this base I also use another wonder molecule, called okoumal, that has this magic complexity. It is wood, ambergris, tobacco, and has the vibrant metallic sharpness of a fruit knife, cutting through a strawberry. The vanilla extract is pretty much what you get if you sniff a vanilla pod of good quality. Well, maybe a bit more on the woody side, with a enlarged powdery quality, and an animalic darkness, that is truly natural. It is more on the ambergris, castoreum animalic side than on the musk side; white, golden, or whatever musk. If you are interested in learning more on white and other musks et al. please visit Nathan’s blog now. It is enlightening.I highly recommend.
But please be warned. If you are open minded you might start wondering that there is no such thing as (put in your favorite natural scent here) in most of the bottles on the shelves of most of the perfumeries. Oh my… what a mess.
Today, I am wearing a drop of the rose in the train. Big rose kick off, secretly showing off in the the train coach.

I love it.

The sun is rising right now, the sky explodes in orange. Time to start the warp engine again.

I loved it. Can’t help it. Katie is gooood.

Enjoy (click here for her post on Shalimar etc.)!

This morning I got up early to catch the 6.30-something train to Berne. The ride downhill, through the town to the station was a fresh morning ride into clean air that feels very much like autumn. There is this scent of leaves on the ground, of overripe fruits, concentrated by humidity that stays close to the surface where roses bloom a last time.

And there is a scent of decay, of change.

I write these lines, sitting in the train, using my mobile internet card that allows me to write mails during my ride from here to there, watching myself and my fellow travelers, mirrored in the glass of the train coach, while we ride through a dark morning. I need to get up early these days because the days are too short it seems.
This week is going to be a rough one. In the final weeks of my daily job as IT project manager (will leave definitely end November, Insha’Allah), I am finishing an important project of ours. This means many, many hours of meetings and discussions and adjustments.

In my other life, as perfumer, in the evenings and the remaining 4 days of the week, I am working on stock of my fragrances and all I need to produce them these days. I needed to reorder a lot of material lately, and will try to fill empty stocks of filled bottles and bottles in boxes in the coming weeks.

And I will work together with my marketing gurus on the next step. For that we have meetings, too with discussions and home work. (for all those new here: I am rebuilding part of my brand to be fit for a tough market place)

Tauer 2.0.

Can’t wait!
I am discussing with a few distributors in the coming days, weeks and months. When it comes to distribution I am picky. But, like in Italy, there are markets where you are better served when you are in a distribution sales model. And, independent of the sales model you are in, in order to be fit for the years to come, you will need to invest even more, into marketing such as boxes, flyers, you name it. This is the name of the game.

Ah, and yes: I started to work on the upcoming launch in spring 2010. This launch involves a couple of stake holders, and needs about 6 months of planning in advance. Production itself starts in December to be ready early March, for an anticipated launch date of mid April. I started discussing with sales partners, bottle producers, my book keeper to see whether I can afford to pre-invest in all that is needed, I run the final tests of mid size lots to see whether I can produce the scent in a reproducible fashion, I order (yesterday) what is needed to produce it, I ordered half a year ago the stuff that might be tricky to get, such as expensive absolutes or oils. This planning involves folks in different countries, speaking different languages, needing different things from me and their countries administration.

I plan to launch a new fragrance but it will not be the scent that I presented a while ago as Gabriel (I am referring here to a discussion on PerfumeSmellinThings.).

One reason, why I quit my job as well paid IT project manager: I want to be free to do what I think I need to do.

In that sense: I will never ever follow anyone who wants me to launch something.

Never.

Having said this: enjoy the colors of the season.

Image: Scanned picture of an early autumn leave. Uploaded by Andy

Still somewhat at unease with a little virus trying to dig into little cells: Today is parcel packing and perfume boxing day. The W.-factor MUST help these days to fill all those boxes and make lots and lots of kg of boxed perfume ready for shipment.

This IS exciting and somehow I forget about the little virus when preparing stuff for my business partners.
Before hitting the work today: Make sure you watch this video on Marie Claire (Italy), featuring Pitti Fragrance and a couple of noses, talking about their inspiration in front of the camera.

It was the first seen I have seen this morning. Enjoy:

 www.marieclaire.it/beauty/l-esperto/l-essenza-delle-essenze

And once done with the video: Enjoy these autumn pictures from the mountains above Pontresina, taken last Saturday.

Pascal, the shop owner of Medieval art & vie, the shop in Zurich selling my fragrances, and I, we managed to sneak into a book again….
This time it is THE shopping guide for Zurich, “Trends und Lifestyle, ZÜRICH”. A 200 pages book on all what makes Zurich special when it comes to shopping and relaxing. In light of the fact that this particular morning when the photo was taken I had about 2 hours sleep in the night before and felt like a snail in desert Gobi: Not bad. The resolution is not high enough to see the damage.
At least the picture is somewhat original. We posed for about 5 minutes. My arm fell almost off.

On another note: Tonight, I will talk to perfume sales assistants and management from a perfumery chain about niche perfumes and roses, and the passion of making perfumes. Presenting some essential oils and absolutes, I aim at sharing the fascination of the craftsmanship. Wish me luck there!
Finally, this week is sooooo busy. I think I feel the first x-mas vibes coming by. We are packing perfumes like crazy. It is wonderful.

Picture: A scan from the shopping guide…

and a close up…

Before I hit the mountains later today, in search of fresh air, a big sky and company from friends: Here a few pictures from Pitti.

This was the Tauer part of the exhibition stand.

an overview of one of the halls

the back side. Originally, the hall was a train station. From trains to perfumes….

And at the end, we drank Mona’s champagne. Cheers to you.
The empty bottle….

Ok, I admit it: Yesterday I spent too much time in front of my bloglines.com lightened computer screen. I just couldn’t get off Patty’s candy perfume post and many others. And what brought a big smile to my face because Patty is a real writing talent, transformed later into worries about what the heck is coming next. [Edited by Andy…actually it was March’s post and writing!]
Every time, when I, naive country boy, think that by now we have seen it all: There comes the next breast of Julie with her killing instrument, Mr. desperately untouchable sexy shows everything in cool waters, Ms. don’t get me wrong has lost her head, and candy is flying out of the sky and cheers perfume lovers and babies and critics world wide like Manna rained over Israel’s tribes some hundred years ago.

I wait for the next marketing campaign, the all golden naked female thing, thinned by Photoshop , sitting on a wild hairy musk deer, somewhere in Himalaya, a goddess breed between Fortuna and Lolilta, sending the world gummi bears and a fragrance that needs to be stored in a dry place because it gets all sticky when in contact with air. The marketing campaign is focused on yellow gummi bears in musk deer form. To engage the targeted consumer between 15 and 85 years of both sexes, the gummi bears come with an online game: Shot the musk with Haribo coke gummi bottles.

Talking yellow gummi bears from Haribo, I love the white ones the most, but they are the most rare ones. You know why? People do not like them. I need to work on my taste, I guess.

On a more serious note. What I found amazing at Pitti: There was almost no reference to nature. No spices piled up. No rose petals. No nothing. This contrasted lovely to (some) perfumes from some brands.

One of these, one of my favorites, I found on the stand of Ineke, with “Field notes from Paris” being just wonderful. Thus, here’s a call to my fellow perfume lovers…tired of candy? Dive into tobacco and bees wax and vanilla, explore the creamy richness of Tonka beans and nipp on Coriander leaves. Absolutely worth sampling and trying.

Or the (EXTRA) Henry Timi room perfumes line. What a treat!
Mona di Orio referred to natural ingredients being key during her speech on Saturday at the Pitti, too. Mentioning in her speech that “Le naturel donne de la personnalité aux compositions, de la vie, de la matière, une aura particulière et incomparable.” On a sad side note, it has to be mentioned that many exhibits at Pitti in Florence were missing this personality, and have nothing to do with niche. No auro, no life, but they came in shiny bottles. A touch too shiny.
But, no gummi bears at Pitti, yet.

a little video from the Pitti in Florence. It is a quick walk through one of the two halls, and at the end a few pictures from the visit of the Italian bloggers and fans.
You need the quick time player to see the video.

Here it is….

video (40 MB)

and here is the link to the quick time player download if you cannot open the .mov file.

It may take a while to download the file. 40 MB is quite large. But then: The Pitti was huge and I have only shown one part of the show.

Enjoy !

Wow. What an experience. Back from Pitti Fragranze!
And very busy. It is always amazing how many mails I get, when I have a hard time answering.

Thus, it is my pleasure to share a sunset with you and a few smiling faces.

More when the mails are answered. I hope I will soon find time to upload a little video.

Ah…and before I forget: a news for my German friends. The new Duftmagazin is out. Leave a comment and make sure to win one of three bottles of the incense rosé. Here is the link: http://www.duftarchiv-magazin.de/indien/indien.html . Have fun!

Picture: the sunset over the Arno, as seen from my hotel in Florence. Oh yes, no kidding. This was a lucky pick.

Picture: the three noses (Mona di Orio, Olivier Durbano and myself) at the Pitti fragrance exhibition stand of ProfumImport and two lovely ladies, owning each a perfumery in Italy and presenting our products.

… almost in the train to Florence. Pitti Fragrance I am on my way…

(more next week)