Welcome to a perfumer's blog on perfumery

the first snow this season. Finally. Still very wet, but white.

we are under attack these days. Not subtle, it is a full bloom indolic natural treasure, somewhat sticky and dominant, but lovely: The Clementine tree and the jasmine, both saved from winter’s icy grip in the basement of the apartment, are in full bloom.

Not that this winter’s grip would be harsh so far. Meteorogically we are still somewhere between September and October it seems. Last year, we were snow hiking in the mountains. I ‘d guess you have to climb high these days to be in snow. Anyhow: We are soaked in indoles these days. It is uncounted Clementine flowers sitting on a 1.5 m tree and white flowers on a jasmine bush that is somewhat undefined. I grows everywhere, wilde sapplings, with a few flowers. When I took a deep sniff this morning of the jasmine flowers (the ones that you see below): I thought that I smell indolic caramel. Indolic sweet powdery caramel pudding to be precise. What a treat.

And off we are: I am somewhat behind my scheduled packing of fragrances. Thus, this is what I will do today! Pack some desert air and bottled rose and jasmine=le maroc pour elle.

Tomorrow, I think I will be brave enough to talk about my latest fix on the rose. We will see.
Jasmine flowers against a dark rainy Swiss morning window

some Clementine flowers gone wild

I am sitting next to the printer that needs to be fed the paper of the eau d’épices flyer (for the scent apero, December 12) one by one, manually. 10 more to go. Enough for a quicky post. The paper is too thick for the printer and it has a hard time. It is a Canon, and one of those magic machines that work every day, 100% reliable, without me truly understanding how it works, how things that I see on the screen turn up on paper, all nice and shiny.

100 years ago, I would have been a magician, or a guy from Mars, with this technology in hand. Now, I am considered from Mars if I make hand written notes, it seems. … 3 more flyers to go…..

In other hand, looking at things seriously, my printer is yet another proof of us, science&technology, moving faster and faster, towards a point that some call singularity. It took us some ten thousand years to leave our cradle in Africa, and come up with a decent way to write stuff, another 3 or 4 thousand years to come up with printing press for books, 500 years more until I could plug in my Commodore 64 (a PC), and 25 years later I am worrying about whether I need a Terra Bite hard disk, and print out flyers from a computer that has more computing power than the NASA had to fly to the moon. Acutually, I am not sure about the last point, but it sure sounds good. The next step: I might need to physically connect to make full use of the computing power. Our brains and eyes and fingers are too slow.
Et voila: Printing is done. I wish you a lovely weekend!

Well, I guess we all have these more or less secret wishes for objects of desire. The closer we get to Santa’s “HOHOHO” the less secret they tend to be. Thus, here is one of mine… To be honest: I did not dare asking for a quotation so far for the sustainable grown, harvested and produced, cultivated Agaroudh (Aquilaria agallocha) essential oil. I got samples when ordering more Ambreine from my preferred supplier. One was the Oudh. It smells like the perfect gentleman. Slightly woody, tobacco, rich, complex, elegant, expensive. What a treasure from Laos!
And then, right next in line of these objects of desire: Elder absolute (sambucus nigra). Wow! This is yummie, this is the perfect fruity floral base I can imagine. Mouth watering and sweet and rich, like Elder syrup. I imagine this one, in a floral, green context, supported by Lily of the valley, with some vanilla.

OK: Santa. Pleeeeeease!

Other objects of desire anyone?

a tiny little sample of oudh oil sitting there…

And just, because they are great and wonderful reviews, and because it feels so good: Please follow Brian’s thoughts on Incense rosé on:
I smell therefore I am
And Caitlin’s thoughts on Rose chyprée on

Legerdenez

Here we are again…STill fiddling with the flyer for the scent apero. The same picto as yesterday, in black or cinnamon brown, but printed on yellowish 220 gr/meter square drawing paper (rough surface, thick and great to touch with a texture). Stunning to touch. It looks like made two hundred years ago, a bit at least. I think, I will go for the brownish, cinnamon bark colored, version.

And I wish you a now a lovely evening. Today was for sure special!
Picture: The two flyer versions, on sketching and drawing paper. I hope the printer will survive 100 copies

ola! it is evening already and I feel like I have done nothing, except for a few non necessary things like writing invoices, ordering phones (with an i) because the old phone dies on a regular basis, and thinking about pictures and visuals for the eau d’épices flyer that I will use to give away samples at our scent apero.

After fiddling with cinnamon and cardamom scans, I finally went for something pure and abstract. Something that won’t influence the recipient as much as a picture of a dried cinnamon branch. Although this scan is great, it brings about visions of dry woods that would not fit eau d’épices. Thus:A typo thing.
I guess that’ll do. And yes: I will make a few extra for folks visiting this blog from time to time.

the eau d’épice signatur for the sample flyer that we make specially for the scent apero in Zurich.

last Thursday we visited a company that will provide me with a new box. We =design gurus and me. What a treat! I think I found the box concept, but would like to keep it secret for a while because it all makes only sense if you see the complete (or almost complete) picture of what we come up with.

Please apologize.

But I’ll compensate by being frank on my other activities: I am working on an advent calendar again.

And on Excel.
Yesterday, I was busy coming up with lists of labels that I use with the content that I want to see there. A tedious work and somewhat nerve eating. But very necessary. Right now, I am using 56 different labels and stickers, many in low edition numbers of 200 or so. This is complicated, expensive and needs to be improved. Thus, the first step is collecting all I have, including the content, and then reassembling the content and reducing the number of stickers, or finding ways to increase the numbers per print edition… The ultimate goal: Come up with higher quality, lower variety, higher edition stickers.

And then: I am working again in Excel on the tauer website page tree. Which pages to keep and which to get rid of for tauer web 2.0(by the way: I registered http://www.tauer.ch  )
Actually this is more fun than thinking stickers.

Ah, yes… and a few bottles need to be boxed.

I wish you a lovely weekend. Enjoy!

bottles: ready to get those stickers!

Things need time. Actually, things always need more time than you’d think. Thus, it took us about half year until we finally got the treasure Thuja chests for the fragrances (Thank you Viveka for the term!). And it took me about 6 months from first idea to the first packed teaser sample box. And it took me about 5 years for the eau d’épices.

I checked my excel file where I store all my formulas: I created a first trial, label 149 “eau d’épices” in 2004, 9. December, with 14 compounds that was a first composition based on spices, incense, and woods but without orange flower. The mix 149 was sitting on a shelf, to be rediscoverd 2 years later, when -while following the same path, and not changing the main line of thought- the orange flower note , inluding orange flower was added.

Then, two years later, it became the blogging anniversary scent, that some had a chance to sniff, and then I moved one note back and put one note a little bit forward (the green notes were shifted slightly). And now, I have another bottle in my fridge, 6 liters of eau d’épices. The ultimate test whether I can produce the fragrance and whether it behaves properly.

It does.

I look forward to sharing these spices with you, soon. First, I will show the scent during the scent apero in Zurich (December 12).

As I launch Orange Star in Spring ‘10, I plan to launch the eau d’épices in September next year. You see: things need time.

Picture: something else that needs time. I got this cheese (diameter about 12 cm) after a hike in the mountains, down in the valley. Urner Bergkäse, as good as it looks. All natural and matured to perfection.

It is this time of the year again. I moved my Clementine tree back inside the house a few weeks ago, and BANG! it explodes in flower buds. Buds and more buds and a few are open now and transform the cooler lower floor into a old fashioned winter garden. I cannot but think “Great Britain” and ladies and gentlemen, dreaming the the upper class dream of love and passion. Thus, what do we feel when getting closer to Ms. Clementine?

It is not neroli that I’d come up with first. Of course, neroli aftershave is there. And a hint of a leather. Then there is a creamy powder, very female and incredibly sexy and then, there is more woody leather and WOAH! This lady sure took a bath in indoles. A lady that is not one of the nice, but boring uptown girls. Our lady has a story to tell. A story that reveals dark pages of live, of passion and complete surrender. I guess she made her dreams come true. Yet, dress she is wearing is all white and clean. I guess this ambiguity is part of the fascination of this flower.

It is blanche fleur having an affair and meeting her lover in a dark corner down the street.

But she shines and is beautiful and pure at the same time. A paradox?

Clementine flower, seen 2009 in Zurich