Today is mixing day. And today’s picture to the left shows you the aluminum bottles from the fridge that I took out yesterday, allowing the contents to come to room temperature over night. This is important to avoid condensing water inside the bottles. I store all citrus oils, all flower absolutes, and a few specialties such as rose oil, neroli in the fridge.

I store the rest of my raw materials  in a storage room that is cool, but not cold. Part of the other material that goes into the mix you see below. The orange labels with the X mark raw materials that are dangerous for the environment if spilled in larger amounts; like natural sweet fennel oil.

Today, I will mix another batch of Miriam for use in late spring, as we start with Tableau de Parfums in Italy in spring. It is quite a rich formula and the most expensive fragrance I have in my collection. It is 25 ingredients, 14 of which are natural, including rose oil, violet leaves absolute, sandalwood, cistus oil and extract. Actually, this natural Cistus ladaniferus essential oil might be worth another post. For those of you new here: Miriam is the first fragrance of a series, called Tableau de Parfums. It is an ongoing collaboration with filmmaker Brian Pera. These scents are portraits inspired by the shorts of Brian’s ongoing film series, Woman’s Picture. Actually, these days Brian has published a series of interesting posts on Evelyn Avenue, looking back into the past year, the collaboration and some details on the movie making part. You find all this and more here, on Evelyn Avenue.

more bottles with fragrant raw materials. The white powder: Ambroxan.

And I will mix another batch of Incense rosé, lot number 007. For this I had to check all the papers, certificates for each ingredient, for compliance with the (internally defined) standards on EU allergens, appearance etc. The mixing itself is not such a big effort. You just want to make sure that you do not mess it all up as some of those ingredients like rose absolute (3500$/kg) or rose oil (12’000$/kg) are costly. The mix goes into a 12 liter aluminum can, and goes into the fridge, waiting there for 30 days, until it is going to be diluted with Ethanol and needs to wait another month.

During mixing, I need to write down all the ingredient’s lot numbers, too. These lot numbers are important for traceability; in a worst case scenario I can always pinpoint which lot of which raw material was used in what lot of what fragrance. I write it all down into a large excel and store it for 10 years on a save server online.

The other day I was in New York and talked to a few perfume lovers there. And as I learned that a lot of perfume lovers actually do not know what Lonestar means and that many lovers of my scents do not know how they are produced: There we go with a little repetition course on tauer.  Back there in NY I mentioned Lonestar Memories and that I lived in Texas once, for a while, doing a post doc in College Station, and that Lonestar Memories means bascially Texas Memories. Right now I am filtering Lonestar Memories and get it ready for a bottling party later at tauerville.

For those who are new here or think we have a marketing, sales and bottling department: No, we don’t. And yes, we bottle all our flacons ourselves. And we= me and helping hands from the W.-factor who helps from time to time.

And yes, Lonestar Memories is the scent some call  “the cowboy” scent. Back then, a while ago, when I launched it, it came with a picture, a visual referencing, tagging the scent. You see the cowboy in the post’s picture.  Initially, some perfume lovers thought it is actually me on this picture, but unfortunately, I am a bit less handsome. It is a picture I bought from an agency. Since then I get their catalog, but that’s another story.

Anyhow, I have a hat like you see it in today’s post picture and I wear jeans, all the time. Thus, I guess, a part of me is there, too.  And yes, today is Lonestar bottling day, which means: Put the juice into a dispenser (10 liters), pump 50 ml each into blue pentagonal bottles, crimp them with the manual crimping tool, put the rings around the neck, camouflaging the crimping and providing support for the top cover, polish the flacons, put the lot number label on the bottom, put the Lonestar label onto the bottle shoulder, put the black colored beech wood top cover on and put the bottles into the shelves again for later boxing into pentagonal tin boxes.

simple enough.

Welcome to a new week! Let’s see where we will be at the end of the coming days. I got another bunch of hyacinths, all pink, and smelling rather differently compared to the blue ones I got two weeks ago. They are much less metallic but rather powdery sweet, with a spicy undertone and only little green tonalities. Actually, very little green here. And their scent changes. I got them on Saturday, all buds still closed. They did not smell at all. Almost. Now they are in full bloom and the scent has changed from yesterday’s gourmand like sweetness to a more stingy, a bit more belligerent variant.

No wonder, I fooled around a bit yesterday, circling the flowers so to say, squeezing in a moment with these flowers and a few fragrant raw materials, such as phenylpropanol, lilial, phenylpropanal and roses et al. Phenylpropanal is interesting as you find it naturally in hyacinth, lilac, and cinnamon bark. It smells fresh, green, metallic, aggressive and is super potent. I think I will use about 0.1% in the diluted fragrance. Much more you do not want to put in there, I think. Well, I guess it is a question of how much of metallic green you like.

And somewhere in between, I circled the flowers with my i-pad, sketching one little flower using the drawing app, observing its symmetry, and how it is broken, the colors, the shapes.

Thus, yesterday was very busy, in all possible ways, and it saw us getting more air du désert marocain ready for bottling today. But I managed to do the weekly jogging including some hard core brand and numbers thinking, in preparation for this week’s meetings. There, at the meetings, we will try to come up with a master plan for the next 1-2 years. I need to come up with some core decisions like how many scents more do I want. And when. And in what kind of bottles. And for what price. For whom. All very good questions. Right now, I worry about the number of scents that I have not published. I have a couple of colognes ready, two three other fragrances sit in Excel, and I simply have not decided what to do with them. If I was a painter it would be simple: Just hang the paintings up, in a gallery, or another public place and share them. Scents are different. A whole factory has to be turned on in order to share a new creation. And once it is out, there is an expectation that it will always smell the same, look the same, cost the same and be available all the time.

And while everyone seems to be interested in new fragrances, asking for more, and more new scents, everybody seems to complain about too many fragrances appearing and too little time to follow what’s new. Not easy, right?

These, and other questions such as profitability, and volumes and work load will be on the table tomorrow.

Ultimately, the goal is to continue building an environment that allows  being creative without having to compromise too much.

Today’s picture: Another shot taken yesterday, of the hyacinth flowers. Their waxy flowers are almost translucent in bright sunlight.

Today, I finished another rose mix that will go into the molten glycerine soap, that will go into the soap pouring frame, allowing me to pour 48 soaps at once and come up with soap bars. Rose scented soap bars. The mixture is actually quite simple, consisting of 10 ingredients, rose absolute (r. damascena from Bulgaria), Bergamot essential oil and geranium (Bourbon quality) being the naturals.

This soap like all my soaps cannot be bought. It is made to exist in the moment, as a gift and a sign of appreciation, for special moments. And -to be frank- from a commercial point of view these soaps would not make sense. Too much work  goes into the preparation of them, too much expensive raw material is inside. In a sense, these soaps are the most luxurious product I have. It is so luxurious that not even an oligarch can get it, if you know what I mean.

Right now, I am still sitting at home, writing these lines, but as soon as they disappear in the e-universe and as soon as the paper to wrap the soaps later is printed (my printer is not keeping up with my speed) I will ride my bike to hit the little 2 room factory of mine and start melting and pouring. And thinking about Wednesday. Then I will be in Oldenburg (yes…where is Oldenburg? Think  Bremen and move a bit more to the West) and will try to make sense on the topic “Perfumery, manufacturing, composing and creative venture”. Sort of. It is a Duftsalon, a getting together, scheduled for Wednesday, 19.30, with perfume lovers, organized by the Duftcontor in Oldenburg. One of the few German hotspots for selective perfumes and perfumery. Actually, I am really, really looking forward to this.

I will for sure bring a rose absolute with me, to show to the perfume loving crowd.

Thus, I am sitting here with my little scent strip, dipped into the rose concentrate soap mixture and I wish I had a touch more time right now. I would love, love, love so much to play a bit with it: play on the lines of a rose fragrance with this rose at is center, aldehydic, with hints of maybe tuberose in the head, a hint of muscs and woods, a trace of sandalwood maybe….

Here’s the plan: Tauer goes jogging on Saturday, which is a revolution in light of years doing this on Sundays. And while doing so the tauer creative director thinks “soaps”, Pachouli, et al.. Back home the tauer  financial director will provide the funds for tauer sourcing to head downtown for some shopping and when back home the tauer managing director will hit the kitchen and do some part time e-mailing, in support of the tauer communications manager.

I think you got it: There is only one guy when it comes to Tauer Perfumes and I figured I need to post this (again), just to let the world know. I get so many mails where third parties try to sell their competencies to me. And I wish they would do their homework beforehand, checking out how many employees I have (0.5, sort of). There is no need to send e-mails to the PR department of Tauer Perfumes. Nor is there an office where you could talk privately to the sourcing manager.

I was in a meeting yesterday, and the charming lady knew about this fact. We discussed business opportunities next year, interesting projects, all starting with a white paper, sort of. And while discussing  with her, I realized how small and swift my enterprise actually is. Swift as a weasel, we can adjust to needs and wishes. Now that’s a big plus. Unfortunately, there is the other side of the medal, too. Being small translates into Sunday shifts when I get a lot of orders. Guess what: You will see the blue colar tauer this Sunday in his factory, packing air du désert marcain and 15 others scents….

Here’s to a happy, free Saturday. Enjoy your weekend!

So I am back in Switzerland since last Friday, trying to convince my day-night brain cycle that I am here and not there in LA anymore. Quite a useless venture it seems. Thus, I have an e-mail inbox that is all empty with almost all mails answered because I am there 24 hours.

Thus, I have some time during the day to move on with fragrant stuff. Yesterday, after doing all the necessary calculations I mixed the Cologne du Maghreb, a little batch for 200 flacons of 50 ml. The picture to the left shows you what goes into it. I took it yesterday before pouring all raw materials one after the other into the 12 liter aluminum can. Last year’s advent calendar treat was based on this cologne. You find it reviewed for instance here on Sorcery of Scent by Dimitri.

It is 19 ingredients. All of them are all natural. All botanical. Just essential oils and resins and absolutes. Not less not more. Why all botanical? I answered this  a while ago in a comment on my blog: Because I feel there is no need to add anything else here. It is good enough as is.

In a sense it is an ultra complex mixture and yet ultra simple: Just mixing the right citrus oils together with a few raw materials that last a bit longer. In this sense, I could label the Cologne also Eau Fraiche. But then: I guess Cologne fits its quality better, with the lemon bergamot neroli rush.

I will give you more details on the construction in the coming days and why and what  and when. For the time being: I enjoy the citrus signature that yesterday’s venture added to the house.

Before I post more on Miriam et al tomorrow: Yesterday was very hot, today is going to be quite hot, too. Hot because the temperatures outside have reached high summer levels.  And also because we sort of get into first activated level in preparation of Tableau de Parfums, Pitti and as we face a few supplier and sourcing issues.

In a sense, this is going to be normal.  A product like a boxed and labeled perfume has a supply chain of about 10-20 different direct contact suppliers. In the second row, suppliers who supply my suppliers to produce my products, it is of course much more. Thus, quite frequently I  need to try new solutions, optimized solutions, different solutions.

In a sense it is always fascinating to see where all the parts come from and how they fit together. But usually, when I think about my supply chain, it is because one of the many chains is broken or not working properly or endangered to work properly.

While it is so hot, we dream of cool mountain valleys. Today’s picture shows you a larch cone, taken home with me from a hike in the mountains, scanned.

In three weeks I will get ready for Pitti Fragranze in Florence. With this in mind, I visited my bike mechanic guy to announce my bike for repairs. I used it on a daily basis and hence figured that these 5 days where I am at Pitti might be ideal to get my bike’s age related its and bits fixed. The mechanic’s workshop looks and smells like you would expect it. A lot of metal parts, grease on fabric, and their typical smell. Actually, a bike mechanic workshop smells better than a car workshop. It might be a difference in grease, the missing gasoline aspect, who knows?

He, the mechanic was very happy. Finally a client who announces his broken bike early enough. And I am happily looking forward to riding a shiny all functional bike again. And the workshop brought back memories of my Hyacinth and a mechanic experimental scent. (Reviews of this experiment see this search on : Google.com ) This together with my fiddling lately for a fragrance for Ingrid, the third woman portrait on Woman’s picture.

I am sort of very unhappy there and I realized today, while dreaming in sample making stasis, that I need to rethink my previous work. I always felt that what I had worked on was not right, but could not pinpoint it. I tried to build a fragrance for this third woman picture around hyacinth. But I come to the conclusion that this starting point is wrong. Thus, I feel I will go to field zero there.  The moment I realized this (sniffing the latest versions on my wrist) I was relieved.  By knowing what not to do, I know what to do next.

To be frank with you, my dear reader, I remain somewhat obscure here, worrying that I start confusing you. We have not even launched the first fragrance from Tableau de Parfums, and yet I am talking about the third one. But this I can tell you: Ingrid is a very sensual woman. There is something very deep and a sad note in her face. She for sure can wear a rich, oriental, musky, dark fragrance.  Thus, I am working on Ingrid’s fragrance, but do not like to talk too much about it, as it still far away.

On the other hand, this is reality. Perfumes do not fall from heaven. When I started discussing the whole Tableau de Parfums project idea, I always underlined that creating perfumes is not easy and sometimes takes a lot of time. The W.-factor always says (he got it from somewhere) “it is 95 % transpiration and 5% inspiration.  Right now I am sweating. But the 5% told me today “Myrrh”. And Sandalwood. And the rest we will see.

Today’s picture: Another rose scan. I am a big rose lover!

Today’s photo shows you the out most right corner of my desk where packaging tests, purse spray sample vials, demo flacons, and some dust settled while working with Brian on the flacon and its packaging for Tableau de Parfums (for first pictures: see Woman’s Picture fan page on facebook or Evelyn Avenue ). It all still sits there, partly because I am lazy, partly because I like to see where we came from and where we are heading. I will clean it up as soon as we launched the first fragrance October 6 in Los Angeles and screen the movie(s) in LA. Then, I will be ready to clean the past. I do the same with trials I made during the development of a fragrance. Once launched, I let them all go and through them away. They are ghosts of the past, and I want them to be free to fly away, and not bothering me again. But, looking at a past where nothing was defined and where we fought with concepts and ideas helps especially during days like yesterday: I got  goods delivered that we can send to the trash or back to the shipper right away.

In one delivery the print was -for whatever reasons- not ok. Not my fault… Things like that happen.  The brain plays trick on us and we see what should be there, not what is there. You have three people from production checking it. You have the boss having a look at it too. Even me, when I got the purse spray envelop packaging today, I was all happy, checked the patterns, the print sharpness, the color. All OK. And I did not see it. It was only when I showed it to the W.-factor, like “look, what we’ve got!”, when I realized that somehow, the A and B of Tableau were like printed together. On top of each other. Eating each other. not good.

Thus, we get it replaced for free in two weeks. Day like that with calls and mails forth and back are like a real life drama. So we get it replaced for free and I feel sort of sorry for the company producing it. But then, they told me, this happens. And it is just paper, sustainable produced. Thus, we need to wait another two weeks but now I have no worries anymore: The next packaging print will be checked like a banknote.

Speaking of bank notes: Maybe you want to have a closer look at your <insert your currency bank note here>: a lot of money is loosing its value these days.  Have you seen what happens these days on the stock and currency exchange markets? If not: Check it out. A interesting lecture on human nature. And a frightening one.

Today’s picture shows you a detail from the Tableau de Parfums packaging: The top cover of the box wherein we will pack the 50 ml flacon and the shiny paper label that goes around it, where it says “MIRIAM” with an art déco rose. The top cover comes with a linen paper  texture. The lower part of the box is a shiny white. A contrast that I and Brian wanted to create.

The linen cover is very fine and definitely gives a vintage feel to the assembly.

By the way: The photo does not show you the silver chord going around the packaging, holding everything together. The Miriam paper label that goes all around the box holds it together, too and seals the packaging. The same label seals the sample packaging and the purse spray packaging. My goal was to have as little different labels for the different packagings as possible, and yet not save on the presentation of the perfume.

Today, I will work on the last its and bits there. I am layouting a story, the pages of a novelette, that will go inside the 50 ml perfume packaging, on a complimentary basis.

With this I wish you a lovely weekend. Here, we will dig a little bit into work. And I am looking forward to it.

Enjoy!