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!

This is sort of an off-tauer post, on walking up and down and arriving. The picture shows you a peak of unknown name, next to Safierberg, where we passed from one valley to the other last week (passing over Safierberg at 2500 meters above sea level). The walk up there was nice, but of course a bit strenuous. The walk down was also nice, but equally tough on knees et al. In the middle of the walk was the saddle at 2500 meters with a great view.

While hiking up you feel like it is never going to end. And when you are up there, you look forward to the beer/apple juice in the village down there. And you spend only about one minute up there, because it is windy and chilly.

That is pretty much what life is like. Often. Walking up there. And then, up there, looking forward to the next step. We do the same with Tableau de Parfums right now: Brian published the first pictures of the flacon and the packaging, on facebook and on the Evelyn Avenue blog. It was quite a strenuous way up there. Brian and me worked hard on trying to find the form that speaks about memories and that is more than merely a packaging. We want to make a  statement and to give a meaning to fragrant droplets in a bottle in a box.

But now I sit there on the top, a warehouse filled all the way up with boxes and labels and silver chords and I look forward to coming up with all of it in Los Angeles, October  7 and 6.

I am talking “samples” again. Continuing sort of there, where I stopped yesterday. Today I show you one of the most reliable items I have in my growing collection of materials that I use to present my fragrances to the ethereal world. The picture on the left shows you the spray pump of my samples in glass vials and it actually is amazingly robust and reliable. Very, very rarely we got one not working. Close to zero. Looking at it in its details and beauty, you might realize how low tech and high tech at the same time it is. A simple mechanism, but a highly precise production and assembly, making the sample vial basically 100% leak tight. I love them. Most of the time.

Today, we will fill more glass vials and put these pumps on top; by hand, of course.

Now, in my next life as perfumer, I would probably make my entire sample offerings a bit different. In order to just try a fragrance, these glass spray vials are a bit too much an effort. In order to try a perfume, I am convinced that you do not need sprays. It is a matter of convenience. Plastic sprays, or simple dab 1 ml vials should be enough to get an idea of a fragrance. The next size would then be somewhere around 5-10 ml, like a decant size. And then I would offer the full flacon size.

For Tableau de Parfums – as mentioned earlier- I will do exactly this. And there, for the first fragrance called Miriam, the sample is a simple dab vial because  I want to offer a DVD together with the sample, without giving too much money away. This teaser DVD introduces the world of Miriam, and the entire world that Brian creates in his moving pictures and me in my fragrant pictures. Brian is doing this teaser DVD now.

This is why I had to come up with a sample packaging that allows at the same time to protect and pack a DVD. I think nobody has ever done this on that scale.

And I had no idea how much work goes into the cut and assembly of moving pictures. It is amazing how much time it needs to produce a nice, professional DVD. I am glad I just need to make perfumes.

It is summer. Time to think X-mas. In a few moments I will start mixing Une Rose chyprée. The bottles with the raw materials are out of the fridge and cool cellar since yesterday night and had time to come to room temperature. It is 31 ingredients, from Ambrein to Zitrone (lemon) and quite tricky to mix, with lots of viscous and sticky resins. Think: Needs time to clean up afterwards.

Actually, mixing in itself is fun and does not take too much time. But it needs a lot of preparation and after work. First, we need to check that we got everything and have to order what is missing, keeping in mind that we will mix other perfumes, too. Thus, I have created a while ago a SUPER Excel, that gives me an overview about all stock I have. Then I need to reorder all that is missing and wait. Then the CA, certificates of analysis, need inspection: Are we still on the safe side (allergens)?

And then, after mixing, I need to write down all the lot numbers of the ingredients for a particular mixture, put all the stuff back and clean up. The sticky resins such as Tolu balm or Oakmoss are like glue.

Looking at things from a less excel and more fragrant side: Rose chyprée is actually a mixing highlight. It is all in there, the roses (both oil and absolute), the jasmin (Egypt), resins and woods (tolu, ambrein, …), the citrus reign (lemon, geranium, bergamot, lemongrass), spices (bay and cinnamon), patchouli and more.

Ah, yes: When mixed into a 12 liter aluminum can, it gets a label, goes into the fridge for 1 month, to get diluted afterwards and be ready by mid September, to go into bottles  and ship in the days before X-mas. That’s the plan.

Today’s picture shows you ambroxan on scale: Yesterday, I mixed Incense extrême, which is in a nutshell incense and ambroxan and orris heaven. Much simpler to mix. Ha!

yesterday, I finished filling and preparing the pentachords flacon stock for White, Verdant and Auburn.  Next: Incense rosé.

And I finished the ordering and design forth and back of the sample packaging for Tableau de Parfums.

I will produce dab vial samples, offer them in a cardboard envelop, and we think we will include a DVD that introduces the art and passion behind Woman’s picture and TdP. The DVD will be important as Tableau de Parfums is part of Woman’s picture, a larger initiative. But I will not sell these samples on my website (this is the plan today). This will free me from spending too much time preparing sample packs, dealing with questions about why we ship not here and there and why we ship not with a courier for free and other questions that sound silly but in the end are not.

Coincidence or no: We had some discussions going on on samples in yesterday’s blog comments and I would like this discussion to continue here. Some, I know, love the spray samples that I sell. They are very reliable and spray a nice spray. For most fragrances  in the Tauer range I produce 1.5 ml (think 2 ml) spray samples. Of course, folks love these. They are a little bit like a mini perfume flacon. We ship a lot of these, and I spend quite some time producing these and they do not pay my rent and food. They may be too good, to be honest. And today, with today’s experience, I will not start offering these for a new range of scents that I make jointly with another artist.

In my opinion, a sample is here to try two, three times a fragrance, under non optimal conditions (think dab vials). For some of you, this may not be enough. Some perfume lovers want to explore a scent in more depth and detail. This is why I will offer a purse spray size for Tableau de Parfums. It will be 7 ml, and will allow to spray and to  try and test, or to continue testing in case of doubt, for a reasonable price, and allowing me to do other things than fill sample vials which takes much longer than filling a purse spray.

Thus, I ordered 5000 folded Tableau de Parfums carboard samples and DVD sleeves and look forward to getting them and ship them into the world.

Next: Coming up with labels and the official EU allergene declaration. It is not really a lot of work, but I hate to do the calculation.