This is actually a happy post although the title let ‘s you guess it might not be. The postman was busy yesterday, bringing me a lot of things: fragrant raw materials that I have been waiting for since….October 2011!  Finally, I have (almost) all ready to mix Loretta, the second fragrance from the Tableau de Parfums series. These fragrances in the Tableau de Parfums series are  inspired by movie portraits in Woman’s Picture, a film created by Brian Pera, but -contrary to what I read the other day in a comment- they are not celebrity scents or perfume made for a particular human being. I think that’s important to mention again.

Loretta will launch in autumn 2012 and it is getting time to produce it. One message from this post is: if you see a fragrance in the shelfs in autumn 2012, its logistics and production started eventually 12 months ago. Add another 12-24 months for its creation and you have timeline from start to launch of 2-3 years.  Frightening, isn’t it? Right now, I am waiting for one last molecule. In the mean time, I make all ready for the launch of Miriam, the first fragrance from Tableau de Parfums, in Italy, where we plan to present it early May at Campomarzio, in Rome. I am really, very much, looking forward to presenting Miriam in Italy. I feel that Miriam will find a lot of fans in the south.

Bringing Miriam to Italy translates into some translation work, too. With the 50 ml size Miriam comes a novelette, written by Brian Pera. This novelette, called “From the desk of Miram Masterson”, shows an other sides of the character Miriam and goes beyond the movie part. Both, the story and the movie, are part of the Miriam 50 ml packaging, by the way. And for those who missed it all: Here is the Miriam packaging explained in a little vimeo video, by Andy Tauer. Just click here to get to vimeo. Thus, we will translate the novelette for Italy, and print it specifically for Italy. I insisted on this because I think the novelette it is important to fully appreciate the fragrance and the character who inspired it.

I remembered all this when I was testing the digital foto frame yesterday. Yes, there we go: I am coming to the title of this post in a second. I wanted the movie part of Tableau de Parfums to be somehow visible to perfume lovers in perfumeries in Italy. Therefore, I figured out that I will -together with my Italian partner who takes care of my fragrant babies in Italy, ProfumImport in Milano- make a display that presents Tableau de Parfums and Miriam and that shows little sections of film clips, highlighting together with text what Tableau de Parfums and Woman’s Picture and Miriam is all about.

The display will be produced in Switzerland, it will be about 50×30 cm, super expensive, and integrate a digital foto frame, 10” size, and will be really cool. I visited the company producing it all by hand, using wood, iron, cardboard, printed fabric and the digital frame. From a commercial point of view it might not make sense. In a sense that I will not get it paid back in a year or two. But I think from an artistic and communication point of view it makes much sense. And not everything I do must make sense from a commercial point of view. That’s my privilege. And that’s – by the way- why you get 1,2 fragrances in my line that are ridiculously expensive to produce and do not entirely make sense from a commercial point of view.  At least not for the price tag that I mark them with. But that’s another story.

Here you see the first draft for the display that I made, asking the company to offer me 25 of these displays.

A simple sketch of the display from the side.

In the mean time, we started working seriously on it and for that I ordered the first digital frame to build the display around it. I also made a little test video to see whether it does play MPEG4 video. It arrived. It worked, but unfortunately, the screen has one line that is not ok. The frame is a simple out of the box failure and needs to be replaced. See the picture going with today’s post. There you see a little green line in the LCD display.

However, as time is short, I will ask Intenso, the company producing it, whether we can keep it for a month and then ask for a replacement, to build the prototype. I am curious to hear what they say.

Another parcel that I got: A new headphone. For my ipod and for traveling. I got it in pristine condition and can cut the world off my ears now. It feels like meditation, but without the intense work needed to find the inner calm.

Yesterday, I had a first meeting where we looked into tauerville, almost two years after changing flacons and packaging. This is not always easy, as I am emotionally  linked into my products and love them just too much. Thus, in order to successfully think about tauerville’s products, I need to add a black and white filter, allowing me to see a bit clearer.  Hence today’s picture. Black and white helps to see structures and forms better, sometimes.

Two years ago we were finalizing the new tauer design and started filling juice into the new bottles. Since then we learned a few things. And the world has moved on and changed. The EURO has turned into a currency that is swooning like baroque princess laced up from head to toe. Basically this translated into less money for Andy as we could not raise prices like we should in order to compensate the weak Euro to Franc exchange rate.  Europe is heading for a recession (again) and some countries in the Euro zone are shaken very hard already. Thus, hard times ahead. And it does not look like things are going to change that fast when it comes to Europe. At some point I will need to draw consequences on the changing economic environment here.

Those of you who follow this blog for a while know that I worry little about things, but just try to anticipate things and try to create the best environment for my creative venture: besides all the economic things, tauerville is about scents and perfumes, and the key goal will always be allowing me to create.

Thus, we moved on ; learned a few tricks and we learned a few things that don’t work they way we imagined. Like the inlay for the metal boxes; there we had to change from solution A to solution B to solution C.

Thus, we looked into numbers, ideas, visions and worries for the next 3 years to come. It will be my job in the coming weeks to lay out the plan of what will remain and what needs a polishing and what needs to be changed completely. Let’s call it evidence based adjustment. Excel , I am coming…

I think it is already a good guess expecting 2012 to be a year of conceptual work and 2013 to be the year where we introduce the changes.  Exciting!

Equally exciting is the latest addition I got for my raw materials collection: Labdanum absolute decolorized. I love this so much.

Right now, I am working on my newsletter, scheduled to go out end of this month, pictures and later some text. Basically, I am announcing the advent calendar 2011, and tell my newsletter readers that the Pentachords are here since September, Miriam, the first fragrance from the Tableau de Parfums series, is there since October and that the Cologne du Maghreb will be available, November 30, at indiescents.com.

I will publish in this newsletter some of the pictures of the Miriam flacon that I got done the other day. To the left you see a cut out of one of them. Yesterday, I wore Miriam, during an Apéro. I felt so good. I hope that in the holiday season a lot of fragrance lover will discover the fragrance Miriam and the movie Miriam that is available for download now as rental or as full buy version. I got my lifetime copy yesterday. Follow this link to the Miriam download page. Most of the content, by the way, is there on Evelyn Avenue for free. I feel like I need to post a bit longer on the videos and Miriam, the movie, in the coming days. But first things first: I need to get this newsletter done.

The Cologne du Maghreb is an all natural, all botanical cologne that I offer in as long as supply lasts in the “old” 50 ml flacon and in the “old” white box with a little ribbon around it. The idea  to offer this scent for some time on indiescents.com came to us when Franco Wright and me discussed the indiescents offering. Indiescents.com is like an incubator for upcoming brands and fragrant concepts. And the products that you find in the shelves of indiescents.com are artisanal, handcrafted, original and created with much love.

I found the idea of being there with a flacon neat. After some time at indiescents.com I will need to make up my mind how to move on with the Colognes and other ideas. For money reasons, price tag etc. I cannot offer the cologne in my pentagonal flacon. I think so at least. Thus, at some time next year I will need to decide what to do next: Get another larger volume flacon of 75-100 ml  for tauer, get a simpler packaging for the cologne or forget it altogether. For the time being, I just love the idea of going back to my roots for some time. Feels good.

Today, in an hour from now, I will meet the press, sort of. A journalist is coming by and visits me at tauerville to see, smell and feel how a perfume is actually made from A to Z. This is a first. I never had journalists visiting my little manufacture. And yesterday night, I was working on some text for another journalist, writing for the Memphis based  “The Commercial Appeal”, a 150 year old Memphis daily newspaper. He will write on Woman’s Picture. Memphis based movie maker Brian Pera made this movie and it will screen this weekend at the Indie film festival in Memphis. Here you find the program: Not to be missed!

I was explaining why I started the long term collaboration with Brian Pera after he contacted me by e-mail to work on a fragrance project linked into Woman’s Picture. Me doing the scents based, inspired on the woman portraits in the film Woman’s Picture.  One sentence I wrote yesterday night went like “It was the first time that someone actually wanted to collaborate with me as perfumer and was genuinely interested in the exchange around the creative act itself. ”

The creative act and the exchange on how a perfume starts to exist in one’s head, what might trigger which decision, what form is chosen for what image, emotion, mood, reflections that play a role in the movie Woman’s Picture: Questions that the perfume creator usually does not pose to himself. Maybe you need an outsider, a sparing partner, who challenges you by asking “why”, in order to truly understand your fragrant composition. I think I have learned a lot about perfume making in the last year.

OK. Let me see that I get off this computer. Never let a journalist wait. Enjoy your day!

I got a sneak preview sent to me by Aron who takes pictures of the Tableau de Parfums flacon, of Miriam to be precise, and we discussed how to proceed. Love what he did so far. I will get three pictures done: Front, back and side. The goal: Bring in light inside the flacon, let the perfume color gleam a bit through the white enamel like print on the flacon, let the medallion shine in the back, and bring out all the details such as the silver chord running around the flacon’s head.

After yesterday’s preview, I am confident that Aron will manage. Although it is not an easy flacon to take pictures of: The labels and the white print on the front “eat” a lot of light and you need to be clever to bring in the sun into the fragrance.

Pictures are important. Perfumes are judged by flacons and pictures of flacons and packaging. And I always say that perfumes are actually judged and bought by the eye. The nose is just confirming. Sometimes at least. Nosy stuff is eye stuff, too. Thus, I get these pictures done. Later, I will use them for some sort of press and communications work. To be frank: I think that Brian Pera, the Memphis based movie maker and myself, are doing something unique. And I want to make sure that perfume lovers, film lovers, art lovers understand and know.  I want them to know, that this project exists. Thus, I need to keep on talking, and make sure I get the pictures out so that others talk about it, too. It is so difficult to be heard in a world that has become very loud. Anyhow.

I want the pictures to mirror the nostalgic side of the fragrance and the modern twist that you find in both, the flacon and the fragrance.

Actually, Mals used the term “nostalgic” yesterday in the comment on Miriam. Mals is a lucky winner of the Now Smell This draw a while ago, and used the term nostaligic to describe the scent. Nostalgic  is a nice word. “Sugestive to something in the past”, says Thesaurus. I guess that fits perfectly.

The something here is the scent and the past is the time when folks still got the real thing.

OK, there we go: I mixed enough stock of my all natural, all botanical “COLOGNE DU MAGHREB” on Sunday for about 200 flacons. A few of these will go to friends and family and fans on facebook or with the blog.

But most of them will actually, provided there is an interest, retail in the US. Let us call it a “trial phase”. Not for the product in itself. There is no doubt on my side that the quality is fine. I feel very strongly since more than a year that this all natural cologne is actually going to be a part of the Tauer family at some point. It is as good a cologne as it might be an “eau fraiche” or a gentle eau de toilette with a cologne citrus burst. The Cologne du Maghreb together with a “cologne à la lavande” and a “cologne au vetiver” might ad wonderfully into my Tauer family of scents. All three are ready and sit there in the excel and wait for the decision at some time in 2012.

Thus, the trial is not about its scent quality. For me test is more on the side: How to communicate this totally different scent? It is different in terms of scent language (all botanical), it is also different as it follows the rules of how colognes are constructed.  Although, being Andy, I slightly bend these rules.

The trial is also about: What price level to set for such a scent. And the test is: Is there going to be a marke? I cannot figure a better test ground right now than Luckyscent.

Ultimately, being out there with this cologne baby with a retailer, will kick start the process of how to offer it.

The trial will be done with my “standard” 50 ml flacon, in my “standard” box with a “standard” ribbon that you might know from 3 years ago. Ultimately, I want to offer the colognes in about 70-100 ml size new flacons.  But at the core of it all is communication: Communication and maybe even sales channels for this line of scents might be different and very crucial. And after yesterday’s comments: Here is an idea for the claim that might go with a cologne line. “Sun, bottled. ”

Love it!

PS: the picture of today shows you what I have seen yesterday on my way home from the warehouse. A little water stream with three origami paper boats and some colored leaves. An allegory for the flow of things.

As I have stated yesterday, we are digging deep into autumn these days. And autumn comes with brochures and inlays in newspapers and magazines. Kashmir, woolen things, and happy folks wearing mostly English warm cuddly garment under a great spring sun. Spring, because they do the shooting in spring. And with every booklet more of happy folks smiling in their immaculate pullovers showing the biceps and what you have:  I remember that I need to get a new tauer picture done.

I have this lovely wonderful picture that you see to the left, made by Tina Steinauer a while ago for Schweizer Illustrierte. I need new photos. I sort of outgrew this one. But this is not easy, as I am not sure how to present myself. Serious, smiling, me or me and nature, me and flowers, me frontal, me from the side, me sitting, sniffing (oh no! all those stupid sniffing pictures…) me walking….difficult! Thus , I came upon this inlay featuring body wear for HIM. And there I really started wondering. You know, you have this guy in his new sleeping dress, all blue, with long legs and I wonder who wears this anyhow. I mean, who at his age (like 28). And then the way he presents this piece. He is in some sort of shower, bath environment and he walks. Right into your face. One step more and he is there in front of you. He walks the way you walk when you conquer the world. One step more and it is all mine. Yes! Or at least he walks into the bedroom and takes whatever he finds there. This makes me wondering more. I mean…who ends up buying these things. Is it the women of the men wearing it? Then the add makes sense. Yes, a dream of him stepping out of the bathroom right  into the bedroom. But I would guess it must mostly be men buying their body wear. Right? Most of them are probably not gay guys, so what do they think when they buy it? I mean, the message is just wrong. too much energy in there for something you wear when you are tired and want to go to bed.

I kept looking into the hunter eyes (facing me), the pose (on the move) for a while and now I know: I will get a non-walking picture done of myself. Just to be on the safe side. Something more static, like the poodle picture that follows. It is our guest dog. I upload this for Jen. Enjoy!

Sometimes I get mails like “to the attention of communications” and alike. And sometimes I wish I would have a communications department. Just sometimes. Like today, early in the morning. Today’s picture shows you my desk, 6 am, making CD’s for the press that I will meet tomorrow in Munich.

I was cordially invited and got the great opportunity to meet the press on a high level get together, called Duftsalon, organized by a great PR agency I know since years. Think “Vogue et al.”, together with Patricia de Nicolai for Nicolai and Sebastian Fischenich for Humiecki and Graef. This is kind of cool and came kind of unexpected during Pitti. Thus, I am burning CD’s today, after working on text yesterday. I realized that my PR text in German was almost not existing, yesterday in the evening, after having finished and shipped what needed to be shipped. It was a really busy day yesterday, but usually I am operating better under pressure.

Thus, we are getting there. I will make discovery sets, and give them to the journalists, too. I decided to give a set with Air du désert marocain, Orange Star, Une rose vermeille, the ZETA – a linden blossom theme-, and one of the Pentachords. I haven’t really decided which one. The white with its gentle vanilla -orris-ambergris -violet-woods notes is the easiest to show. But, to be frank, the verdant was the star at Pitti. It found most interest. Maybe because it is also the most impressive, with its notes of green-leather-earth-tobacco-ambergris. Hmmm… which one to take? Difficult! I have to ask my communications department.

Anyhow:

At 6 pm I have my train to Munich where I will get at 23 pm. And a 6 pm , 24 hours later, I have another train back, bringing me to Zurich in time for bed. Then, if all goes well, I will head for a meeting day on Friday. In this meeting, I will look into opportunities for the German market that is basically next door, but was totally neglected so far by myself.

As Werner said the other day: You like everything else better than actually selling your fragrances. Yes, right he is. Time to change this.

Vogue here I come!

I will soon hit the road for Austria; culture on the horizon! And tomorrow, I take a day off, switching the Saturday with the Friday, for a hike. While doing so, and sweating under a late summer sun, I will continue thinking perfume. Hiking is always very inspiring. I can play with notes and amounts in my head,  build new lines and come up with entire fragrant empire without having to face these with reality by actually mixing.

There is nothing more thrilling that drawing scented castles in the air.

While searching for a nice picture going with today’s post, I came across the one you see to the left. I cropped the central part, wood and jeans. Actually, that picture is quite nice, with the blue and the beige tones, and “Wood and Jeans” or “in the wood with jeans” would be a nice perfume name. Kind of a male fragrance that complements the “Fruitchoulis” from last week.

So you see: It is an endless journey this perfumery journey.

Enjoy your day!

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!