Maybe, if all goes well, I will have some time to draw another hyacinth on the pad. Let’s hope for best.

I wish you a lovely weekend.

today’s picture: Hyacinth, seen this morning in the living room.

Welcome back today. It is day 12 of the advent calendar, with another chance to win a flacon of the all natural, all botanical Cologne du Maghreb. The only thing you have to do: Leave a comment on this blog post.

Today I share an intimate detail with you: You see below the only white, free spot on my desk. The rest of the desk is filled with computer, printer, perfume bottles from brands that I like, like Hermes’s Eau de gentiane blanche, some paper, although I am pretty good in keeping the piles of paper small. Here I have a simple rule. For every piece of paper I ask myself immediately whether it is important or not. If not sure: I through it away. Thus, at least there are only small piles with important papers on the desk.

But there are more bottles: 30 ml brown flint glass bottles where I store my experiments. I usually do my experiments in 12.5 ml -25 ml size, depending  on how much diluted raw materials I use. Right now, I am working on an aldehydic rose, some colognes and fresh cologne inspired eau fraiche, I am doing last inspections on the third Tableau de Parfums fragrance, Ingrid, and I am testing a lot of raw materials that I want to get in 2012. Cypriol coeur, Champaca, rose specialities, and other delights.

And you also find a lot of small spray sample size vials, where I test dilutions of experimental fragrances. The concentrate needs to mature for at least a week or two. Later it gets diluted and filled into into small vials. And then the experimental fragrances get tested. And usually, we start over again.

Thus, you see: my desk is sort of dominated by bottles.

Now, I invite you to make sure to take your chance to win this cologne. Your comment can be as short as you wish, or you can tell the world what your desk looks like.  Just make sure to leave a valid e-mail (will not show on the blog) allowing us to contact you.  Good luck!

This draw is closed now. See the advent calendar for your next chance. Thank you to all of you who participated.

Fragrant greetings from London. It is day two of our advent calendar, and today you can win a full bottle of the all natural, all botanical Cologne du Maghreb.
We will pick the winner tomorrow, all randomly, and everybody can participate. The only thing you have to do is leaving a short comment and a valid email address (not in your comment).
If you wish, feel free to share what your favorite cologne is. Mine is an experimental one with lots of lavender, but my favorites change on a daily basis.
I wish you a lovely day.

(this draw is closed). See the advent calendar page for the next draw.

I am travelling and forgot to announce this. I will be back in a few days.
Cheers

It is 7am and I am on my to Milano. There, I will meet my Italian partner and finalize the plans for 2012: I look forward to presenting Tableau de Parfums in Italy, maybe in spring.
Thus, I sit here, groggy as I have not slept enough, and after a few strenuous days I am looking forward to more heavy duty days in the factory. It is the holiday season tremors that shake our factory and we got a lot of fragrances to pack and ship in the next two weeks.
In light of this, I have not worked on something new really, except maybe in my head. But I enjoyed wearing a few fragrances lately, mostly Miriam, because it is always refreshingly new to me. Miriam is a very complex fragrance, not the linear one- shots you get these days, and hence it seems to change from day to day.

Complexity in perfumery means a lot of layers, and each layer will become relevant at some point in time. The challenge here: link these layers and yet make sure that they each can stand out and do not turn into a grey solid impermeable floor. All layers must be as translucent as possible.
This is a quality that brings me back again and again to the classics, and that makes me create perfumes like Miriam. Of course, Miriam needed to be a classics like fragrance: the movie story, the characters therein, the ambiance and the world of Miriam did not leave me with a choice.

Referring to the latest Wired article on ingredients: this is another aspect of what sets the classic scents apart: it is a different aesthetic, a different language you get there. It is like that with movies, too by the way…

In Joshua tree, Border avenue, to the right, I think it was close to Canterbury, I came across the most interesting art installation imaginable in the semi desert. Piled left overs of civilization, desert art, neatly arranged, in a way it makes sense. Today’s picture shows you one detail of one object that is part of a larger installation there: A General Electric oven.

Its time froze shortly before nine. For some, the desert is frightening. For me it is a place where I can breath, grasp eternity and where I can come to peace. The desert puts things into perspective for me: The right perspective, of us being here for a very short time, being small and vulnerable. I highly respect the desert for being stronger than me and do not even argue with it (like when we lost track while hiking, we did and had to return…). In this context this art installation, a few acres filled with civilization and what civilization leaves, is actually perfectly located. I have to figure out the name of this place again. If you are in the area: Visit. It is spooky.

I love the design of this oven’s front. It looks end 50-ies, early 60-ies to me. They don’t make these things this way anymore. Now…. do not get me wrong. I do not want to go back there in time. I prefer the early 21st century with advanced cancer treatment, iphones and cars that have airbags. But there is some nostalgia coming up when I look at this oven front. Amazing how we human beings relate to objects. Like cars. Like Saab cars. Mine will be picked up today, in an hour and will be gone forever, not having survived the accident in Italy.

Or like flacons. Like old Tauer flacons. Yesterday, I finished the graphics for the label going onto the flacon and the box for the Cologne du Maghreb that we will bring as “trial version” end year. The label is more or less the same like the one from last year. I just wanted to add the term ALL BOTANICAL to it. Botanical means for me: No synthetics and no isolated molecules from natural sources. Thus, I had to have a closer look at the flacon, rectangular, simple, very simple, with a golden cap. I must have put ten thousand, or actually much more of these flacons into boxes. I still like it, a lot.

It is funny how we human beings relate to things.

Here is another picture of last year’s Cologne flacon: Enjoy!

Happy Wednesday everyone. After spending a day in the car yesterday,I will be traveling all day in the plane to LA. I look indeed very much forward to being swallowed by this plane flight chain of commands.  A good rest for a few hours and the perfect excuse to do nothing.

If you wish to meet me and Brian: October 7 , 5 pm at scentbar on Beverly Blvd, or October 11, 7 pm in Steven Allen Theater on Hollywood Blvd, for the premier of Woman’s picture and rose, hosted by Ann Magnuson.

I look forward to a few thrilling and busy days and will come back here with pleasure.

Today is going to be a very busy day and in between boxing and packing I need to answer interview questions for one of the top magazines here in Switzerland. “What was your first scent experience?” is one of them. Hmmm… my memories there are limited. I think of the dog “LEO” in the village, and my aunt’s cologne. Real Kölnisch Wasser. I have a bottle of it, sitting in my fragrance storage box, from my mother. The picture of today is a detail from the flacon.

Smelling this cologne , for me, brings back memories of  days long  gone by. A time where ladies always had their little flacon of Kölnisch with them. At least my aunt did. She did for all kind of purposes. Refreshing, perfuming, cleaning , you name it.

It is interesting: my first scent memories are not easy to find. Can you pinpoint a first scent memory?

In this context: In case you have not watched the video interviews that Brian did on scent memories: Now is the time to watch them, there on vimeo or on the Woman’s Picture blogging round.

Fragrant greetings!

Fragrant greetings to you. Yes you!

I am back from Munich, a bit tired because of  my not being used to being exposed to journalists. Usually, I am exposed to perfume lovers or bloggers and this different. The get together with Patrica de Nicolai and Sebastian Fischenich from Humiecki and Graef was wonderful, and I enjoyed their company a lot. We chatted about our brands, about our flacons and about our scents. I got to smell the new Eau cHic by Nicolai that I really liked a lot, because I am a big geranium fan to start with. But my favorite from Patricia’s line is and remains the New York, that I got a couple of years ago in her lovely shop at Rue Grenelle. New York is an absolute classic. Think Habit Rouge, but a touch more modern.

Anyhow. So we all met the journalists who were absolutely lovely. To be frank: I did similar events in the past, and I had visitors falling asleep over my scents. almost. Not this time. Woo hoo! I showed une  rose chyprée, ZETA – a linden blossom theme- , Pentachords VERDANT, and L’air du désert marocain, of course, telling the image of the scent, in 60 seconds. And I got some really nice comments and better even: Smart questions. I love smart questions. Such as how to balance the quest to grow and the artistic aspects of the brand.

A good question. For all of you who have never heard the Air du désert marocain image behind the scent, there we go. The others might consider reading (and taking their chance to win a sample)  on Olfactarama about Miriam, and following the serialized interview with Brian. Enjoy, and follow this link to Pat’s blog.

And here comes the image of Air du désert marocain:

“Imagine yourself in a hotel, in Ouarzazad, close to the desert, in the evening, you lying in bed, the door to the terrace wide open, the evening wind blows from the Saharan desert, it is dry and warm, it brings with it the spices from the souk, the smoke from the many open fires where women cook the evening food, the jasmine bush blooming at the corner of the street and the sweet hint of oriental cookies from the bakery next door. You inhale this perfume and fall asleep, dreaming of Moroccan wonders. ”

Today’s picture: the first original visual going with the air du désert marocain. The moon rising over the desert.

This is a byebye for a day or two. Tomorrow, we will be driving and then I will be standing at the exhibition stand at Pitti Fragranze.

And today, it is last minute preparations day.

Thus, I leave you to reading other blogs and news and there we go with the recommended posts of today:
Elene publishes the second chapter of the Miriam Novelette, and an interview with me on some of the core factors when building Miriam  that you will for sure find interesting. You find here post here.

And Persolaise published the first film interview as part of the blogging round. And you can win a sample on his blog. Please see the interview here on his blog.

I wish you fun reading and watching and send you fragrant greetings.

Today’ s picture taken from the terrace of our hotel room, booked early and amazingly affordable, shows you the sun over the Arno, taken last year from our hotel in Florence, and guess in which hotel we are staying this time. Yes!