Before I start today’s post: Today is your last chance to enter the draw. If you have not commented on the draw post: Do it following this link (not on this post here, and not in facebook) now.In a few hours the draw will be closed.

Here’s another orchid picture for you. No tulips today as it is raining and I do not like to take picture in the rain. It is enough butch spirit to ride the bike in the rain to the tauerville’s factory. I will spend most of my time there, filling Rêverie au jardin bottles and making orders ready for shipment. This is what I did the last few days and this is what I will continue doing until next week when I will say bye for a while. Thus, I sit in the factory , and pour juice into bottles and put labels on and polish them and put them into boxes and the boxes into larger boxes.  And if I am getting bored, I sniff some perfume.  Experiment things that I have cooking in the lab. Like my “aldehydic rose” that I love so much and that needs a name.

During my week in the desert I will think about what to do in the next future with some of my experimental fragrances that I consider finished or close to finished. I need some sort of a master plan there. Thus, high hopes that the high desert will provide ideas and inspiration. For sure it will provide pictures to take home with me, on the pad and on the camera’s SD card.

Today’s picture: I took the picture over the weekend, in the living room, using my Nikon, slightly overexposing the orchid flower against the sky as background. Later I changed to black and white and added some contrast in photoshop.

Fragrant greetings from the factory, where we pack air du désert and fill Pentachord AUBURN bottles. Today’s picture shows you a how the packing table looks from the top, and the helping hands of the W.-factor. And there is another reason why I am in the factory: I need to clean up a bit and get ready for a visit from a journalist together with a photographer who happens to be my neighbor. They are working on stories of self made men and women who live their dream and follow their visions.

I guess that’s what I did and still do, and I am looking very much forward to sharing how exactly this works in the Tauer factory and how we got there. Today, looking over my micro empire, looking over the shelves boxes and bottles, I sort of felt happy. We may be a small company, where the head of marketing and sales and production and communication and more is one person, but nevertheless: We are there. And proud to be different. Not everything is perfect and this year sees me correcting and adjusting a few things together with my designers. This was the goal of my meeting with the designers: Decide what needs to be done next and how. Think: Packaging. But not the bottles! These remain untouched.

Size, by the way, was one of the topics you heard a lot at Esxence: How easy it got to come up with a brand new brand.  Technology has changed the name of the game and it has become very easy to actually start your brand and penetrate the market. It is production and communication technologies that are disruptive. And the long tail becomes a problem for the bigger ones.

This will be a topic with the journalist, for sure. And then, once they are gone, I have to get into high gears. I realized that I have only a few days left to get some orders out and to stuck up before I leave for a week. This means: A lot of bottle filling and preparing shipment boxes and filling out customs forms and get all ready for shipment with either trucks or regular postal mail.

But I think I will get done with what needs to be done until I fly seemingly into the sun again. I cannot wait for one of the best pancakes. Ricota blueberry pancakes at Beverly Blvd.   But before this pleasure makes me smile: Work!

This spring is absolutely stunning and under an immaculate blue sky all kind of flowers are popping up and shine in brightest colors. It is wonderful and a plentiful compensation for a cold winter that did quite some damage to a lot of plants. Today’s picture shows you one of these beauties, slightly overexposed with the purpose to bring out its contours.

Besides me telling where I am traveling, sharing some pictures and thoughts of the day,  this blog fulfills the function to explain what creating perfumes is all about and what presenting perfumes to the world is all about. One part of presenting perfumes are samples, especially when you are a little indie perfume house and work as a 1.5 man show from a tiny little factory somewhere in Zurich consisting of two rooms. Samples are a way of presenting my creations to perfume lovers who live far from a perfumery that has my line. And for some, samples are a way of getting my scents because the investments for a full bottle are too large.

For me, personally, it was always important, never to move into a corner where I am bling bling, becoming super expensive by adding a $ or two for my packing and then selling stuff for 300$ or more. Technically, I could. Since I do what I do, I tried to stay in a territory where you can afford my products and I wanted to be approachable, by offering samples that are affordable, too. And I want the experience of my samples to be a part of a larger picture.

Samples are the entry point into a brand, a world, in my case the world of Andy’s scents, and I always wanted the samples to be nice and reflecting the quality of what is inside. Thus, I prefer glass vials to plastic, I offer samples with some information of what’s inside and I try to offer more fragrance than just a little dab.

On the other side: If you are a small artist/creator/business operator like me, then selling samples are not a source of an income,; in the contrary. And I do not produce samples in hundred thousands automatically in China/Vietnam or where ever, in pre-labelled glass vials, that then go out to shops where sales assistants can give them away.

I need to label the glass vials by hand, put in the juice by hand, put the vials into boxes, handle the shopping cart interface and confirm orders, fill out CN22 custom forms, print shipment labels, sometimes do commercial invoices (yes, for a sample…), put samples into a shipment envelope, and post them and sometimes send with registered mail to countries where the post is not reliable.

Yesterday, before going to bed, I tried to diagonally follow a thread on Fragrantica.com, where perfume lovers discuss samples and their pricing. I did not read in detail, but realized that the discussion is very broad and covers many aspects, hence it is worth sharing here. I figured, I can a bit of information, too. Thus, this post. I think it is important to consider that the time to fill and ship a bottle is not equivalent but close to the time of filling and labeling and shipping a sample. When you buy a sample, you pay for what is inside. And for the service of putting it all together and out.

Fragrant greetings, today from the train to Milan (again), where I will stay for a day, sleeping in an affordable hotel, and trying not to get homesick. It has been a while since I slept for a couple of days in a row at home.
But I do not want to complain. In the end, it was me who decided when to go where. Next week, on Monday, you will see me in Paris(again), where I am doing a little, but nice!, event with Antonio to officially launch the fragrance Miriam in Paris at Marie-Antoinette. Probably one of the cosiest selective perfumeries in Paris.
But first Milan. I am so looking forward to visiting Esxence. We decided again not to exhibit, we = me and my Italian importer. I am too small and cannot afford to present my fragrances twice a year. Although we would have great news for Italy to present: Tableau de Parfums, with Miriam, is ante portas in Italy.
And talking Tableau. Yes, we did it. Together with you. We reached our kickstarter goal. I thank all of you who pledged and supported us by sharing and by spreading the news. So this is over now and I am very happy that it all worked out so nicely. It will be my job to actually make these soaps and fill the Dark Passage and Loretta purse sprays.
I wonder how many mails I will get in the coming weeks wherein folks ask for a Dark Passage sample or a purse spray, on exceptional basis because they heard about it or missed the campaign. I have not really come up with a plan there. I will probably come up with a page on my site where I say no. Thus, I can reply to these requests by simply sending a link. You would not believe how many mails I still get where perfume lovers ask for Orris, my limited edition fragrance created a couple of years ago…. and yes: just in case you wonder, no chance. Orris is gone.
After all these kickstarter posts, I would like to end this post with a little note on hyacinth. I have a few blooming right now in my little garden. After running and packing and jumping forth and back all day yesterday, I took a few minutes off, sitting next to the pink beauty.It was simply amazing how leathery this scent seemed to me. A sweet spicy green creamy leathery scent.

It is spring and the world looks different. More colorful, and warm and sunny. Wonderful. Soon, the world around me will also look different because I am on my way to Paris, where I will attend the big, BIG, official shop opening of Jovoy, THE niche store in Paris these days. I hope that I will meet a lot of perfume loving French there and I can’t actually wait to see the new shop. I visited and was shown the premises before Jovoy moved in and I can only guess how glorious it must look now.

Thus, this will be an all exciting trip. A short trip, though. I am back 48 hours later, and will have to continue there where I stopped yesterday: Bottling and packaging more Miriam, Tableau de Parfums.

Before leaving, I want to share a video with you.  Click here to view it on my vimeo channel. I got the chance to talk to Al, Streetscents Al. He told me how everything began and where he is heading. And he got the chance to smell Loretta, the second fragrance from Tableau de Parfums, scheduled for release in September /October 2012. A pre-release of Loretta is available as part of the Kickstarter campaign (hurry up, it ends March 29) supporting Brian Pera’s film ONLY CHILD.

Enjoy!

I think it is fair to say that Jovoy has become the first stop for selective niche in Paris. Finally.  And I am going there. The next city on my radar is Paris, where I will attend the official shop opening of Jovoy. My bottles already are, although you do not see them on their website, yet.

But first things first: Fragrant greetings from Zurich, where I got back yesterday morning. It feels like a stop in between, with some time to stock up Miriam purse sprays, samples, working on orders and getting new white T-shirts packed. Lucky me, I switched to Lewis 501 and a white T-shirt a while ago, thus no worries what to pack for the next trip.

NY was great, and we sure had a lot of fun there. We= John and me, and many others. I think John has the coolest home made, colored bottles on the market. Did you know that he actually spray colors all bottles himself, with great looking metallic car paint, that goes just wonderful what is inside the flacons (interesting scents and worth trying out, for sure!)? They look stunning and on the first sight you would not believe that they are hand made. But they are. Each one of them.

John Pegg, perfumer and founder of the brand Kerosene Trewthe

MiN, one of the coolest selective niche perfumery, with great chairs to relax and enjoy scents, is becoming a true hot spot for niche, for sure on the East coast of the US. Saturday afternoon was all joy, and I met so many perfume lovers! All nice guys. Amazing. My thanks go to Mindy and Chat who made it all possible and to everybody who joined and came by. And, as always, I forgot to take pictures. But I did one of the drink’s main ingredients: White Pike Whiskey. Great stuff, also when mixed.

Before heading for Paris on Thursday, I need to work on some stock and on some e-mails.  And I, yes, I am still all in positive shock and smile from here to there, as I made it into Basenote’s readers finalists top 5 as perfumer 2011. Which is of course totally exaggerated and I hope that Mona di Orio will be the final winner.  I really wish. But still, this is really cool. And als in the top five position landed, by the way, MiN, Luckyscent, Les Senteurs.

You see: it was a good time in NY. To compensate a bit, I went for a few jogs in town with my phone. Here are the pictures of what I have seen there. Enjoy!

Today, I am hopping around from here to there and back again. Like a bunny in spring, I guess. And actually, it feels very much like spring today.

This, and the good feeling that comes with the fact that there is now enough juice for 6500 bottles stored in the cellars of tauerville. Those of you who are on facebook can see the 13 12 liter bottles there in my mobile uploads before the aluminum bottles go and hide again in the dark . And yet, there is more fragrance to be made in the coming weeks:
Loretta, the next fragrance in the Tableau de Parfums(R) line will see the world in a few weeks, and will be diluted after a month maturation. Then I need to mix more ZETA, a linden blossom theme. And one or two others.

Thus, it feels like spring today and we are ready to jump into it.

Enjoy!

this post is about to seduce you and introduce you to the wonders of bars and codes.  No, I am not talking about codes that act like tags when it comes to perfumes. Like white musk=”inoffensive little thing  for the office”, or spices=”for men without really being spicy” or other funny notes that actually do not exist except in the mind of some PR guys.  On the side: If you feel like writing the ultimate perfume PR, make sure to visit Now Smell This and enter your contribution to the “PRIX EAU FAUX 2012″. I like this competition a lot.

No, I am talking serious codes. Bar codes. I got mine since a while, but never used them. Or better said: I am registered with GS1 in Switzerland and got my Tauer bar code with a set of 1000 numbers. Thus, there is still some room for new products. The bar code is a 13 digit EAN-13 code. The code for the air du désert marocain, 50 ml , edt you see in today’s picture. Bar codes come in handy for many things. And some retailer need them and want them. Like Jovoy in Paris, where you will soon find my brand, and where I will travel a couple of times this year. Which is nice (both) and for sure worth a few more posts in the future. Right now, I do not print the code directly onto the packaging labels, but as I am completely changing everything, or rather optimizing a few packaging issues within the next 12 months, you will see the bar codes on new labels in about a year from now. For the time being, I have individual labels printed. I got all the bar code pictures yesterday, and made all sticker bar code pictures ready.

And had the computer crash in regular  intervals. Time to get a new one, I fear. Or rather hope.  I want a Mac.

Ah, and yes, this post is about more bars. Soap bars. A much more sensual thing that bar code.  I was fiddling for quite a while on a fragrance for a special, very special soap bar. In the mean time, the fragrance mixture is a perfume by itself. Not that I will start selling soap bars. No way. But I wanted a scented soap bar that is a little bit beyond the ordinary. For a special occasion. I think I got the formula right and stable now. The soap bar with the fragrance was stored for a while, and is in use since a few days in the house of tauer. I cannot pass by the bathroom without smelling. Fingers crossed that all goes like we plan it and that the soap bars will see the world beyond my bath room.

Notes are: Rose, Jasmine, Tuberose.

Dominik Dachs comes back again: When I was a boy, I spent hours and hours watching the adventures of Dominik Dachs and his friends, including Niki Tiki, following them when they traveled their little world. To get an idea (in Swiss German) of how lovely these characters are: Click here for the video on the Swiss TV website. Enjoy!

When I read the news today about Dominik Dachs coming back, I was instantly transported back to days where I was dreaming of getting out into the world and living an adventurous life. And guess what: Actually, in a sense, this boy dream has come pretty true. Not only that I was and am blessed to see parts of the world. I am also living quite an adventurous life. Or, like the W.-factor agreed the other day: I am actually living the life of an artist. Financially somewhat special, but with exciting projects and ideas everywhere. And happy me: I am not doing these projects myself. Like Dominik Dachs I have my friends and partners living these adventures with me, and the other way round.

In the coming days,  another adventure starts. Maybe I am not Dominik Dachs there, but more Niki Tiki, supporting Dominik. It does not matter. I feel it is going to be a fun adventure. I will talk more about Dark Passage, the fragrance. We will talk about a soap that I find utterly interesting, featuring interesting notes, among others Tuberose, and film projects and and and.

These adventures need some preparations. Thus, I get ready and need to pack my adventure bags. See you very, very soon again! Please stay tuned. Thank you.

OK. Now it is sort of official. You find tauer from now on in the MIN Apothecary in New York. Here is the link if you want to visit virtually. And if you want to visit physically: It is quite easy to find. Just follow your nose, in NY and on Crosby street (#117) you might discover cowboys around the campfire, you might smell some desert air mixed with the perfume of spices and freshly baked cookies, or you might find yourself in a raspberry field with roses. And you will discover that Min is actually a very nice and comfortable place to be.

And if you visit March 17, early in the evening, you might see a perfumer guy in jeans and white shirt. I am looking very much to it. And thank the team at Min already now for the cocktails. Everyone is invited.

Don’t miss.

And now: Back to work… mixing, in order to make sure that we have something to smell in New York.