Actually, looking at things: quite an effort, and on the side, quite an expensive effort.  Thus, in a sense, it was a welcome reminder of a couple of things when I got my order from Caldey.

I ordered their lavender eau de toilette and got it yesterday. It is lovely, straightforward, a high quality lavender, very much praised by Luca Turin, and I wanted to get it. Smelling it was quite a strong reminder of my love for lavender. And looking at their packaging reminded me very much that at the end, at the very end, ultimately, all that matters is the juice. At least my nose works like that.

A nice reminder.

On the other hand, an opulent and dramatic  fragrance like Rose chyprée needs some sort of a packaging celebration. Thus, the world is complex, both sides are relevant and true.

Anyhow. I just wanted to mention this issue on the side, showing you the  multitude of questions that even a very little business brings up.

Thus, the last order consisted of Iso E, Okoumal, Ambroxan, irone alpha, linalool, rose absolute, cardamom oil, Clementine oil, rose oil, ylang oil, and cistus ladaniferus essential oil &extract.

The last natural is a thrilling raw material. I mentioned it yesterday, as it is an essential part of Incense rosé. I use it since years in some of my compositions, among other things you find it in the Air du désert marocain, too. It is rather expensive, around 3000-4000 $US per kilogram. I use a quality of cistus essential oil that is standardized. It is basically the steam distilled essential oil of twigs from Cistus ladaniferus plus a bit extra added for standardization. The standardization is made by adding some of the extract that results as by product /waste in the steam distillation process. Thus, the producer adjusts each batch by adding more or less extract to make sure it smells the same, and the extract adds extra fixation power.

The scent of this raw material: Warm and woody-spicy. Not sweet balsamic like you know it from Labdanum absolute. This essential oil is more on the wild-leathery-spicy side. Very dry and warm, if this makes sense. Actually, if all goes well I will use it later today again, together with cypriol, to test an idea I have since days in my mind but not mixed in a test bottle, yet. But first things first: The travel agency tauer continues booking flights and trains and more. So far I have booked Munich, Rome, Paris, Paris again, and Rome again.  It is going to be a busy spring, a touch too busy.

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.

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.

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.

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.

I wish you a lovely weekend.

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

One of the reasons to get to NY: I visited MIN, the niche perfumery in the middle of New York and loved it so much! Thus, you will soon see me there again, presenting Tauer flacons and juices.

Since I am back  I am rather busy getting things done. I just finished an interview this instance and will soon head down to the factory, bottling Orange Star, the last 100 bottles of the last batch. I am still in a waiting position for the new batch. Besides Orange Star that should go into production in this month, I have other sourcing issues. Zeta is on the waiting list and I am down to 50 bottles. And no stock. Getting raw materials has become an issue again these days.

Thus, all back to normal. Perfumery business is also very much a logistics business. A rather tough logistics business. I have to work on that over the weekend. It will be rather long and busy.

Optimistic as I am , I am looking forward to actually mixing and getting some production done  in January and February, in order to get ready for spring 2012. NY will hopefully soon see me again. I plan to go there again in March. I guess I will buy jeans then. On another happy travel note: I just booked my Paris train ticket. But Paris is worth another post.

Today’s picture shows you some perspective: Metro in New York.

Thus, I am looking in to LA for March. Or so.  Independent of that, I will be traveling during the upcoming (long) weekend, and will probably not post. For that I put a some stuff onto my ipad. I have I told you that I cannot live without it anymore? This flat little thing turned into a big enabler for me, supporting me in answering mails everywhere and in basically every position, painting pictures and writing up ideas; thus I will work on files and pictures and will carry on some fragrant trials and sketches with me while traveling.

Exploring trials means: Looking at the formula and the scent at the same time and try to make sure what is working, what notes are present, what notes are completely annihilated and what notes add to a fragrance’s beauty. Or rather: What they add to a sketch. Some of the trials are pretty advanced. I worked on them for months now. Some are rather new and more a skeleton than a fragrance. Traveling comes usually with time. Time due to waiting for machines transporting human bodies, time in hotel rooms without the distractions and obligations of home and office.

While I am writing this post, the W.-factor tries to deal with the Italian authorities or rather Italian atrocities, and insurances and police. The accident (where somebody crashed into us, on the highway, a simple and clear case, not the other way round) is still keeping us busy. Amazing.

But to be frank: I do not really care too much about Italian bureaucracy. I am looking forward to traveling somewhere else.

However it smells: It is quite dramatic.

Quite an amazing little thing. I put a few molecules and botanical raw materials together, yesterday, after jogging in rain, under the most grey sky imaginable. I picked cinnamic alcohol, phenylacetaldehyd-diemethylacetal, phenylpropanol, rose absolute, a lily based that I made a year ago (a fragrance in itself, consisting of 11 ingredients), ambroxan, and a few others. Just playing with scent strips.

And actually, I wanted to continue there. But I just learned that the flacons will be delivered later today to the “factory”. A few thousand again, coming from France, handmade by Waltersperger, blue ones and amber ones.  Thus, I will need to head down to tauerville. No play time today.