I am a bit behind my boxing and packing schedule. Although I have piled up boxes everywhere around me: I need to speed up and work longer to finish the open orders until next week, to get them shipped out next week. Thus, my happy creative afternoon will be replaced by bottling and boxing. And so might the hiking over the weekend.  We will compensate.

And I can still think about equally important things. Like window decoration. The shop in Zurich selling my perfumes, Medieval art&vie, will do a Tauer window (a partial window) and I will bring some spices for the EAU D’ÉPICES, and posters. I got one made for the UNE ROSE VERMEILLE, featuring a few rose buds, on a dark background, printed 30x 90 cm, on LINEN, and clamped on a frame like a painted picture.

Although the roses are a simple scan the poster (the part where the roses are) looks amazing. The fine texture of the linen shines through and gives the picture something extra. Anyhow: When I saw the poster, I thought in getting more posters done like that. Simple pictures like autumn leaves or gravel or the sky might look great on 100x150cm printed on canvas. I will definitely revisit this idea.

And I will continue thinking on the COLLECTABLES. A line within Tauer that my designer and me build these coming weeks, for later in spring 2011. I realized that the brand’s design (bottles, boxes, samples, …) does not allow me to do experimental, special, top of the top perfumes using rare and hard to get materials, and exciting perfumes where I might go a bit over the top,  and limited perfumes. Limited in the sense of: I cannot guarantee that a perfume is made to last. Like the eau de cologne that I am making for X-mas. I do not have a concept to fill such a give-away scent into my nice blue flacons. Or the Linden blossom perfume I am working on (and as is Mandy Aftel on her side). As some of the raw materials (for example the linden blossom) is hard to get and show some variations depending on the year of harvest, I wished to have a line where I can present such a perfume, making for instance a batch of 1000 pieces for 2010, and when they are gone, they are gone, and we make a next batch 2011… In this sense: collectables.

We work on the concept since a while, of course keeping the 5-angle flacon and the box, but using a different labeling concept. A labeling that uses less expensive stickers that I do not need to order in batches of thousands…

And the flacon will be dark brown. That’s the plan today.

Today’s picture: A few leaves, seen the other day in the woods. Enjoy!

“There seems to be more magazines about gardening then there are folks actually working in a garden”, the W.-factor wondered this summer when we were both  staring at the display of a newspaper kiosk, while waiting for a train to bring us home to town from a Swiss village.

“It is about sublimation”, I replied. “These magazines allow folks to dream and change their state. It is not about what there is, but it is about the sheer potentiality of what could be.” I continued. And while we kept on staring into the display, we realized that the need for sublimation seems endless. Horses, gardens, houses, cars, decoration, dogs, cats, tress, cooking….

My mind brought me back this picture of us inspecting the kiosk display while riding the Piccadilly line from Russel Square this October. I flew in to London via city airport which is quick and easy. My way out , after a training session on Friday with the folks from Les Senteurs and a scent getting together on Saturday,organized by Ronny from Scent and Sensibility, was via Heathrow on a very busy Sunday morning. The tube was already quite full with tourists from Spain (I never figured out why so many folks from Spain are visiting London). Then the two rushed into the coach, all sweaty and  smashing their suitcases somewhere and then they sat next to me.

She on my right, he on my left. A couple in their forties. Upper lower middle class, if you know what I mean.

We Swiss are not entirely accustomed to the concept of classes, as we only tend to think that we all belong to the wide, extra large middle class (actually, almost everybody belongs there). Thus, we have the middle class, and then the very rich that  got rich by getting heavy, undeserved bonuses (there are other rich folks but we do not talk about these in Switzerland it seems; somehow they are classless), and we have the folks with an “immigration background”, a term that fits with many as we are in the middle of Europe and quite attractive as country to our neighbors, one reason being taxes, but this is another issue.  Thus, I may miss some fine tunes there in judging my UK folks and to which class they belong.

“We should have taken the car!” , he will say angrily for the rest of the journey, at every stop.And then fall into oblivion again, watching a spot between his shoes.

“We will never make it”, she would reply, equally frequent  and equally angry. And between the stops of the tube, she would go through 3 magazines with gardens that were so photoshoped and perfect, that even the British subject’s Queen can only dream of such garden beauty.

My neighbor sitting next to me on my way to Heathrow went through the magazines, one after the other, and she sublimed between tube stops into a garden watching suburban dreamer.

I wondered how long it will take them to blame each other. They did not. I guess they were a happy couple.

Today’s picture shows you a scan from  Tatler’s magazine, featuring an article on horse and leather and a lot of recommendations for leather fragrances and some of their backgrounds, mentioning Lonestar Memories, as Brokeback Mountain fragrance. Happy sublimation ahead. Love it.

More reading for you today (tomorrow will be no post, I go for a hike):

EAU D’ÉPICES, featured and reviewed in Spanish by Una Aventura Olfative. Click here (English Translation via google possible).

Mandy Aftel and Andy Tauer: Letters to a fellow perfumer continued on Nathan Branch’s blog, with an interesting technical detail on the Linden blossom extract, directly from the producer. Enjoy!

I am busy with the last minute preparations before leaving for London in an hour or two. And, to be honest, I am leaving happily, also in light of the last few days that were really, really, really busy.  Looking forward to fish and chips or alike, a pint and getting together with lovely folks at Les Senteurs, and Scent and Sensibility. And launching the two new fragrances, UNE ROSE VERMEILLE, and EAU D’ÉPICES in town. Although this feels sort of special: With my mind on spring 2011 and beyond, it feels like a thing of the past, almost.

Like summer 2010. When did this summer happen?

Ok, well then: let us hit the plane and get there.

I wish you a lovely time, until next week.

Continuing there where I stopped last week: Today’s pictures shows you a snapshot, dated from last week, taken on my mixing bench in the studio room. Mixing of eau d’épices. You see: We mix the eau d’épices fragrance for you, by hand, working with the oils and resins and powders, combining them in a large container and then let them sit for a month, to mature and get ready for dilution.

Ambreine is the stuff in the large aluminum bottle, with the red label, saying “fish poison”…By the way: Ambreine is an all natural extract from Cistus ladaniferus and I am not really sure whether it is a danger for the environment. I guess it is if you pour 10 liters down the sink. As always: It is the amount that matters.

In French fish poison translates to “poison pour les poissons” which is kind of cool. I love, love, love French, but I find it so hard to speak. I guess I need to train myself for a day or so when back from London next week.

Because, because… I  go and visit Grenoble in France in 2 weeks.

Exiting.

OK. Back again.

The new kids in town, ROSE VERMEILLE AND EAU D’ÉPICES, are online and as always, I tend to forget the implications like an e-mail box filling ah! and oh!’s and ???. I guess I am a lucky guy these days. Furthermore, we had to do an open heart surgery kind of thing on the newsletter that is scheduled to leave the house in a second… the patient survived, but we needed a stent. Unfortunately, we were not able to convince Magento, the software behind the Tauer Perfumes’ website, to send the newsletter out. Thus, my helping IT guys had to  find a way around, with me in the background whining and begging and forgetting that there are more important things in life.

OK, back again, still thinking Florence (pasta!) and scents seen @Florence…. hmmm: A tough one, I feel like I need to make a few comic strips on that one).

A few were actually good, worth trying. Let us talk about these. Olivier Durbano’s latest was for sure one of them. Olivier is with the same super trooper distributor in Italy, Guido from Profumimport, and our stand always feels like family. A family of noses, perfumers, that care for what they do and each other. Thus, Olivier showed his newest kid in town, too. It is a truly stunning rose, he uses a lot of the most expensive rose oil, and came up with a rose that is truly original, spicy and floral, but never sweet or cloying or soapy. Stunning and very, very wearable for men and women.  You find a recent review on it on Sorcery of Scent by Dimitri. Bottom line: A rose like you do not find it anymore these days, except with a few artisanal perfumers. Available soon from Olivier Durbano and in shops that care for artisanal perfumery, such as Luckyscent.com

Must try.

We are back from Pitti wonderland.

What a great place Florence is. I wished I had seen a bit more than the Pitti halls and the hotel room.

But then: We come back 2011….

NOW:

back in Tauer land we have a few boxes and flacons and a more issues waiting.

Actually, on of the issues is funny, dealing with a total mess customs has done with our parcels. They mixed up parcels and invoices and sent things to the wrong address (we got ours, though) and we are trying to explain folks what should go where when and why…

Anyhow: Tatata! We proudly presented in Florence the new 30 ml size HOMAGE flacon for the 30 ml UNE ROSE VERMEILLE and the 30 ml UNE ROSE CHYPRÉE. And folks loved it.

The new products will end up on the shop in a second and we are all very excited. Thus, I will upload the new products with shaky fingers in the next hours. Here a little teaser photo. More to follow…

Enjoy!

The new 30 ml size UNE ROSE VERMEILLE

the first morning hour is usually mine. The earlier the more it is mine, and the better: in the morning I write the posts of the day and come up with weird thoughts. And get used to the idea that another day waits with e-mails, although I spenTd an evening answering so many of them.

It is an endless flow of communication that has something very comforting.

It is in the morning that I use photoshop and draw its and bits. This morning, I was putting the sketch of yesterday into a more readable form.

Sketch of the eau d'épices structure.

The sketch looks like that.

This is -if you want- the shape of the perfume, in some detail, showing some of the complexity. I will need to add two or three components, though.

If you want, you may scan from top to bottom to get a pyramid kind of description. But the sketch misses the light, the color. And -as a commenter lately rightfully said- the sum is more than the individual ingredients….  Tricky…(here is the link to the same picture in higher resolution)

But at least it gives you an impression of COMPLEXITY and how I think, if I do.

back from a splendid hiking weekend that featured it all: sun, muscle pain, jogging in the morning and watching the sun rise and the cows steam on the pasture at 2200 meters above sea level, snow in the morning, falling from a grey sky yesterday.

Some of you may have seen the picture on my facebook Tauer Perfumes site already. On the left you find it again: This is Sunday, 7.10 am, after 30 min jogging, a fantastic view over a little mountain lake, the surrounding mountains waking up and putting on some color to start their day.

Since yesterday I am back, made a few samples since then and mailed my e-mails.  And for the rest of the week we will be in production mode with  a focus on open orders from perfumeries.

Finally, I sketched a first view of the EAU D’ÉPICES, going from the four axes over to a web kind of view.
I will continue to work on it, as I feel this is important and fun, thinking about how these lines might all be interconnected. And I learned that you like it, too. Although I am not sure whether I am really spreading the important message.

Here is a line for your day: A perfume is a fragrant picture that each of us sees in a mirror made of memories.

Actually, I like this line. Hmmm… having said that: One word, before leaving this blog, on Tonka beans. Tonka beans are the fruits of a tropical tree, originally from South America. They used to be used for cooking (you can make great desserts) but due to their natural coumarin content some countries banned the fruits for cooking. Tonka beans are full of coumarin (about 50% of natural tonka beans extract (resinoid)  is this single molecule COUMARIN), there exist different tonka extracts, such as the resinoid (creamy woody foody spicy) or the absolute. I like to work with coumarin directly, and “bend” it into the form I like to have it by adding other compounds. Coumarin is one of those wonder molecules that you find in about 50% of all perfumes out there. Like the natural extract, coumarin is quite affordable.

One great advantage of using coumarin: You do not have to worry about the waxes of the resinoid that are very annoying when doing larger batches >1 liter, as these waxes tend to agglomerate and precipitate and give you all sorts of troubles in dilution.

And now: back to production mode … hmm: Here’s a shorter version:

“Perfume is a fragrant picture that we watch in a mirror made of memories.”

It is strange. You think about it, prepare for it, see it coming with eyes wide open . Yet, once it is here, you are amazed. Today, we continue making more samples for the Italian perfume exhibition Pitti Fragranze, and assembling everything for the two palettes that the truck is going to pick up tomorrow.  We work with Schenker and as these guys are reliable, we know that by 10 am the palettes need to be ready.

Another amazing development, that I think about, see it coming with open eyes and that totally amazes me every year: Autumn is getting here. The light has changed, the mornings are different, the fruits ripening on the bushes and trees. EEEK! Summer is almost over. In a sense, it feels like Tauer’s fruits will be ripe by Pitti. Let us hope they survive the transport.

Talking berries and fruits. Here’s another information bit on the EAU D’ÉPICES. One of the axis being spices, it features in one of is corners cinnamon (essential oil), being part of a spicy head notes bouquet. Cinnamon is strictly restricted and I stick to the recommendations there (as it is a sensitizer, sensitizing your skin). I use a couple of molecules to pump it up, one of them: ETHYLCINNAMATE. This molecule smells like cinnamon, red berries and is somewhat sweet. By its red berries tonality it softens the spices’ harsh corners and it supports the cinnamon. You see… a lot of  strands to follow.

I was talking about WEB corners, and AXES, and HEAD/HEART/BODY notes a lot. I will come back to these different ways of looking into a construction.  But not today!; today is palette day.

Before we dig into the body and some notes of the EAU D’ÉPICES (with an educative goal: give you an idea on style): Here are the winners of the draw of last week (tataaaaa!):

The consolation prize goes to Elena (cm….@yahoo.com): A discovery set is yours. And you pick the samples of your choice.
Full bottle of Eau d’épices goes to Elisa (elisa.g….@gmail.com).

Congratulations to both of you. And to all readers who commented but did not win: Thank you, for sharing, and good luck with the next draw.

And back to the developing story… I finished the newsletter draft, scheduled for release at September 15, after Pitti Frangranze, in order to send some impressions from Florence in the newsletter.  In 2.5 weeks we head south, through the Gotthard rail tunnel, finished in the early 1880, 15 km of tunnel, imagine! Back then, folks in Europe really were very entrepreneurial. And brave, taking a lot of risks.

My risks are somewhat smaller. The biggest risk  for me in Florence might be to get into total exhaustion mode. It will be busy days with a lot of sniffing and talking. One of the objects of the sniffing and talking will be the EAU D’ÉPICES. We have discussed some aspects (not all!) of the spicy head notes and the orange floral heart in previous posts
The MAIN AXES of the fragrance are: spices, orange blossom, incense, woods. Talking in axes is somewhat simplistic. Another picture might be a WEB. The corners of the web are: Spices, citrus, orange blossom,jasmine, orris root, incense, amber, wood, tonka beans. And all corners are connected and resonate.

The orange blossom is a heart note, it does not stay forever, but leaves you after a while, given full room for the body notes.  Making the heart notes stay  longer is called fixation. One tool to fix heart notes is by using musk molecules. I do not use these musk molecules.  But there are other synthetic molecules that may act as fixation. Some of them are so potent, they are just like a glue, and are hard to dose, because they become obnoxious after a while. Others are truly pleasant, like some of the synthetic ambers, my favorite being AMBROXAN, a molecule that is somewhat costly, with a price of about 1300 $ US for the kg it is about three times the price of a good Incense essential oil: Ambroxan is a single molecule, but is smells very complex (amber, vibrant wood, floral tobacco) and not cheap like other synthetic ambers that you find in washing powder.

And: It is a great fixation for flowers, without suffocating them. Thus, Ambroxan is there in the base of Eau d’épices, with its woody vibrancy it lifts the heart and fixes the blossom. And it acts like a bridge between floral heart and incense woody base. To render the ambroxan, to make it full, to add depth, I complement it with AMBREINE, a natural extract of Cistus ladaniferus that is … well, very complex! It is a special quality material, like a cut out of cistus, leaving the woody, spicy vibrant side intact, but removing the sweetness. Imagine the fragrance of pineta in summer! It blends very well with ambroxan, and it grounds the INCENSE essential oil that I am using in the base. The incense is an essential oil from Boswellia carterii, steam distilled in France, collected resin in the wild in East Africa and the Arab peninsula, it is a different quality than the incense that I use in the Incense extrême. It is more airy, lighter, less woody, brighter if you want. These three, ambrein, incense essential oil and ambroxan, make up one major building block of the base of the fragrance. There are more building blocks in the base, adding to the complexity.

Complexity is ultimately responsible for the many facets of a fragrance, of its brilliance and its roundness. You can get complexity quite easily by naturals, simply because naturals per se are very, very complex. Of course, you can not just put a drop of a natural oil into your kiloliters of perfume mixture. You must use them in substantial amounts. To give you an example: I use 2 parts Ambrein, 3 parts ambroxan, 4 parts incense essential. Together, these three ingredients make up about 1/5 of the perfume base.