Yesterday, the travel agency Tauer booked the upcoming travels for November, December. Some of them at least, bringing me in December to London, and end November to the Duftcontor in Oldenburg, and a few other places. I still haven’t decided on Paris, although I should but I do not really feel like going there in late autumn. But I will hit London, for a day, for an event with Les Senteurs, at their new shop! More details will follow.

Maybe I get another chance to use my Harrods card that I got to take advantage of discounts? We will see. Time will be right for X-mas presents shopping by then, and hopefully the X-mas preparation panic mode kicked in.

Later in the day, I had to hit downtown. The blue Zurich tramway transported my vulnerable body that has not adjusted to the season and Zurich’s late autumn groove into town. It poured and was cold. And it was grey. The orange cover of my ipad and the light from the pad’s display felt like the star over Bethlehem in a cold world at the edge of abyss.

Everybody around me, inside the tramway and outside behind its wet windows, seemed to have migrated to an other place. It did not seem a happy place, though. Faces were grim and not happy. It’s the season. Time for hot tea, cocoa, serotonin lifting chocolate, drinks, cigarettes if you smoke.

And time for colognes. Although perfume lovers mostly talk about colognes in summer, when they enjoy the cologne’s refreshing character, right now is  the perfect time, too. Colognes are sun bottled. The core structure is lemon and bergamot oil with neroli and rosemary ( and a few others) for the contrast. Think 50% lemon and bergamot essential oil in my upcoming cologne: The sun from Sicily in a bottle. Citrus oils are mood lifters, too. And the nice thing about colognes: You can reapply every 30 minutes. That’s a lot of sun over the day. And we sure need the sun these days.

Today’s picture: a flash back to Southern California. The sun over the semi desert. A place next the highway, where we stopped for a second. The sun is just wonderful there in the afternoon in autumn.

Today, we will pour a lot of RÊVERIE AU JARDIN into flacons, because we see yet another mini boom for the Rêverie, and put the NEW  design wooden tops onto the top of the filled and crimped flacons. These black top covers are made from beech wood, by the way, by a family owned Austrian company, Leitner Design, and if you ever look for design and manufacturing competence in wood: Go there! The picture to the left shows you a prototype of the adjusted design. The new design is on top of the “old” design. We got rid of a wood rim and change to O-rings around the flacon’s neck to a thicker diameter and from now on: The cover tops stick. It sticks really well, without being to hard to remove. Actually, you need to turn them a  little bit in order to put them on top or getting them off.

But the bottom line: They stick better now. It was a little flaw that we corrected and praised be the W.-factor for he had the idea!

Other highlights of today: I will dilute my take on the “w0ody” Eau de cologne, after 3 weeks of maturation. You remember ? (if not: Here is the link)

My goal was to come up with a cologne that is a bit more on the woody side, leaving a gentle layer of cedar wood (Atlas variety, from Morocco) and a glimmer of rockrose. I feel this might work. If not, we will do it again, slightly differently. If it does: Then we smile for a moment. And will start with the next one.
I feel a cologne with a sandalwood allusion, and a hint of cinnamon or other spices might be wonderful. Or better even: an allusion of sandalwood with a halo of spicy rose oil. You see: I love, love, love working with neroli these days, a wonderful, yet highly expensive natural material. Expensive means: Yes, really expensive. It is the steam distilled orange blossom, the neroli oil, that lets an eau de cologne explode in expensive sparkles. It is so beautiful to work with.

For a variety of reasons, desperately falling in love with neroli lately being one of them, I work on an eau de cologne. Or a “cologne”. So far, my cologne trial was very, very classical, and a typical eau de cologne. An explosion of citrus right in front of you. Eau de colognes in the real, classical, sense are not made to last. They are made to enjoy for a moment or two. Nada silage bomb. Call it a citrus bomb without much collateral damage 5 minutes after application.

I have a composition, a classical eau de cologne, that is quite lovely by now, all natural /botanical by the way. Featuring lemon and bergamot, white grapefruit (tons of the three of them), clementine, red mandarine, neroli, a touch orange blossom absolute, some rose and geranium, hints of lavender,  clary sage, a few other bits and: Rosemary. And it is the rosemary that makes all the difference. I am using a rosemary from Tunesia, rich in cineol and campher.

Like in all perfumery, it is about contrast; this is true for a cologne, too. A cologne lives by the contrast between rough, campherous, wild rosemary (and/or thyme and other campherous scents) and the freshness and juicy brightness of the citrus notes.

Right now, I am moving forward from there: create a cologne that lasts a bit longer and set a more unique accent, like building a fine layer of woods. The goal is not to touch the explosion of citrus, with close to zero silage, leaving only the finest layer of rockrose and cedarwood on the skin. The wearer will not realize it after a while, people passing by will not notice, but it will be there if you get a touch closer. I am staying all natural/botanical here: only steam distilled essences or solvent extracted flowers.

Today’s picture shows you a rosemary, somewhat pale, seen in the wild in southern France 2010.

Sodeli…(Swiss German for well, well…)

we are back in sort of normal mode.  Normal mode for end September is packing and dispatching a lot of boxes which is, despite the fact that it is work, a true joy to me. I love to say bye bye to parcels and boxes and wish them farewell on their journey over the oceans or mountains. Thus, we are finishing up the orders from my stockists of last week and then, then…

I guess then I need a pause and then I will have a look at the latest babe in town. I got a gorgeous thyme CO2 extract to play with, some neroli, more rosmary, Lavender CO2 (out of this world) and litsea cubea and more…thus, happy playing ahead.

But first: getting ready to finally say bye bye to some big boxes next week. And please:  Enjoy your weekend!

Today’s picture: a rose, scanned.

From Ape to Gentleman has a nice clipping and reviews on Tauer. Thus, I am doing it for the second time this week: Enjoy Chris’ writing on Tauer… by clicking here you get to the “Ape to Gentleman” page.

A great name for a website: Ape to Gentleman…

Now, a few lines on the EAU D’ÉPICES…today is the second day in a row with EAU D’ÉPICES (wearing it over night). This perfume  features as one (key) ingredient: Orange blossom, from Egypt. I am using the orange blossom absolute. Maybe you have never smelled this ingredient in its pure form: It is like sniffing the flower, but with the natural indole content pumped up, concentrated, with the woody and natural musk lines amplified. Actually, pure orange blossom absolute is somewhat disturbingly dirty and much less citrus than you’d expect. Neroli, which is the steam distilled orange flower concentrate, if you want, captures the nice and shiny aspect of orange flowers. The absolute, which is an organic solvent based concentrate, captures the animalic, love potion side.

Maybe, in a sense, orange blossom absolute is the “male jasmine”. I turns on mating instincts and transforms the gentleman back to ape in about 30 seconds.

OK, maybe a bit exaggerated. It takes 60 seconds.

Like most flower extracts it is a middle, heart, note and doesn’t last too long on skin. To fix it and to prevent it entering into foully territory is one of the challenges when working with this real stuff. And you need to hide the indole a bit. Please, do not ask me why you find jasmine absolute in the formula, too. I guess it is for the ladies…