On a prosaic side of things that go through my mind these days: I need a new phone. The existing one is years old, an iphone 3, still doing ok, but some buttons do not work anymore and it follows instructions like it was narcotized. Slow. Very. Slow. So I actually wanted to get another iphone. But – to be honest- I won’t. I did not like what apple did with its map app using clients. And I do not like their very sincere optimizing taxes. And a couple of other things, like the never ending stream of lawyers sent out to the world; although, I think there they are in good company with men in black from other enterprises.

So, I need a new phone, and the company that was cool a couple of years ago is not on my to-buy-from list. At least for phones. I  guess Nokia with their new Lumia 920 is. I was trying to be rational about it and figured that most of the stuff I do on the phone is taking pictures, searching things on the map, and email-surfing-texting. And using a few apps, and writing stuff. But I kind of like the new one from them, and hence I am not totally rational there.

The next rather prosaic question is whether I can actually afford it. So you see: It is down to earth day here in Zurich.

Another down to earth question: I need to come up with a couple of scented decisions. Like trying to decide on which soaps to pour. Every year, for the holidays and other special occasions, I pour fragrant soaps. So far I did a TUBEROSE fragrant soap, for the support of the Kickstarter campaign of Evelyn Avenue for Only Child, Brian Pera’s latest film project. This tuberose soap is super rich in rose, jasmine and has what I think is a nice tuberose note.

And I have ROSE fragrant soap that I did two or three times so far. This one is also nice.

And I have a Mandarines ambrées soap. This is the first soap that I did and it is very lovely and a favorite of many.

So, I have to decide what I make for the holidays, for friends and family and loyal clients and I simply do not know, yet.  I cannot make all three as I have to pour 50 pieces each.

But here is what I know: I love the WAY I pack them and will keep this. A simple cellophane to protect the scent, an A4 paper, folded, wrapping it, and a cellophane bag to protect it all. Straightforward. But I think I will come up with a different print on the paper. I feel like going a bit louder: something like today’s picture. Not exactly this, but something like it. At least for the rose.

This illustration is actually a super quick draft that I did a while ago on the pad. I can see myself coming up with a streamlined packaging color code and fonts et al for my fragrant soaps. As the production costs (work not counted) for these soaps is pretty high, and as I cannot ship them for a reasonable price (packed they are more than 2 cm thick, and then the Swiss Post thinks it is in the 20$ shipment costs range when shipping to the US…): I do not see how these can ever become a real product. But they are nice gifts. And they are nice add-ons. I give them (sometimes) to double bottle orders. Maybe I will start to offer them systematically at some point in time: Offering “buy two and get a soap for free”.

We will see. First I have to see what phone to get and which soap to make for the holidays. Which soap would you prefer?

I wish you a lovely weekend! It is almost October, Q4 almost started and I am simply baffled by the fact that I should seriously start preparing for the perfume highlight of the year: x-mas. Let’s try to shake this thought off for a second, it will come anyhow, right? Although, I have to admit, I started searching for a nice flower concrète since a while, in preparation for soaps and other goodies, that I might (no promises here) prepare as extra goodies for the season. Next week, I will get some samples of rose and jasmien and orange blossom concrète and I cannot wait.

Maybe one word one concrètes: These are wonderful raw materials. It is what you get when you extract flower petals with organic solvents: A waxy mass that is a bit closer to the flower and usually richer than the absolute. The absolute is made from the concrète, by extracting the concrète. By this extraction all the waxes that make up a good part of the concrète are left behind. Together with the waxes some scent components are left behind, too. For ethanol based perfumes: These waxes are a pain as they precipitate and clog everything. But when doing solid perfumes, oil based perfumes, or soaps! then they do great. Actually, they are perfect for soap scenting. A bit on the expensive side, but hey!  it’s going to be X-mas.

So I am looking for these concrètes samples and then I hope that I can order some of them, without minimal orders of 10 kg or so.

So, it is almost October and October will see me in Los Angeles, where I will present Loretta, easy going and with a big smile, at Luckyscent’s scentbar (October 19). Before that I will head for a day or two to Joshua Tree to collect some sun and peace for the rest of the year. October will also see me presenting the art of perfumery and how I turned into a perfumer to a Rotary Club gathering. This is an event I am looking forward to.  And yes, early October sees me packing piles and piles and more of my scents into boxes.

Actually, I will start today, although it is Saturday and not October: And  after a day, yesterday!, all behind the computer, and ending it behind the ipad, booking hotel rooms at 10 pm from the comfort of the couch, I am actually looking forward to packing for an hour or two.

I wish you a lovely autumn day, and if you are down under (or up over): Enjoy spring!

(today’s picture: scanned chestnut that fell from the tree and missed me by a few cm)

Here comes another rose related post, and another rose picture. But today I share a quick sketch I did this morning, in 15 minutes, behind the Xintiq, a digital drawing tablet from Wacom that I have fallen in love with a while ago. I could not spend more than a few minutes on the sketch, as I have a very busy schedule ahead.

The drawing is basically a few sharp lines and a few water color brushes.  And it is a quick look at the yellow roses again. They still do not smell, but their color  is just stunning.

Rose illustration: a detail.

One of the things that I plan to get done today: Filling MIRIAM in to bottles and start labeling them. For that I filter the fragrance right now. It is one of the more delicate fragrances to filter, with fine precipitate forming during maturation. But being careful and taking time, I usually manage to get it clear. The worst fragrance -when it comes to precipitation forming- is the ZETA- a linden blossom theme- due to the CO2 extracts used. There, I am always stuck with the finest precipitation imaginable. Although it is hard to see, when you let the bottles sit, the fine precipitation sort of conglomerates  and looks like more than it actually is.

Anyhow: In the mean time I got used to the ZETA challenge and consider the fine precipitate as a quality sign.

Another reason why talking about Miriam and showing you another rose makes perfect sense: In a sense, Miriam is also a rose fragrance. Powdery, heady, aldehydic, woody, green, with a lot of roses. Very thirties, forties I guess.

I guess I love my roses.

Another agenda point today: Answering emails and facebook queries.

And yet another agenda point: Starting to recalculate a formula that I have come with (yes, another rose scent), and upscaling the formula and taking it apart and double checking again with IFRA standards. Just to be on the safe side.

And then, once I have done the calculations, I will need to start ordering what’s inside. For 2013.

And then I have to start thinking about a name, but this I will do tomorrow, (and share here on the blog), as I forgot another agenda point: trying to stay fix and come up with an adequate work life balance. This translates into sweating in a gym.

That’s the plan at least. Let’s see where we get there. I wish you a rosy day.

I could not resist today and scanned another rose bouquet that sits in the living room.

Not that I would have time to seriously think about a new rose fragrance right now: I am actually too busy right now, dealing with last week preparations for Pitti Fragranze and organizing a few points after Pitti. But there is going to be some time in a couple of days when I shall have the muse to paint and think, and hopefully play with some essential oils….

Thus, I wish you a lovely labor day. Enjoy!

Hurray: My website is up and running again. I am so relieved. As mentioned earlier, I wanted to upgrade to a secured site (you know: https://…) and got a certificate for my domain, and a specific IP addresss (not shared) and then the whole thing crashed under our hands. My IT supporter managed to get things up and running after two days and for a while we observe the system now before we make the next step: Upload the certificate and go in safe mode. … A positive side note: The website works (again) with iphones and pads and the home loads much faster. And I removed 850 MB of trash from the site’s database. Amazing how much  e-trash assembles over a year or two.

But the last two days changed a few plans I had in terms of website and e-products….

Anyhow: Today’s picture shows you the way I see things. I am talking about the other alternative for a launch in 2013 (see the previous post for a more masculine woody tobacco leaves amber alternative): the scent that runs under “aldehydic rose”. The picture shows you the main ingredients (and partly notes)  and rose for sure is one central part, but it is not really a rose scent. It is an aldehydic incense vanilla flowery scent with a strong rose component that is pretty unisex. Think Chanel 22, but less soapy.

As I am the creator of this mixture that is quite complex: I am pretty blind. 29 ingredients, key ingredients being bergamot oil, rose oil, rose absolute, geranium, three different aldehydes (CHO in the picture), Patchouli, Vanilla, Styrax, Sandalwood from Australia, B. Serrata (Incense) (combined with Irone and a few glue molecules, such as okoumal) and more flower absolutes: Jasmine, Tuberose, Ylang. Not too much of these, but they are important to add depth and render the composition softer as the aldehydes are pretty much heavily dosed. If you do not like aldehydes: Forget this one. Can a man wear it. Absolutely. On my skin it is actually nice.

But as I am the creator of this mixture I have a hard time thinking of it in different terms than ingredients and effect. Thus, you are confronted with a super non-sexy running title such as aldehydic rose. Which is a bit wrong. But I am not really ready to think about names, yet. It is too early. I am more wondering about which scent to launch early 2013 and getting ready in the coming months. The aldehydic rose would quite complementary to what I have in my collection. But a bit more addressing women.

Hmmm. Maybe we have to come up with a double launch in 2013.

Unfortunately, these days see me sitting in front of the computer, facing excel, and not scents. Or I am in the “factory” packing some scents and getting retailer orders ready.  But I have a few scents on, wrist testing phase so to say, and while putting some air bottles into boxes and thinking about the boxes and other logistics issues, there is always time to smell, from left to right and from right to left.

This moment, now on the left: Hyacinth, the -I don’t know which number-th trial. And on the right wrist the fully matured and final scent that runs under the title “aldehydic rose with a woody incense base”. Not a poetic name, I guess. I just checked the formula again: A very complex scent. Some of the more expensive ingredients (not notes) are: Tuberose, rose oil, rose absolute, jasmine,sandalwood from Australia, Irone alpha, Boswellia serrata CO2 extract, … other important ingredients are: Ylang, aldehydes, some bergamot oil, geranium oil, two types of patchouli (one with high Patchoulol content) and a few other. Resulting in a  mix 30 ingredients.

To be frank: I love it. To a point where I am seriously thinking what to do with it. Maybe I have to start another excel, a “what-to-do-with-it”-Excel.

I am testing a 10% dilution, and might think about the dilution factor a bit longer. The same is true for the hyacinth trial (today’s picture shows you another interpretation of the flower, painted on the ipad, more pink than the fragrant sketch). Hyacinth will keep me busy for a while, though.

OK: Time to spritz some fruity rose on another free spot. This one is actually very good, but might need a touch more ambroxan. and maybe a touch more patchouli. We will see. There is time, right?

And now, off for the factory. More air du desert for the world.

Fragrant greetings on this Friday, January 6, from Zurich. This Friday sees me writing a few commercial invoices for boxes that go into airplanes and fly over the seas and mountains over the weekend. It sees me on the phone, talking to retailers interested in my brand, and talking to suppliers who supply too slow, and this Friday sees me continuing trying to lay out a few facts and figures in Excel. And lay out the consequences: All fact based. Only cruel brutal number facts. No Andy in wonderland hopping around allowed.

I give you one example. We did these wonderful fragrant cards, printed, with relief, and soaked in the scent of Carillon pour un ange, individually wrapped in a little transparent bag, sealed. We used them to give these during the launch of the Carillon pour un ange, a little gift for clients, so they could take the scent with them home. And many orders, especially sample sets, leaving my house do so with one of these cards, with a hand written note on the transparent bag. (Sometimes, when giving free samples with perfume orders, I write on the back of the sample hanger directly.)

Anyhow: We put a good pile of money onto the table to get these scented cards done. We did thousands. We still have a few hundred and then they will be gone. I get a lot of mails, where perfume lovers tell me what they received and that they like this and that or did not like this and that. Not one word on these cards, though. I am not sure they were even used in the shops. And I saw on youtube once a video, one of these cool unpacking videos that I find thrilling like a crime story,  especially when they unpack my products, and I am sure the guy doing the unpacking did not even realize that the cards are scented…

Thus, fact based and without Andy hopping in wonderland: These cards were wonderful, a great design, a perfect encapsulation of the scent, but a failure. A complete failure. Too expensive, not understood, not used, never asked for by retailers. A simple printed card, printed in 10’000 pieces, for 1/20th of the scented card’s price would have done the job. Better. Because they would be understood. And appreciated.

This is what I do these days: I comb through my universe of bottles and caps and labels and cards and all the tools that we built. Many of which have worked wonders for my venture. Analyzing where I stand. Based on this Excel I will move on.  And the pendulum will swing back and forward at the same time.

Ah, and yes! I will start smelling my beloved apricot all natural oil in some seriousness, and maybe even do a little mix, thinking apricot, patchouli, rose. Ah… roses! In Excel, too.

Welcome to 2012 and welcome to my blog in 2012. The last few days of 2011 saw us looking into the books, counting stocks and looking at numbers. I need the stock to close the books. Although I work in the industry of dreams if you so wish, creating fragrances, little fragrant dreams, at the end of the day, I need to count Francs and Euro and Dollar and see whether I can pay the bills and whether I can afford to move on. Like every year, I need to look deeply into the numbers of 2011 trying to understand what happened and coming up with an idea of where we are right now and where we might go in the first months of 2012.

I look back to a reasonably successful year when it comes to numbers. Not fairy tale numbers, but sufficient in the moment. The outlook for 2012 is blur, however. I am convinced that we all have to get used to the idea that we are walking at the rim of a volcano that is bubbling down there and sends stinky gases up here. If we want we can actually smell them. The march along the rim brings a spectacular view, but we better be careful up there. We will see what 2012 brings in terms of economics and Euro values and trust in a banking system that seems more rotten every month. I am not very optimistic there.

I look back to a 2011 that was the most creative year I ever had in my entire life. 2012 will demand answers where to go with this creative venture of mine and how to add more  threads into the Tauer fabric. Not an easy task. The Tauer fabric is already very dense and complex. 2012 will start with a lot of meetings and writing up of  ideas, trying to imagine how my venture might look in a year or two from now. Where I can move on, where do I need to move back and where might I need to cut? I am very much looking forward into doing so.

And I am looking forward to sharing this process with you, my readers.

The newspapers tend to bring rosy, happy articles with a cheerful note when looking into the new year. Thus, I want to bring a rosy note into this post, too. The picture to the left shows you a little sketch of “roses and pine needles”, drawn on the ipad real quick. This afternoon, after having finished stocking up Miriam from Tableau de Parfums and Air du désert marocain, will see me playing with rose. Again.

I hope that 2012 will see more roses from Tauer coming, painted or in little bottles.

Today, I finished another rose mix that will go into the molten glycerine soap, that will go into the soap pouring frame, allowing me to pour 48 soaps at once and come up with soap bars. Rose scented soap bars. The mixture is actually quite simple, consisting of 10 ingredients, rose absolute (r. damascena from Bulgaria), Bergamot essential oil and geranium (Bourbon quality) being the naturals.

This soap like all my soaps cannot be bought. It is made to exist in the moment, as a gift and a sign of appreciation, for special moments. And -to be frank- from a commercial point of view these soaps would not make sense. Too much work  goes into the preparation of them, too much expensive raw material is inside. In a sense, these soaps are the most luxurious product I have. It is so luxurious that not even an oligarch can get it, if you know what I mean.

Right now, I am still sitting at home, writing these lines, but as soon as they disappear in the e-universe and as soon as the paper to wrap the soaps later is printed (my printer is not keeping up with my speed) I will ride my bike to hit the little 2 room factory of mine and start melting and pouring. And thinking about Wednesday. Then I will be in Oldenburg (yes…where is Oldenburg? Think  Bremen and move a bit more to the West) and will try to make sense on the topic “Perfumery, manufacturing, composing and creative venture”. Sort of. It is a Duftsalon, a getting together, scheduled for Wednesday, 19.30, with perfume lovers, organized by the Duftcontor in Oldenburg. One of the few German hotspots for selective perfumes and perfumery. Actually, I am really, really looking forward to this.

I will for sure bring a rose absolute with me, to show to the perfume loving crowd.

Thus, I am sitting here with my little scent strip, dipped into the rose concentrate soap mixture and I wish I had a touch more time right now. I would love, love, love so much to play a bit with it: play on the lines of a rose fragrance with this rose at is center, aldehydic, with hints of maybe tuberose in the head, a hint of muscs and woods, a trace of sandalwood maybe….

I got back from LA yesterday, early in the morning, shifted in time and space and was sort of lost yesterday. It took a while and a good night’s sleep until  fully realized where I am. Intercontinental travel is not that easy.

Now, I am back, but not fully back to normal. I am still in 100% excited state due to the fragrance Miriam and the short movie Rose and the reactions we got to it, launching Miriam and screening Rose. Miriam is the first fragrance from the Tableau de Parfums series that I present and I had no idea how and whether it will find interest, likes, and appreciation. It did. I am very happy. And I have to make more of it, thus I put more of the 16 pages novelettes together yesterday and will pack more next week.

Screening of ROSE, the short movie, based on a script and directed by Memphis movie maker Brian Pera, with Ann Magnuson playing Miriam, the daughter of Rose, was also a first in LA. We screened it at Steven Allen Theater in Los Angeles and I saw a few of the 60+ guests wipe their eyes dry. When I saw this Rose short, in a previous version, for the first time, I was also taken by a lot of emotions, I wept a bit while watching Rose. It brought back memories to me that I cannot always handle in dry mode.

For a limited time: You can watch the rose short movie, too. Here on vimeo. Enjoy!

And while you do this, I prepare some Miriam for shipment later next week.  Have a wonderful weekend.

Picture of today: Novelette, with silver ribbon, ready for packaging with 50 ml flacon of Miriam.