a mystery story around rose the Kandahar or “Mr Andy, had the scent is what features?”

Today’s picture: a quick photo of a dried rose that I keep in my room where I compose and draw,  taken from beneath, with flash on, a quick phone photo. The rose has still kept is color, even the leaves kept their green, although they are dead since about 2 months. This rose is one of a bunch of roses that collect dust and will never bloom again. I find them very inspiring: it is  a memento mori. You  know: Remember that there is death and act accordingly. I chose this motive as I am going through sort of a detective story these days and weeks around my rose de Kandahar.

For those of you who just came in: PHI-une rose de Kandahar, last year’s special in the Collectibles range, was a super success, much more than anticipated. It underlined the rule that there is no rule.

It brought me into troubles, as I had not planned a success and did not have a plan A for my perfume loving friends living in areas where I cannot ship to. And my retailer business partners. I am still feeling sorry for not being able to serve them. whoops! And then, by the time the message got really out and spread (this needs time), then I was  already sold out. Thus, a lot of clients who could not smell it, test it, get it: Everybody in Italy, almost everybody in Europe, Russia, Australia, and and and.

A word on getting the message out. You know: I am a one man enterprise, 1.5 men to be honest, and my means to spread news and information are rather limited. I have zero communication budget and cannot afford to hire a PR company to tell a story. I have to 1) do it myself and 2) rely on my perfume loving clients and friends to spread the message. And, as I am a one man show, I do all the other communication channels myself, like  Facebook messages.

Like: this message that I got this morning as direct message in my inbox- out of context: “Mr Andy had the scent is what features?” Another mystery story. But a funny one.

So there you go: Une rose de Kandahar, the name of my scent created around and inspired by rose essential oil from the Nangarhar region. I decided to name the fragrance de KANDAHAR, though. I have zero stock of this scent and cannot produce more rose de Kandahar, except if I`ll find more rose oil, in good quality, from this region, where a project by the Welthungerhilfe is supporting the rose horticulture in  Afghanistan. For the record: I love the idea of planting roses instead of drugs in Afghanistans valleys, but the rose de Kandahar is not a charity scent.

Anyhow. Imagine how happy I was when my supplier of this rose oil, a Swiss intermediary doing the quality check and making sure that the thing is the real thing and organic and all, when this supplier told me that the producer in Afghanistan found more of the rose oil, harvest 2013, like 100 gram or more. Buy it! I said within a nanosecond. Get it! Now!

So I placed the order that complemented a standing order for the 2014 harvest, which happens in May, I think, and needs further work , like reduction of Methyl eugenol. And then: You do not know how much they get and whether I am the last guy getting anything. Ah well. So I placed the order, happily.

As I run out of green glass flacons for the Collectibles, I was on the edge of reordering more of these, too.

Happily I waited, a couple of weeks,until I got a call from my supplier, telling me that my 100 gram rose oil had been sold, although the order was placed, got there and my rose oil was almost shipped. Almost.

But almost is not for real. So there we go: Waiting again….Now, that this part of the rose story is over, I can talk about it. But this whole story was a reminder of not telling stories to early: You never know what might go wrong.

Rosy greetings from tauerville, where we happily play with Bourbon geranium that is so much easier to get than roses….