Give aways and goodies

Day 13 of the advent calendar

Today, it’s 13/12/13, and numbers of days coming in the advent calendar are less than we had so far. Today, you can win a discovery set (again), by just leaving a comment, here, on this blog post.

I got a question yesterday, how it is done when random picks a winner. Here’s how it is done: I take the number of comments, make sure I do not have double entries, go to random.org and get a random number from 1 to the number of comments, and then I search the comment with this entry number. Simple as that.

Today’s picture shows you what I will touch today: Apricot natural extract, in a 1 liter aluminum bottle. I need to touch the bottle as we have our annual “Duftapero” in Zurich, tomorrow, together with Pascal from Medieval art&vie, the bookshop where everything started. “Duftapero” means scented gathering and we will smell PHI-une rose de Kandahar (this latest rose of mine, that is sort of built around a rose oil from Afghanistan and that features other notes like Apricot, Tobacco, bitter almond,  and many other goodies, such as vetiver, patchouli, amber gris, musk, tonka and vanilla) . So we will discuss some raw materials that went into it and we will hear strories from Afghanistan,  read to us by professional speakers and actors: Lilly Friecrich and Egon Fässler. And we will have bubbling drinks et al. It is fun and this year, it will be packed, for sure.

It is my and Pascal’s way of saying thank you. It is not really a sales event.

One of the raw materials that I will show there is the Apricot essential oil. It is a speciality that I got from Robertet in France. It is all natural, and it is super interesting. There was a discussion on Perfume Of Life together with a discussion about PHI, how it actually might smell and some thought it smells like bitter almond (like the apricot kernel); no, it doesn’t. It is super interersting as it smells fruity, aldehydic, but not metallic, rather warm and round, which is sort of a contradiction when talking aldehydes, it has something of a super deluxe schnapps aroma, and it is powdery sweet animalic. A touch. Really special, and very hmmm, and yummie and with this eye brow lift inducing quality.

You smell it and you go “Wow! that IS special”.

The picture, by the way: Taken with my Nokia phone, in high ISO mode (3200), and strong background light, gives this coarse-grain effect that I loved when taking pictures in analog mode, using Ilford high ISO film. It sort of fits the theme of this post, as PHI is constructed in a way and with ingredients that are about as classical as taking analog pictures.

Apricot natural extract, picture taken in high iso mode, detail cut out, love this coarse grain effect!