Hallenbad is German and means indoor swimming pool. An environment that -from an olfactorial point of view- is quite diverse, but once you are in the water, it all calms down to not much. When entering the City Hallenbad (click here for a picture or see today’s picture going with the post, showing you the stairs leading down to the entry leve), built within two years and finished 1941,  newly renovated, a wonderful modern building, you enter a “clean water environment” with some ozone and hints of other chemicals used to keep things clean and shiny. The changing room is a mix of body odors and traces of shampoo and other body products; not unpleasant indeed, as these days, unfortunately, some shampoos remind us of fragrances and the other way round. After the shower with hot steamy air you enter the pool area from a top position, overlooking the blue water, that is bathing in light, even during grey days.

I enjoy every minute there and swimming my 30 minutes every third or second day is like a therapy for the mind. Bottles and labels and mails and deadlines and opportunities and missed calls and truck deliveries and Fedex and Shipwire and sketches and samples and questions from perfume lovers who want to create perfumes and more details that fill my little brain dissolve and the world becomes bright blue water. It feels a bit like a refuge.

And the architecture is just fabulous. Generous, clear yet not cold, super high ceiling, and with this spectacular light, especially when the sun breaks through. Again: It is all about the light.

Today, I will not go swimming (I did so yesterday), but rather make sure that I get some stuff done: Samples. Pictures of Noontide Petals for the shop on my website. And many more e-mails that sit there and wait patiently. Although, I will not answer all of them. Lately, I get more and more mails from going to be perfumers or wish to be perfumers asking for advice. Like 1 mail on a daily basis. Guess what: This is tiring, it distracts me from my mission and even sending an answer telling folks that I do not give advice as I  do not  have a consulting company and as I get too many queries is too much. I am getting tired of these mails. (I make a distinction here between people whom I have met and call friends and colleagues and people who I do not know, except by accepting a facebook friendship or alike). Thus, this week I got 4 queries from going-to-be-would-like-to-be perfumers.

Maybe I should really come up with a price list, and price tags, like lawyers;
typing a mail: 200 $ per hour.
advice, research, network (such as finding examples, IFRA data, making copies, establishing a link to a company or a person etc.): 400 $ an hour.

Monthly invoices. Payment on my $ account or through paypal. Maybe I should really start considering this ; it would for sure bring the number of mails down.

On a more serious line n ow: Time to get these samples filled.