Today’s picture shows you a  boxed gardenia fragrance sitting on a quick watercolor sketch that I did yesterday. It did not work out (the watercolor). But I did two rose illustrations that both worked well and that made me happy. So, yes, there was time yesterday to do a lot, to jog, to paint, to answer mails.

Water color illustration of a rose, by Andy Tauer

Here’s the first rose.

And here’s the second.

Another rose illustration, by Andy Tauer, watercolor

Talking about roses: “rose” is one of the very few specific notes that I indicate for the Gardenia. Other notes mentioned: vanilla, tonka, sandalwood, jasmine. But, for instance, I do not tell what “spices” you find in the fragrance head notes. Why not? There are individual spices in the top notes, of course, but telling there is -just to name one that might be in there or not- cinnamon gives the wrong direction. The fragrance top notes are not about cinnamon. It is a chorus of spices, complementing fresh floral elements.

Hard to explain really.

You need to try.

And I think you might want to forget what you know about gardenia, or no: better said… you might want to get ready to explore details, facets of gardenia that you have not explored yet.

Actually a lot of my perfume loving friends do so right now, and I am busy packing sample orders.

Thank you for that.