So, we had a lovely come together again, Vero and me, and I thought you might be interested to see for yourself. The ambiance was somewhat non-trendy, no lounge feeling there, being the lobby of the Storchen hotel, very downtown in Zurich. But, the Chardonnay is excellent, and they don’t mind us sniffing strange things. Like sniffing “Game for men”, the newest scent from Davidoff. I read on Marlen’s blog the other day about how to make sure never to leave a perfumery without a sample….thus, when visiting the local perfumery-soap-and-all-you-need-to-be-beautiful-shop I tried this tactic. Smiling around and breaking out in ohh’s and ahhh’s about the beautiful packaging of this new perfume, that I found so interesting and lovely arranged (they plastered half of the shop with game perfume bottles) a charming sales lady had no choice then to offer me a sample, which I gladly took. To sooth my bad conscience I bought a refill for my CO2 bomb to make my own Zurich mineral water.
You know, when you spend your Saturday evenings, filling samples of Le Maroc pour elle, you kind of feel like sitting in the glasshouse and you don’t want to through stones….. Well, be it. Vero and I sniffed a few things, for me personally the most relevant was the Sandalwood sample that Vero got from Essencia. Relevant because I use high, very high quality Sandalwood in my Le Maroc pour elle, and I mentioned it earlier: We are faced with a Sandalwood crisis. Essencia people told us that by now they even got troubles getting a good quality Sandalwood spicatum from Australia or the Vanuatu one because the big companies (IFF, ….) buy up everything. Really everything. Even the trashiest stuff. Thus, we smelled Sandalwood from Fitchi (I think it is S. alba, but am not sure: I have to check) that might be in stock at Essencia for around a year….. It is excellent, a little bit spicier than the Mysore quality, a touch more stingy, but far less than the S. spicatum. It is very warm, and has this flowery quality of the Mysore Sandalwood. It is better even when applied on skin and lasts very long. Besides the Vanuatu from Eden, this is the best replacement I have experienced so far. It is somewhat expensive, 100 gram around 200 Swiss Francs, translating into 160 $US, but this is an other issue. I will, I guess, order some. Just to be on the safe side. If I was brave enough, I could have made a fortune by buying Sandalwood two years ago and selling it today…..
I will not buy, however, the game stuff. Perfumery wise there are lessons to be learnt from Davidoff. Nice packaging, appealing bottle, good name, and they still use the term and signature of “Cool Water” on their sample packaging: Linking a new product to an existing one, trying to transfer some of the Cool Water glory to aggressive cucumber juice. Oups, I shouldn’t …. I sit in the glass house.
# posted by andy : 8:49 AM
4 Comments:
Interesting post Andy.
Sorry for not being around recently. My PC power switch decided to break last Monday and because my PC was still under warranty, I had to wait for the official repairman to arrive, which took a week.
It's good to be able to read your blog again.
Dear prince
I have seen on Perfume of Life that your perfume loving fellows missed you. But unfortunately their guesses of you enjoying a break were not entirely right. Welcome back to the digital world!
Hi Andy, isn't it wonderful to spend your time on sniffing samples? I never leave a perfumery without sample strips. I put them in my purse and make shure I keep them seperated. I like to buy also miniatures or samplers on the internet so I can study the fragrances, and maybe learn from them.
I can't help it but saw the sigarets laying on the table. I make perfumes but I am still smoking. I know there are perfumers that smoke like Thierry Wasser. But I want to quite (sometime).
By the way..I send a mail to Essencia(found in an article in your archive) and ask them for some perfume materials. They only can offer me in kilo's I would rather have them smaller but I think that's okay because I found another company that can offer me real small bottles like 10 ml of perfume materials (OMIKRON-Shop). But they don't sell all the materials I need. I like to have my hands on stuff like: Hedione, Helional, Galaxolide, Maltol etc and I saw that Essencia have them all. It was a suprise that they send me a mail in Dutch when I told them I live in Holland. It's so difficult to find perfume materials in small quantities. I can't wait to get the materials.
Dear Jenny
Please apologize that it took me a while to get back to you. For several reasons today was special, but joyful.
I wonder about what you said concerning Essencia. I always get offers with prices per 1000 gramm, but I can ask for small amounts: For expensive stuff minimal is 50 gr. for less expensive materials (like Linalool the limit is 100 gramm or 250 gr). But I always get small amounts.
Two possibilities: Either they do it differently for clients abroad or you missunderstood each other?
I always talk to Ms Wendt. She is very helpful. If you need my help to address this issue with them: Mail me and I will see how I can be of help. By the way: Their certificates are very helpful, telling you what is compatible to which percentage with Ifra and also what you need to label to be conform with EU regulations...
I do not know the quality of Omicron... so no comment there. My mail is: tauer.a(at)freesurf.ch or (I am proud on that one....)
perfumer@tauerperfumes.com
ah... finally the cigarettes. Yes.
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