- a passion for scents and perfumes-
There is no sensual impression like the sensing of scents. Scents touch ourselves deep inside, were we are the most vulnerable and the most open.
I study scents for the pleasure of sensing and I formulate scents for the pleasure of creating perfumes. This blog is about perfumery and my perfumes, existing and coming.
Please share your visions with me.
Visiting Guerlain’s beautiful house on Champs d’Elysée is a little bit a dream come true. Situated right next to the largest Sephora I have ever seen, the ground floor is modest and features lots of fancy lipsticks and the new said-to-contain orchid extract beauty products. A little stair goes one store up, making 180 degree and you enter a room which looks like the interior of flacon, with rounded walls and lots of gold shining modestly from the walls in somewhat dim light. You approach and find yourself inside a room, its windows facing the champs d’elysée, a room which is dominated by an arrangement of perfumes in a huge circle right in its middle, featuring beauties such as Vol de nuit with its beautiful art deco flacon. On the wall to the left you would find some men’s perfumes, to your right you find an assembly of limited series, the expensive stuff. Initially I was alone up there, with a helpful lady, showing me everything. Suddenly, we were surrounded by hectic men, style journalist, a camera appeared, more hectic people, style creative assistant and then, like from an other planet where the temperature is set at constant 27°C, where the ground is paved to allow 12 cm high heels and where a soothing sun tans all bodies to a discrete brown that fits with the planet’s inhabitants golden hair, Ms unknown to me but very famous entered the room. Rather overdressed, but not in terms of square meters fabric covering her body, she started to pose in front of the beautiful perfume bottles, moved her body in a strange way to further accentuate her perfect line and was filmed how she artfully touched the bottles. I asked who she was and was told that it was Ms xxx, a famous Spanish actor; being a piece of art herself, she did not really care about the perfumes, it seemed to me. But like a comet passing by the sun, dust particles gleaming in the dark, she will light the evening sky with her golden hair on the tv screens, making people buy Plus que jamais. Plus que jamais was launched rather recently, it is a limited parfum anniversaire and created by Jean-Paul and I had a chance to smell it while at Guerlain’s (and got a sample....hurra!). I was told that it points back to the good old days, living the memories of for instance L’heure bleu. For me, however, on closer inspection, it breathes more the spirit of Mitsouko. I did not understand the fragrance right away, but to me it looked like a juvenile version of Mitsouko, modern in a sense, less dirty, more adapted, with a start that reminded me of fresh white peach, with hints of citrus (Bergamot), in front of a classical Guerlain accord (the vanilla-Bergamot based Guerlinade) powdery cistus accord with mousse de chêne impressions, some soft woody lines and animalic touches in the back. The powdery aspects, on paper, are very present, it might be the special quality Ylang that Jean-Paul employed, and play with a sweet line that is also more or less constant at hand. Plus que jamais had an unfortunate disadvantage last Saturday… it was last smelled by me after Vega and Cuir de Beluga…. and Vega it will not beat. No way. For me, it will also not beat Mitsouko. This masterpiece is one of a kind. Coincidence or not: It will fit wonderfully with Ms famous……to be continued.
Picture: Station St. Lazare, Monet Living in Switzerland means living in the heart of continental Europe. Ironically, this geographical fact is less reflected in political terms. Switzerland, respectively its people, have decided to approach the European Union in bilateral treaties and step by step, issue by issue. Thus, flying from Switzerland to France still means crossing a real border, smiling innocently at customs officers, which is ok for me. It is another factor more letting me know immediately that these 50 min spent aboard an Air France aluminium tube are the time frame needed to beam me into another cultural frame. I used this beaming machine last Friday evening. And arrived happily in Paris, where a couple of oysters waited for me close to Gare de l’Est together with some Bordeaux Blanc. Thus, the first evening was perfect, and already let me forget entirely about a week constantly at the edge of a cold and a lot of work. Arriving from the happy little town at the foot of the Alps, you immediately realize the imperial grandeur of Paris, where simple long distance trains are called Les Grandes Lignes, where every second street is named after one of many Napoleon battlefields in Europe and where a simple piece of meat with vegetables turns on the menu card into an assembly of words that even after 9 years of French lesions you still do not understand but it sounds like dozens of chefs de cuisine have worked on its final assembly. As this is a perfumery blog, I feel obliged to focus a little bit my Saturday in Paris: I will therefore not go into my shirt shopping details, but will spend a few words on perfumes. After a vast crowd of paper strips and perfume bottles has passed by mid afternoon, my friend asked me whether this universe of perfumes does not trouble me. We happened to be at the booth of Joe Malone, standing in front of an army of perfume bottles, all nicely labelled, all smelling "correct”. I answered that in the contrary, with every paper strip more, I see how and where my creations may fit and I feel the urge to add Tauer compositions to the galaxy of perfumes. Of course, my friend wouldn’t even think about this question while at Guerlain’s, Champs d’Elysée…. There, in these beautiful rooms with hundred years of perfume history right in front of you, there you immediately realize that the perfume universe is infinite and has room for us all. Continued tomorrow….
First I would like to give a clear answer with a “but” to Marlen’s comment on my last post: Contradiction! I read his comments before leaving home and –what coincidence- 1 min. after having considered wearing contradiction this grey winter morning. After reading his post, I of course couldn’t resist. I haven’t used it for years! But…. It’s kind of a loud flower message. Writing this post I sit in the train and feel covered in several sheets of contradiction blankets, waves of abstract orange flower and a vulgar orchid flower, heavily empowered by salicylates, musks (I guess) found their way through a vibrant linalool-spicy caramel cover. It really is an abstract scent, somewhat too artificial to me, maybe better fitted for hot summer evenings, sitting outside in cafes, enjoying the warmth and easy going of the season; on this grey winter morning I let a significant part of Zurich’s population take part of an overdose of this abstraction on my way to the station using public transport and still feel a little bit too generous. This is a fragrance that is very outgoing indeed. For several reasons this week passed without much work on new stuff. I was taking care on the two perfumes on the market, dealing with samples and stuff, and unfortunately, there was no time and energy left to do thorough reading of my favourite blogs. Dear blogging friends, please apologize! But there was time to look at the leather, final version in its 15% dilution. I am still delighted how it turned out after maturation, but will have to consider going slightly down to 10-12 % in its final dilution. It is amazing how the dilution factor may affect the top notes’ development. I think I could improve my leather darling here, allowing (well, I hope at least) widening the red carpet for the head notes a little bit, before the heart notes and the base take over. We will see… For this week this is the last post. I wish you all a nice weekend and look forward to seeing you’ll soon again, here. Enjoy your time.
Here’s a post for the biologists among you. Many, many years ago, when earth was still young and its surface was covered with rocks and mud and oceans full of single cellular life, when life was still primitive and consisted of bacteria only, back then life was very innocent. Happy organisms lived and just split themselves in half and multiplied without the joy and hassles of sex. Well, we all know what happened since then. Earth has seen the rise of multi-cellular organisms, and concomitantly the advent of sexual reproduction, aiming at efficiently mix two individual gene pools to produce offspring with statistical 50% genes of each parent. Once invented, this new way of reproducing a part of oneself proofed highly efficient in evolutionary terms and resulted in greater variety and faster adaptation to changing ecosystems. As always in life, there was a price tag for this advantage to pay: Mortality.
As individuals we die in a sense because we gained the ability to produce children; bacteria on the other hand just multiply and produce copies that are undistinguishable from the original (in a first approximation at least, things get complicated once you look into the details…). Now, with this price to pay it becomes quite obvious that sex is a serious business. As individual you must really make sure that you get a good chance to pass on your genes, otherwise your 50% genes will be provided by someone else….in humans, it is a multi billion dollar business, covering all aspects from the beautiful to the ugly.
In plants, it is the fight by all means to attract the right gene carriers, like bees and other helpful folks. Plants have chosen not to walk around, which safes a lot of energy and enabled them to live from solar energy alone, but consequently they face the challenge to meet each other in order to joyfully exchange genetic material. Some species have chosen an anonymous approach; others rely on helpful flying servants, transporting their genes from one place to the other. And again, nothing is for free in life, therefore our static plants have to produce nice calorie packages to go with their genes and invest heavily in marketing for themselves. Artful constructions, gleaming in all bandwidths of the light spectrum, are spreading scented messages, telling innocent bees and other folks that there’s an individual ready to pass on genes and face its own mortality. Thus, in a sense, all these flower perfume messages are also messages of imminent death.
For all those expecting great perfumery news from Vienna: I am sorry, Vienna was not perfumery related at all. As a matter of fact, there was neither time left to get anything useful in terms of perfumery done, nor was I able to connect to the virtual world. The last point, however, will soon be a thing of the past, I hope, in light of my waiting for the qtek9000. This little tech wonder tool will soon be mine and hopefully add to my virtual presence while travelling. On my way home yesterday evening I got a chance to quickly log in to my mail box on the airport and I downloaded one of those mails that keep me going. Iain, lovely customer from the UK, got a L’air du désert marocain as present and used my www.tauerperfumes.com website to give us feedback. Well, thank you Iain for your charming comments.
One, the only one, perfumery related issue the last two days was an article in the Sunday edition of the Austrian Kurier, featuring three women perfumers: Camille Goutal, in charge of Goutal since her mother’s death in 1999, Lyn Harris with her flagship store in the UK in Notting Hill, Keiko Mecheri, living in the US, in California to be more specific, and Jeanne Sandra Rancé, heading Rancé together with her son. Rancé seems a strange name from a German perspective for we have a word “ranzig” which describes the scent of rotten oily food… Ms Mecheri’s creations sound the most thrilling, and she is said to create perfumes that are out of the ordinary, different to anything else. The article mentioned Loukhoum, a sweet perfume full of roses and honey. I must see that I can get hold of her creations.
The latest news: Legerdenez (http://legerdenez.blogspot.com) is featuring an interview with Andy Tauer , thus for all of you interested in finding out more about my personal thoughts you might find this interesting....
I will be pretty busy today and the coming days. After a hopefully somewhat relaxing weekend I shall fly again and use some fosil fuel.... this time, it is going to be Vienna on Monday and Tuesday. Therefore, until mid next week my best wishes to all and here's a link that some of you might study until then: http://www.sxc.hu It is a public picture exchange site, probably the largest on the web and you may find artful pictures such as the rose, by Hagit Berkovich from Tel-Aviv. Enjoy!
It still amazes me. We sell perfumes to the world. If one of the friendly, tie wearing representatives of SME and start-up supportive organisations in Zurich would ever consider us worth coaching, the first question might well address the business plan. I would refer to one of my favourites beliefs: Love is more a reliable guide than printed paper. I am not talking about falling in love with someone, a hormone related disease of the human brain which indeed may guide us to rather strange places where we–once healed- shake our heads and do not understand how we got there. I am talking about love and passion for an idea. It is this love which tells me exactly what to do, even if it does not sound reasonable to outsiders. It is a steering light that so far has allowed me to navigate across stormy oceans and discover new land rather safely (with some swimming exercises….) Contrary to an excel table with numbers, this passion is a strong driving force to move on, to set foot on new ground and ….to dream; to dream about Mr Turin writing something nice about a perfume of mine; to dream that people will talk about my perfumes, to dream that people will fall in love with a scent of mine. Well, I guess some dreams come true! Thus, dreaming about a one-page home story coverage in Vogue, I worked on a little marketing flyer for L’air du désert marocain yesterday, to go with the perfume when we send it to journals and magazines. 1 page, A4, folded, German for the time being, simple, modest in its appearance but the more accurately layouted. Maybe it is not only love and passion but just the ability to dream and loose ground from time to time that makes things possible.
Last spring I came upon a recipe on the internet for a cuisine delight: Rose vinegar. I did not find the original link anymore but would like to thank here to this anonymous rose cook. I have a couple of roses bushes, some of them thriving, some suffering, some of them heavily scented. Especially the “Charles de Gaulle”, flowering in a faint, greyish pink, smells wonderful but happens to run under the wrong name.
Edit Piaf or Brigit Bardot might be more appropriate than naming it after a general who was a great leader, a statesmen, as French as can be, leading a troubled country in war, a voice of free will and humanity from a far away lost island in the north Atlantic that was one of the few last resorts of freedom, marching with his troops back to Paris, where he, his boys and women, and the Americans who made all this possible, were heroes. This story happened 60 years ago and seems further away than it actually is. There are too many graves of unknown soldiers in France, Germany, Russia and all over the world that haven’t been visited for a long time. Our grandmothers rebuilt our houses and we forgot that at the base of them they buried their unlived dreams. We forgot our grandfathers as we never met them. Forgive me my sentimentality here. I was shaken the other day, when listening to Steve Reichs “different trains” again after a post of Cait on Legerdenez.
Back to the roses. I guess, generals love roses, too! Thus, the recipe is simple: Take the best, possibly non-flavoured vinegar you can get (aceto di modena won’t work well), pick your rose petals early in the morning, lots of them, a hand full for one cup of vinegar, best from flowers that opened their heart for the first time, mix it with the vinegar, let stand in the dark for a couple of weeks, filter and you will be amazed what gorgeous vinegar you will get! Of course, there are associations arising, to Patrick Süsskind’s perfume book, when collecting virgin rose flowers…. please apologize first before picking the petals. What I love in this rose vinegar is how the velvety, elegant, green luscious scent of rose in captured and how one aspect of the rose perfume is lifted: Its hidden spiciness. This spiciness is completely hidden when looking at one of the abstractions of the rose’s natural perfume: The absolute. Here, the solvent mediated concentration process brings out the honey-green-sweetness, the lifted flower and its erotic power. Contrary, the steam distilled essential oil shows different qualities. The hidden spiciness of rose flowers is peeled out, and the peppery quality, with a touch of woody vibrations, beneath a lighter flower is found in a clear or light brown liquid which is far less viscous than the absolute. This is the stuff to dream your pepper-cardamon-cinnamon rose combination dreams. I have samples from Essencia, one being the Bulgarian quality (that I prefer, for its roundness) and the Turkish quality (that I find less balanced, more on the stingy side), but there is no way out: I will get a bottle of these spicy rose buds.
Where there is light, there is shadow…except maybe you use a lot of light from different angles. In order to view things clearly, shadow is not a bad thing per se. It brings out the contours and forms, for instance in photography where your architecture shots in early morning or evening will turn out much livelier. Part of it is due to the warmer light, part of it due to the sun lightening the scene from the side. In that sense the sun was shining on Tauer Perfumes yesterday. Pascal received another order from a happy customer who has bought the perfume in the past again and again. Using the comments form she told us that she felt an urge to motivate us to continue because our perfumes are so extraordinary. She is in love with both of them and asked us to call her immediately for stocking up in case we would ever, ever consider not selling our perfumes anymore. Which we don’t. For the time being we will continue selling them happily. Now, that was the light. The shadow was a letter from the US telling us that one particular shipment never arrived. We will, of course, resend it again. But it troubles us. Sending post to the US is far from predictable, as a matter of fact, sometimes I have the impression sending parcels and letters from my little space ship neatly parked at the event horizon right into a little black hole, where customs, post officers, or whoever is in charge, are making sure that nothing happens. I think we came across the weakest link in the whole globalisation game….
This shadow which primarily bothers my customers brings out the crystal clear positioning of our shop in Switzerland and Luckyscents.com in the US: Buying perfumes from us on www.tauerperfumes.com or www.lemaroc.ch is a touch more economical, but please be aware that some of these parcels may take a couple of days to reach your destination. Thus, the choice is yours!
Tomorrow (hopefully): Some thoughts about rose again, this time the steam distilled essential oil that I am trying to employ in my iris composition.
You know these mornings when you wake up and pass by a mirror on your way to the nearest coffee cup? A short inspection on the run confirms your worst suspicion: 5 years must have been passed since you went to bed. A fact that is not reflected by an energetic, agile body but by a facial landscape, severely affected by erosion. Let’s face it: There are situations where even Heather’s balms and essential oils will come to a limit; I have an excuse, though. I am slightly affected by a cold virus sitting somewhere between my head and my lung. Which brings me neatly to my first thought: Heather’s soap, all hand made from scratch, with love and care. I got one bar, containing among other all natural ingredients avocado butter, grape seed oil and myrrh essence, and I gave it a try on Saturday. I loved the myrrh, woody and dry, and the creamy foam. The myrrh would last on my skin, gently, very gently following me through my day. What I adored most, however, was the smooth feeling of the skin after a thorough soapy cleaning exercise. Amazing. I guess Heather knows what she is doing and I urge you: Give it a try. Here’s her new e-shop…… Talking about shops: This weekend saw the German version of tauerperfumes.com go live. The second thought I wanted to share this morning: My thoughts on an Iris note, briefly mentioned last Saturday. It was a first sketch, lingering for a long time in my head, and I dared to mix it about two weeks ago. Vero likes it. I love it, on the first sight. There are two, three details that need adjustment. There is a touch too much Cistus in it, which breaks through a little bit too hard at the start, competing with an otherwise impeccable head note accord dominated by the freshness of grapefruit, the transparent spiciness of green pepper, a reddish touch of cinnamon, moving over swiftly into an elegant heart note, dominated by an iris accord, combined with rose and the crystal clear, yet slightly woody emanations of Indian frankincense. The heart note plays with a base which needs to be a touch stronger, but without changing anything in the accord per se: Sandalwood and Vetiver over a shy sheet of ambergris. Today will, therefore, see some compositional work on this fragrance theme, I just can’t wait…..
Well, I guess I am a lucky perfumer today for several reasons. First I will meet my dear Vero again and we will do a final sniffing on the leather note, now diluted and ready for serious evaluation. And I look forward to her opinion on a first draft of a composition that thrills me thoroughly: Rose, pepper, grapefruit, cinnamon hints over a cistus, frankicense, orris heart and a sandalwood, Agarwood, vetiver base. Far from finished, but exciting! I will need some advise there.
Third, directly linked to second: Luckyscent sells my perfume in the US, complementing nicely our sales endeavors of the shop in Zurich. After my visit of Heather's shop and my splendid time in the UK, I look forward to visit all shops selling my perfumes. It's time to visit the US again, sooner or later! Lucky Andy, indeed.
Travelling in these times may have a disturbing quality. You weak up in your hotel close to the airport, have your breakfast in a room which is indistinguishable to the room where you had your coffee yesterday and move to the airport where you spend your time in a truly plastic shopping environment. There you will find all the perfume brands that you will soon encounter again, in quite similar neon environment, once you left the airplane. Finally, you come home and realize that you moved from one geographic area to the other without any changes in the plastic surroundings at all. Well, maybe you are lucky and get the chance to travel to Uppingham and discover a part of this world which still is true in a sense. This little village was Monday’s final destination after travelling from Luton to Leicester and Oakham. Uppingham is situated somewhere in the middle of the British island, surrounded by green patches with fences and hedges and farms with old trees. Narrow roads lead into an assembly of small, dark red brick houses, surrounding a central market place with an old church, a coffee shop and a pharmacy. From this central place, it is 1 min down the main street until you will see the sign for Eieflud, hand made toiletries that you should follow for a lovely shopping experience. You will meet Kim and Julie in a little, light flooded and cosy shop that features products you will not find in your average plastic shopping surroundings. I was there on Monday, visiting Heather, and met Julie, who was just finishing the most beautiful package of a particular, charity related, soap bar. Imagine: A place where every piece of soap and perfume is individually made, packed and decorated by hand! I was truly impressed. And then I got to know Heather’s perfumes. All of them have a clear handwriting, an individual quality and a naturalness that is remarkable. Her perfumes are all natural and I must admit: Heather is composing proof that there is a world of all natural perfumes worth discovering. This world may be different to what you are used to but it will be worth it: Go to Uppingham and start sniffing… maybe you want to begin with the Fougère, it’s my favourite!
But, please do not expect the special treatment that I was given, though.… I was invited by Heather for a very private visit of her family, including MD, kids, dogs, cats, sheep and a pony all gathered happily in an old house (well….not the sheep and pony!), surrounded by a few farms and not much more. This is the picture I brought back home; Heather in midst of her family, producing toiletries that allow you to experience products that are truly authentic. Well, thank you, Heather.
Dear fellow readers of this blog. I am on my way soon to UK, attending a hopefully interesting conference and a visit on Monday of my fellow blogger, Heather Platts from Eie Flud.
Talk to you on Thursday again.
In the mean time: Peace and wonderful scents to you all.
First my thanks to Anya who brought to my attention that there exists a bush, called banana bush for its fragrant flowers, of the genus Magnolia, not related at all to the banana tree that we know (Musa). For more details: Follow this link…http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/5219/1304/1600/clementine.gif
And second: Maybe there is more behind Escada’s Pacific Paradise marketing. In light of the banana bush with its fragrant flowers, the marketing message ( a fruity scent with the fragrance of coconut sorbet and banana flowers) makes more sense. For all those like me who don’t know that there exists a banana bush: We associate tropical fruits and large, exotic flowers….for all those aware of the banana bush: Their association is more focused to a real flower scent. An intriguing ambiguity. Nice. Nevertheless, I am still inclined to give them a call and ask what a banana flower smells like. Do they know? (picture: detail of the spoiled Clementine bush with one little flower)
My green thumb is praised! Finally, after two years of intense care, watering in summer, potting in spring, finding a nice cool but light flooded place in winter, after an extra shot of iron I detected an open flower on my mandarin tree. (one flower, one bud) I bought it two years ago, it was a Clementine baby back then and so far, all prayers and tender loving care did not result in any flowers. I was faced with a growing green bush, reaching 1.5 meters height, with lush shining leaves, that would smell wonderful if scratched…petitgrain like with a touch of neroli. But no flowers so far. And honestly; this was the only reason why I bought it in the first place. I imagined myself sitting in the garden, the warm May sun playing on my face and waves of Clementine flowers sending their truthful love messages. Finally I am there, with my beloved Clementine tree, and the scent is ....just wonderful. Rich, sweet, incredibly sexy, masculine and feminine mixed and intermingled, yet so soft and velvetty....
Well, I guess this is the beginning of a flourishing Clementine flower absolute business of mine..... (Just kidding, I will post the pix tomorrow)
First I have to admit: I forgot about the Clementine picture. I’ve taken it but can not access it right now. Please apologize. In today’s free 20 minutes newspaper (Zurich edition) was a funny constellation of a somewhat rightist political campaign add, referring to too many violent immigrants finding their way to Switzerland and nobody doing anything against it, on one half of the page. On the other half, on top of it, was the puma add for speed boots “gets you there faster”, featuring a black boy in a black crowd, standing in front of an open door symbolizing the entry point to the world of the rich. Oups. That’s fantastic, bringing things right to the point, and providing food for thoughts. I just hope many readers will realize how cheap the political campaign is.
The 20 minutes paper is free and cheap, little content, trashy layout, but I read it and it is one of my best sources for ideas when I do not have real thrilling perfumery news. Today a little add for Escada’s Pacific Paradise found my attention, too. It is marketed as fruity scent with the fragrance of coconut sorbet and banana flowers. And again I wonder why I came across many blossoming banana trees in my life and never realized their smell. And I wonder why a banana tree which basically is infertile should produce any scented flowers to attract insects or birds…. On the other hand….why does a banana tree produce banana anyway? They are, from a reproduction point of view, completely useless….. food for thought.
I will have to ask Escada how they would describe the banana flower scent. They must have a 1-800 number or an info-mail…..It is such a pity, the world is full of wonderful real scents, like the scent in a forest after a heavy summer rain or the scent of garden earth in spring. On the other hand, “summer forest after rain” might not sell. People might associate slimy snails and ugly mushrooms and stinking foul trees when thinking about forest and rain; eventually I will have to create something like “The scent of Oak flower from Siberia, harmoniously joined with Mongolian Fire tree”, too. Sounds great doesn’t it? Today’s picture: Banana flower.
