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1 year blogging

heieiei... I am so nervous. It is my first birthday.

It is more or less a year now since I started blogging. Time to celebrate and share this somewhat special moment. This blog has seen some funny posts, strange posts, lots of typo’s and even more comments (Thank you all!) about life, perfumes and perfumery. I look forward to continuing tomorrow… but not here anymore. Starting tomorrow, I will post here:

www.tauerperfumes.com/blog

What you should do now.... there is (22.30 local Swiss time) still something there, waiting for you.....: Follow this link http://www.tauerperfumes.com/blog

Pictograms

So, this blog saw an interesting comment yesterday and I wanted to take the time to address the one point that I thought most interesting and challenging in Anya's comment.
What do I want the rose, or linalool or whatever to do? I changed the question to include synthetics.

The starting point: When I create a fragrance I basically make a very complex chemical recipe. Add 1 gr of linalool into flask, add 2 gr of limonen.... , allow to react for 30 days at room temperature, ....add ethanol, mix, allow to ....When working with naturals, this recipe becomes very, very complicated, but at the end it still is a recipe containing a set of chemicals that are mixed in a certain order, allowed to react and find an equilibrium, diluted in ethanol, filtered, bottled, sold. A comment on the side: Our scent of smell is capable of quite some abstraction. Take phenylethylalcohol, add some citronellol, citral, damascenon eventually and people will recognize the rose. It is a similiar phenomenon like our visial sense: Draw a few lines and people will recognize the tree, the house, the dog... that's the trick with pictograms. In this sense: Phenylethylalcohol is the pictogramm for the rose scent.

Now, what do I want? It depends... for a certain scent I want some molecules in this mix to be identifiable, to stand out and form a sensorial impression that is recognized by its closeness to something we know. Like the rose. Do I care to be as close as possible to the roses natural scent. Nope! I care for the concept of rose, eventually I want the rose to become symbolic, to be lifted into an idea.

Some of the molecules are intended to be there to form a new sensorial impression that is also recognized but as something new. This new impression is sort of a holy grail... lucky us: There are lots of these grails around and just have to find them.

And then there is also a supportive class of molecules in a sense. These molecules are there to bring others up but never bring themselves into the game. Helpful servers, modest but indispensable.

Linden blossom and petunia

Driving with my bike trough town this morning, the fragrance of fresh linden blossom woke my nose up. It is a true delight, precious and so far, I have not smelled anything synthetic that could replace it. There are some molecules that come close, some eventually might be combined to give this impression, but replace it? No. The natural linden blossom absolute that you can get does not have this wonderful elegance and freshness, sweetness, the airy neroli, the sexyness of jasmine and the lightness of lily-of-the-valley. It is a greenish scent with rather "wet-wood" undertones... thus: We have to enjoy the season and sniff as much as we can of this natural delight.

The same is true for my petunia, flowering in little pots, on the veranda. Deep, rich, vanilla, oakmoss and a sensual powder fills the surrounding in later afternoon. A true delight and the only reason why I have planted them anyway.

Besides sniffing these naturals... I look forward to sniff and learn some synthetics, like decahydro beta naphtylacetate (I hope I got it right), I love it but haven't mastered it, yet... this week will see me continuing the work started on the lavender, complementing what has been done over the weekend (more about it tomorrow), sending out some parcels, tell you more about a most astonishing meeting last Friday and talk about some business ideas....

blogroll

Things are getting in place for the blog on the other, non-blogspot, domain. I haven't done the blogroll there, yet but will do it in the coming days. I have, I must admit, neglected my blogroll on the blogspot-blog, too.... Thus, whenever you feel like your blog should be there on my blogroll....just mail me...

What else: Some secret stuff is going on in Zurich (hehehe...what I do is also secret ).... for all those who do not understand this little joke... please visit madebyblog. This secret mission kept me busy yesterday and I could write long, epic posts about my pain and my joy in doing this...hehehe... but it is a secret. Thus... wait and see.

old fashioned

After an epic fooling around with Excel, trying to get an overview about postage paid, cash in and cash out, I treated myself for 2 hours with working right away on the skeleton of yesterday. Lines of actions: Add some flesh to the base with tonka beans (replacing coumarin), vetiverol, a hint patchouli and vanillin, some ambrein to the cistus and oakmoss, up to the IFRA allowed limit. Adding hair and skin by addition of ionone, beta, phenylethylalcohol and iso-amylsalicylate to the orris line, and blood and nervous tissue by the addition of some methyl-pamplemouse (guessed right: brings in a citrus, green, vetiver line), linalool, linalylpropionate.

Humbly begging for attention, the preliminary result landed under W.'s nose, while Germany-Italy was still playing at 0:0. The comment was something like:" Hmmm ..that's new and interesting....move it and play that ball!.....it smells like.....ohhhh, again they can't keep the ball.....something....ahhh, what a chance..... something familiar, like a classic....go,go,go.... a little bit old fashioned".

Humbly returning to my computer, the formula changes were entered in excel and the perfumer entered in a thinking loop: Are my compositions old fashioned? Grummel-grübel-studier (no translation...). Well, looking back at last Saturday's sniffing meeting with Vero, old fashioned might turn out to be a compliment. We sniffed Que sais je?, by Caron. This, after scents that seem to have been created by Mr. 666, the bad beast, you name it, with the purpose to send our noses to a frozen universe, expanded endlessly, with not much more left than 0.1 degree Kelvin background noise. And then there came Que sais je. Tuberose, vanilla, civet, oakmoss, so fine, so rich, so yummy, with this wonderful orris story, powdery and lasting. A dream!

Now, coming back today to yesterday's trial: Somewhat too hairy: I have to shave this barbarian thing. It could need a little bit more vibrance energy at the beginning, it does not seem to know how to use its muscles yet, and I have give it a little bit more of a green powdery make-up.

a lovely day

Happy 4th of July to all my readers in the US, enjoy and celebrate!
In todays post we will visit together the skeleton of a scent. I worked for quite a while on the scent with Lavender. hmmm...I need a project/category name for it, because my new blog that will soon go live and replace my blogspot.com blog, allows me to easily create categories....hmmm... how about ....hmmm...can't think of anything clever as working title for this project of mine... I will have to ask Barry ;-)
Well, I worked on it, with the goal to come up with a sketch that is good enough to be followed further, approaching at least schematically the picture I have in mind. Looking back at it, I can clearly see how this draft might work; it will need much more to become wearable, but the basic lines might fit. The next step: Do it again and move on by decorating things out. I will leave the skeleton mix for maturation just to see how it develops over time.
Starting with what I had already (Okoumal, with a hint coumarin, kephalis, cistus, and castoreum, decatone) I moved on, carefully not to mess things up again. I added a fir line with bergamot to the top, an orris line (which will need careful fine tuning later, right now it is just a line) and sandalwood to the base.
And finally: The lavender...I have a large selection of various qualities at hand, not to miss the synthetic lavender boosters; I decided for a mix of my French lavender with the Bulgarian quality.
The synthetic boosters will come later, when I work on the flesh for this skeleton. Like testosterone doses added to your daily vitamine intake brings about muscles, reduces fat and makes you look like a handsome guy, boosters like linalool add volume to a lavender, bring down the sweetness and excessive flowery aspects. As with all things in live, it is just a matter of dose, too much and your lavender looses its natural appearance and looks like Arnold Schwarzenegger in his days as actor, before his botox time as governor....

Still life

When looking at my basil babies in front of the house yesterday evening, with the sun approaching the horizon and pouring an orange light over Zurich, I couldn't help realizing the allegory of things in front of me.I met with Vero on Saturday and we had an excellent exchange, and as always I came home loaded with ideas and impressions. I will talk a little bit about it tomorrow.
Thus, back to the still life in front of my house: A nice allegory for my approach of the lavender scent somehow, the only thing missing is the fir. You see the lavender on the right, visited by bees and butterflies in the evening, in full bloom right now. To the left are the petunia which smell awesome, vanilla-musk-powdery-animalic, and then there are the basil seedlings, not smelling much yet, but they will, green, green, green and somewhat camphorwood spicy, yummy! In front, there is the thyme. I have a lemon thyme essential oil from France and this is what I want to try this week with my lavender, complementing the touch vanilla that I try to bring in the back. In the back to the left you see a piece of wood that is rotting there (I leave it because it makes a nice border line and it is home to many little insects, playing their games there. )Bring your nose there and you are transported into a world of wet forest soil, remembering of agarwood, ambergris, with a touch of mushroom.
With this picture I engage into another week that will see me thinking hard about September until December 06, stocking things, streamlining things and consolidating things. Issues that I will cover later this week, once the still life has found its way into a little glass bottle on my desk…..

green greetings

Greetings to you all. I am fighting with my jungle in front of the house, with litte success. Well, I guess that is a good news for our green visitors there.
Enjoy your weekend and see you soon here again.

for the beauty of it

And because it is so beautiful...

full bloom

My lavender is in full bloom right now and I started my day by cutting a few flowers and holding them under my smelling knop. It is a wonderful scent, with a but..... The "but" is referring to the man-made lavender oil. Water distilled, cooked, transported by water vapors and collected after a rather harsh process, this extract misses a lot of the real thing. It's deprived of most of the spicy character, the rosmarin notes and also part of the woody character (ah...the coumarin! with its softness, sweet, almond nutty fat and creamy) The essential oil is much more flowery and not surprisingly , somehow tamed.

I have a lavender concrete which is like a mixture of the essential oil abstraction and the wild thing. Green in colour it is very tempting to work with: Coumarin notes, green woodyness with etherical spices. Talking about Coumarin: The next step for my lavender will be a Coumarin (tonka beans?)/vanilla chord that is intended to add some wilderness to my nicely dressed essential oil. I am also considering too add some vetiver that would nicely branch out for the okoumal/cistus/castoreum accord. This will be one line of action today. The other will be more factory oriented again.

Not that the copy of the flower's true scent is the goal, but it guides the way what to do with the essential oil. Bring back part of the wild, untamed character, add some of the fierceness of lavender fighting for the bees on dry Mediteranean ground, in full sunlight....

factory

Yesterday, suddenly, I got my mail system working for the blog on wordpress (using a plugin) and I am really looking forward to bringing this blog to the tauerperfumes domain. Thus, if it was already there I would put this post under category "Factory", where I am talking about production. Or I could bring it under "marketing buzz", or.....hmmm I haven't really figured out what categories I want to use. I am not focused enough in my blogging and do not intend to change.....
In light of yesterday's activities, pouring yet another batch of Lonestar Memories to be boxed today, with the L'air du désert marocain waiting to be poured and boxed, too: I see it coming....sooner or later I will make it true and change the packaging for the L'air du désert marocain. The goal: Efficiency in keeping stocks and packaging. The solution: Using one format, one bottle, one concept.

The consequences would be: Reduce the l'air to 50 ml, adjust the labels and flyer. Dear Prince Barry made, a long time ago, a query among perfume lovers at PerfumeofLife and the bottom line was that 1.7 FL OZ is not critical.

Now, please, do not get me wrong here....there is still some time to enjoy 100 ml bottles and a strange white box slightly too large for the perfume. But a simple linear extrapolation of my current sales volume tells me to start thinking about these issues....and now back to the rythm of perfume bottles popping out and the heat and sweat of the perfume factory. :-)

Photo:

Workers in the Lock & Drill Department, National Cash Register, Dayton, Ohio
Photograph
Detroit Photographic Company
William H. Jackson, Photographer
About 1902
www.hfmgv.org/exhibits/dpc/everyday/dayton.asp

Scent of summer

When driving home in the evening after a short visit of mom, I cruised through waves of what is ...the scent of summer. After the orgie of spring scents so rich in salicylates, white flower's indoles and fragrances desperately calling the bees, it is now the time of lavender flowering in the garden, cool mossy scents from the dark woods and dry hay and wheat ripening. With the windows open, hair in the wind, the villages passed by at this peaceful evening, and with lots of dogs together with their masters, doing the last round around the block, I headed home. There, I witnessed the partial devastation of a kitchen within 2.5 minutes, resulting in an abrubt shift of activities, like the thunderstorm later tonight that washed away the fragrances of a summer night.

Here is how: (for further details: please consult W.....) Take 1 ounce of milk, add it to the leftover of honey in the honey pot, put it into the microwave for 2 minutes, setting high (high like "get that nuclear power plant running,.... W. is making his milk"), take it out (not boiling), shake it (spontaneous boiling) and watch your kitchen getting covered with a milky honey soup, sticky juice all over, smelling wonderful....It was time for a short lesson in physics of the boiling process, exemplified in our kitchen and some cleaning activities.

The bed saw me -after many mails that needed to be finished- covered in a scent chord, simple but highly interesting: Okoumal, Cistus, and my Mr. beaver imitate. I test this chord for my lavender thing, as one of the base accords and was amazed how well the beaver, this thick wet fir, dirty animal scent works with the cistus. Here, I have a special quality, the steam distilled essential oil combined with extract. I do not know exactly how it is done, but it lasts longer, is darker, more intense and has this rich woody and furry quality that I love. Bottomline: I slept wonderful and can see how these three compounds might work together. The Okoumal brings in a woody ambergris effect and vibrant lightheartedness that will fit very well with a lavender accord. This is excellent. It would be the first time that I finally might engage my little beaver who swims around in his pool since years, waiting for its call to serve mankind.

Mr. Beaver was carrying me then over the water to the other side, called dreamland. On my way there I looked back at today's short telephone conversation with the German Vogue that will feature a little news about the L'air du desert marocain, somewhen in August.

basenotes

Ah... I forgot. (you see...yesterday's night still drains....)

Here is link to a basenote discussion on the Lonestar Memories. I am somewhat proud and love the title of the post
http://community.basenotes.net/showthread.php?t=183647

And not to miss: Victoria on her blog about the Lonestar Memories:
http://victoriasown.blogspot.com/2006/06/lonestar-memories-tauer-perfumes.html

Enjoy... and: I promise that I will not make any promotion tomorrow!

ohhhhh

In Swiss German, this post would start with something like," ohhhh, niä meh......" which easily translates into "ohh, never again". I am talking about yesterday's evening that I can still feel in my bones and ...... well, it was spontaneous. Riding home on my bike I passed by the Alte Trotte, the restaurant, where Alice, a dear friend of mine invited me to join her for a glass of wine before the big game, the football game between Switzerland and our Eastern friends from the Ukrania. Thus, I said yes, but just for a little glass and only 15 minuts because I had so much to get done....
At midnight I finally came home, had done nothing of what should have been done and felt wonderful, because I spent time with a friend and I watched the game (Switzerland lost, but it was a nice match, fair, with cool scenes) and drunk more than one glass.

Now, it is some 7 hours later, and I do not feel that well anymore. The pile of mails did not disappear yesterday night and I have to see that I will get things done today! In that sense.... fragrant wishes my dear perfume lovers. I look back at yesterday evening as a study for a future football perfume: Get to know your clients first!

maculata

Nature is far from perfect. (see the rose of yesterday morning on the left; beautiful, smelling like an angel, but not perfect... this is maybe what makes it so beautiful?) Thus...I had to buy a pair of new glasses on Saturday. One reason was the old glasses falling apart, the other reason has to do with my arms that slowly but surely do not allow me anymore to compensate the inadequate focusing of my ocular system. My optician told me that there is no reason to worry. I am beyond 40 and around this age the signs become immanent of what happens since birth: A continuous decline, due to protein degradation in my lens. No way to stop it. It starts when you are born and it ends when … well, when things come to an end.
Thus, my Saturday shopping turned into a memento mori trip (latin for remember death). And it boosted my plans for the weekend. Who knows how much time is left, thus I figured out to better move on with a few things; such as preparing my blog on wordpress and bringing it on the tauerperfumes.com domain, getting the stuff ready for “Aus Liebe zum Duft”…

…commercial break on the side: Yeha…the cowboy made it successfully to Germany, too!, where he will be enjoying football and German hospitality….

and some more stuff, like fooling around will little beaver and cistus. More about this animal story in the coming days.

Thus, I went for a nice pair of new glasses. Positive side aspect: I get a new look! Soon, I gonna look like a real intellectual. Ha! Change is great, as you may observe on Marina’s blog that has a great, cool look, too. I liked it, check it out!

training

It is going to be a full day today, for various reasons, which is good. In light of all the excitements going on , like the stories developing in the the blogosphere (see made by blog) , or in my shop , I post today something less exciting.... to calm down things.

Maybe some readers imagine the live of a perfumer like he's constantly creating new perfumes in a little lab, just sitting on his table and one wonderful formula after the other pours out of the lab. Well, life is -as usual- much more dull than that. Most of the time, when I work with scents, I do not really compose, but rather sit there and train myself. Sniffing one compound after the other, on paper strips, sometimes comparing how to different scents on two strips combine, and how they develop. For every new compound arriving at my place which starts to look really messy these days, I have to do that. Again and again.
There are difficult scents and easy scents. The easy ones: Once sniffed, I feel like I understand them, and feel acquainted immediately. They are like people in a sense. Sometimes it happens that you meet a stranger, but you feel so comfortable, immediately there is a relation and the whole person is like an open book, that you have already read. (well, sometimes you later have to realize that you missed some pages in this book...and you do your reading again)
Thus, I sat on my desk yesterday, once all mails were answered, windows open, paper strips in front and sniffed Okoumal again, a book with many pages, most of them unread and many with strange letters that I yet have to decipher. Another aspect of perfumery: Detective work.

riding on

there's a guy riding on...let's hope he arrives in due time and safely.
more here on Heather's blog

rain

On my way home, yesterday evening, by bike, I remembered again a few reasons why bike holidays can be a pain. I was on my way for about two minutes, some more ten minutes to go, when the clouds above me did what clouds are supposed to do. Within a minute I was beamed from mid Europe to Delhi, on a hot July day at noon, monsoon rain pouring down merciless, transforming streets into little rivers and ponds. Within a minute I got soaking wet, looking miserable like mom's poodle if wet, smelling probaly similar.
But then, to compensate for this middle European white man's misery, there it was: The smell of rain on asphalt, that is so unique and so good! Earthy, yummie, edible, depending on where and how smelling thick and brownish, and I found out today, using google that this is called PETRICHOR

A perfume that just smells like that for hours....no, I don't think so. I do not think that people would like me smelling like fresh rain on asphalt, thus making them grab for their umbrellas as soon as they smell me...on the other hand: still better than wet dog, I guess.

Smells like one you can buy.

Finally, I was brave enough to touch my lavender again, trying to come up with something useful. And while doing so, I felt so much appreciation for the two perfumers working on Marina’s and Katie’s scents, to be followed on made by blog. Brave men, and I am glad that I do not have to produce new perfumes on a daily basis. IFF would fire me within a week, after my boss realized that the newly created fragrances in bottles next to my desk are moving somewhere between pile of rotten lavender flowers and lily, cooked for two hours with a pile of fir needles ;-)

Thus, the only thing I got is: Doubts and a bottle with something that is like wire model of a scent, containing the resin-fir head of terpinylacetat and nopylacetat with some linalool, two different lavenders (mailette and a classical French one), some green lily-of-the-valley mix, Kephalis and Sandalore…ah forgot bergamot. Well, this is about the best wire model I could think of yesterday evening. Somehow…. I am a little bit blocked, considering seriously whether the lily of the valley is what I want to have in there…. Thus, the wire model draft of a fragrance landed on a paper strip and then under W.’s nose without additional comments from my side.

What I got back was “hmmm, good, that smells like a perfume you can buy”.

Wrong answer! First one can buy my perfumes, too. Secondly, I worry…. am I getting main stream here? Thirdly, he should have said “ that’s not finished yet” or something like that. Hmm… we will have to be tougher with him the coming days. Educate a spoiled nose!

Old English clubs

For an interview I am doing (or getting done ….depending the way you look at it) I checked how a perfumer is defined on wikipedia; this in order to figure out what others think. Not that I would care too much about how my fellow human beings define the term perfumer, more out of curiosity. To make things short: A nose must know a lot of smelling compounds, distinguish them alone or in mixtures and know how they develop over time in presence of other compounds.

Ok, so far so good. Sometimes I wonder how others and also I do this. How do you come up with a memory concept to capture how a sent (let’s take lavender) develops over time in presence of a multitude of other compounds (like rose, tobacco, benzylsalicylate,…)? To me this looks pretty much like an N-dimensional problem with lots of non-linear factors. Thus, a pretty tough task.

Could I pack what I think I know into an excel file, a matrix of lavender on one side, rose, tobacco, benzylsalicylate on the other side? No. I couldn’t. Maybe others can. I can’t, because I think this knowledge (if existent) is present in a sublime way. It is about a feeling that lavender with tobacco will cut the tips out of lavender, make it dull on one hand, but keeps it down on planet earth, takes out the airiness,… hard to describe. Describing it in a picture, lavender in this tobacco company is like on old English club, where well-nourished old men would smoke their cigars, and ask the youngster new member with his lavender eau de toilette to please sit down and wait until his time has come to talk.

More on English gentlemen clubs on Wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gentlemen's_club_(traditional)

Scent bar

Looking for a scent bar, where you might meet a cowboy? And nice people? Scent loving fellows?

Here's the place to go...next week...
Don't miss the cowboys arrival in Luckyscent's scent bar and have a smoke with him! (or a coke...)

Yeha!

Pix: Luckyscents from pretty far away, on google maps.

Pineta

This post is about sources of inspiration. I figured it out while jogging yesterday in the woods, doing my usual Sunday jogging thing, with an unusual transpiration, though. It was quite hot and humid leading to a somewhat tough ride. On my jogging round there is one spot in the wood, exposed towards south with some pine trees, fully exposed to the sun, quite tricky to pass by because there are lots of pine roots making a decent jogging somewhat difficult. When I am there, about 50% of the jogging distance lays behind me, thus I am already quite pumped up with soothing body hormones, allowing to forget misery. What is special about this few meters square spot: It smells like the pineta. The pine wood line between the sea coast and the land, as you find it in Italy or in southern France.

My associations with pineta are: Vacation, Mediterranean Sea, dry sand enriched with the warm scent of fir, or pine resin. And, as a quick check on Google tells me: I am not the only one. Google.ch delivers a camping place add if I enter pineta. Hence, google’s advertisement might also be an association check… let’s do a test and see what ads we get when we enter “mountain” on google.com: Nothing. But a hyperlink to brokeback mountain comes up. Therefore, let’s try brokeback mountain…. And again: No ad. Hmmmm…. And this is exactly how I work: Starting with something serious, ending on google, and thinking about placing an ad, that pops up when people enter “brokeback mountain”….for Lonestar Memories, of course.

Back to the pineta. Thus, while stumbling in a mini-version of this wonderful scent scenery, I figured out there is something in it that I could use with my lavender idea, this fresh resin, which is partly woody, partly spicy, dry, not green but complementing green lines. Chance wants it that I just got my hand on a molecule that will help me to bring this out: Nopylacetate. Fresh, spruce-pine-fir like but not fully bringing up the associations that fir brings around: Car fragrance, cheap Christmas scents and the freshness of forests in a bathroom spray.

(pix: http://www.racine.ra.it/provincia/prociv/pineta.jpg)

Confessions

Saturday evening, looking at a pile of boxed perfumes once again. It is time for a little confession before wishing you a nice Sunday.
First I have to admit that once again I was not able to turn on the stereo radio thing that is coupled with the video and the hard disc recorder and the dvd player and ... well, I guess that's it. It wouldn't produce any sound and I felt a little bit ashamed. Thus, I watched CNN while packing L'air du désert marocain which sells really good these days.
Second confession: Pascal sold aLonestarr Memories on the14thh of June, one day before my launch. I forgive him. He is a happy sinner, who couldn't resist selling it to a lovely man, entering his shop, buying Le Maroc pour elle and the L'air for perfume lovers in Russia. He happens to be Swiss and travels forth and back and I know that a lot is going on in Russia on some perfume forums,... I assume most of them talk nice about my perfumes.
Third confession: I will be lazy tomorrow, very much indeed. Not doing anything except for jogging, getting the barbeque ready for the evening with mom and... that's about it. Maybe a few mails, but not more!
I send you all fragrant wishes, be lazy...
Enjoy

The picture

Well, I must tell you... I got a few questions already about the cowboy picture of Lonestar Memories and what I can tell you so far: Folks love the cowboy. Thus, I decided yesterday evening to place the picture on the web for download, in the format small, large and very large for those who want to hand the picture up over their bed (http://www.tauerperfumes.com/Lonestar_Memories.html).

And while sizing the pictures and getting the pages ready (I just made a simple webpage each, featuring just the picture) I had a closer look again at him. Thus, ladies and gentlemen, Mr. unknown cowboy doesn’t wear a ring…..keep on dreaming. I also wondered what he has in his left shirt pocket. To me, this looks like a little pack of snuff. Eaks…… must be something else, I don’t like him snuffing stuff. Let’s assume it is a pack of matches, in a strange round box, … must be… he will soon pick out one of them, and light a Marlboro ;-)

Next: Get the samples out!

tant de bruit

You know the feeling? Working for a long time on something and then, suddenly, it is finished. And you start wondering " What have I done all the time? For this little omelet? ". I am referring to the French saying "tant de bruit pour une omelet" which means something like..."what's all the fuss about this little flat thing that you have produced", or so.
Thus, I sit in front of my computer screen, and wonder what took me so long. Looking back now, things seem to have taken endlessly. Reading my posts about it I feel like waking up after much too much hemp smoking and looking back, in real time again, and not understanding ...Or looking back down the trail once arrived on the mountain, sweaty maybe, but still wondering what took me so long for these few meters....
Thus, I look back. Somehow melancholic. I have to let my baby go.

Somewhere on this globe it is June 15 by now. Therefore: We launch Lonestar Memories.

wow!

Wow.
I am listening to radio, my favourite lounge radio, http://www.lounge-radio.com/menu.html,
over the internet
in the train.
Wow, this is really cool.
And while passing nicely cooled down to ambient temperature in my train coach, driving through a little, rather flat part of Switzerland, under a lovely summer sun, I imagine how this will add up to my creative blogging.
On waves of lounge sound, soothed and excited at the same time, I think I found my broadband card today!
Greetings

MySQL

After yesterdays wonderful evening with white wine, excellent company and as little football as was possible (Switzerland versus France, 0:0, hard to find a place without a screen) I face a day that will be rather busy.

Hence I have to limit myself to a little post today. Maybe an online issue on the side. I light of my vacation coming end of July, I figured out that I need to pump up my mobile computing. Meaning I want to be able to able to download my mails wherever I am, write posts wherever I stand and do business whenever I feel like it. Hmmm … a first trial yesterday and this very morning with the fancy Swisscom (local telcom provider) Liberty card is not entirely as expected. Sure, from time to time you find a super-trooper UMTS cell. But most of the time, liberty means the liberty to think about life, mankind and other stuff while waiting for internet pages to load.

So far not convincing. I will try the competitor and see what their coverage is. By the way: This post was posted from the train... at 160 km per hour. cool, ain't it?

Then: I have changed the hosting for the tauerperfumes domain, from a Windows host to a Linux host in order to get a MySQL database. That was easy. Next will be to move the website there and then bring everything under one domain: Blog and website. Not, that I have any clue what MySQL really means in technical terms and how things work in the backend. But I guess it is like driving a car. You can drive perfectly without having a clue what’s going on beneath you.

Later today I will see that I can bring things up to Pascal’s online shop and put my stuff life for the Lonestar Memories and then…. Then it is about time to work seriously on perfumes again.

Blue sky over Lenin's house

The sky is still blue and will probably remain like that for the rest of the week. Great. The perfect weather for Pascal, my dear friend from Medieval art&vie and favourite perfume seller in Zurich. “What has weather to do with perfume selling?”, you might ask. “A lot”, he would probably tell you. First, there is a simple mood effect. The sun is shining and you are in a good mood and hence people seem to buy easier and are less worried about their credit card statement at the end of the month.

Second, nice weather = more people walking around in Zurich downtown = more people passing by Pascal’s shop. A shop, which happens to be close to the house where Lenin once lived (hence a lot of tourists passing by) and where Lenin thought about some things and came up with ideas that ultimately changed the world. How dangerous his ideas were, you may judge from the fact that the train coach that brought Lenin from Switzerland back through parts of the German Kaiserreich, was hermetically closed. They knew what Lenin was about to do and hence the Germans (in war with Russia and the rest of the world back then) let him pass, but made sure he could not infect Germany…

Thus, not really addressing the same questions that Lenin was dealing with, I had a little idea a couple of weeks ago. I proposed Pascal to place a bottle of the L’air du désert marocain outside, allowing people to spray (as much as they like) and test the perfume without the hassle of entering the shop.

Although this is not really what you aim at being a shop owner (shy clients not entering your shop), this is exactly what he did and since then...the weather became somewhat of an important sales factor and you see the perfumer praying for sun. Obviously, people like things being offered to them, and I think they like to test for themselves, without someone standing behind them, I think clients are shy, most of us probably are (well, I am).

Now, of course, the next question you might ask is: “How do you intend to bring this to the internet?”. “Well”, I would say, “I think I have to ask Lenin, maybe he had a few more ideas beyond revolution”.

Summer ante portas

Summer is knocking at the door. The sky is a crisp blue fabric without any clouds covering a sea of houses, streets and green patches. And amidst this green: A Clementine tree that suddenly realized what its destination is. I have posted about this little tree of mine before, but this time… flowers all over. When I checked it yesterday afternoon the bush was visited by all sorts of insects, bees, flies, bugs, you name it…. And it smelled like a Sicilian orange orchid, right here in Zurich. A very clean scent, well…neroli, with a creamy undertone, typical white flower but with less sex appeal than jasmine, for instance, and much lighter than gardenia. I am baffled and think about starting a Clementine business on the side ;-)
Thus, summer is here and with it comes the smell of dried hay. On my way up the hill to start jogging there it was: The scent of “foin coupé” (sounds great, doesn’t it? The French really have a way of making things sound greater then they are…on the side: this year’s summer vacation will bring us to France, biking from the Atlantic somewhere around Bordeaux to the Mediterranean Sea, 12 days, 800 km, that’s going to be muscle building and mind easing.). Back to the hay. A brownish, aromatic, rich scent, which is much much better than the foin coupe concentrate that I got once; marzipan, coumarin-like, definitely edible, and a scent that you will never forget once smelled. With this hay in my nose, I jogged and wondered what to do next.
Here are some answers:
I want to understand why the dollar US is loosing value. So far I did not really care about rate exchange issues, but in light of my perfumes flying over the Atlantic I am faced with a dollar that has lost 10% of its value compared to a year ago. Of course, issues like dept, growth of the economy, the oil price are to be considered, but still… please explain. Anyway, although the dollar lost 10% of its value I have decided to keep prices as they are, hoping that the exchange rate stabilizes.
I need to consolidate things a little bit. I want the samples for the Le Maroc pour elle and the L’air du désert marocain to come under the same design style (talking Corporate Design here….). I need to integrate my blog into my www.tauerperfumes.com website and I want to move away from blogger.
I will have to prepare a September event, taking place together with a little fashion boutique here in Zurich, then there’s the idea of making a flyer together with Pascal from Medieval and a lady who’s doing desert trips in Morocco. A couple of interviews will also keep me busy and …. Well, after 2 hours jogging, I got home, drank 1 litre of water and fell asleep immediately, under a blue sky promising a warm evening.
(pix: Clementine flowers again)

Greetings

I got a lot of questions these days...thus: 5 more days.... until June 15 (Lonestar leather).

From a sunny, summer-like Zurich: My best wishes for your Sunday.
(pix: Salvia flowers detail in the garden)

Papaver

All those of you who expect a review of Opium now.... I am sorry, I have to disappoint you. The papaver flower (poppy flower) to the left is here because it is beautiful and because it happens to flower in my little green place in front of the house.
If you look at it closely, you will see a symetry built into it that is underlying its beauty. On the same time it is not symetrical, with the red petals each being unique. This is one aspect that makes natural things so unique, the simple, logical plan and underlying principle, paired with highest complexity and disorder.
These few words as food for thought today. I send you all my best wishes and hurry through a sun bathed Zurich, enjoying finally the pre-summer sun of June on the go.

Football

Well, I could not resist. After a bombardment with football related news and pictures and sounds I found myself in a position that I MUST talk about it, too. Football seems to be everywhere, and I had a hard time finding a channel on TV not discussing a football related topic yesterday evening when I tried to ease an overheated brain. I ended up shortly on the Shopping Channel, featuring women’s jewelleries and on CNN, featuring Iraq. Both channels are rather monothematic these days.

Thus, I sat for a few minutes outside, watching the moon that will soon shine over Germany’ games and the Swiss and other football teams who earn so much for doing so little. And I wondered how little these games are used to promote perfumes. It doesn’t seem to be the right surrounding for selling fragrances, which is strange. All these sweaty men on the green and the crowds in football fever: The perfect environment for a green sporty, circular perfume. Ah well, so I sat below the moon and figured out that again an idea came too late: I should have come up with a nice green lavender note with lots of Ambergris and fresh, citrus-vetiver notes…for the Swiss Football Team! Hmmm, and then have the Swiss football team wear it! That would be cool. Of course, they would wear it and promote it just because they like it so much, without me paying for their exposed bodies. I would come on TV, as the guy creating the Swiss Football Team Scent, which helped them survive the first round! I could, as souvenir for the Swiss football tourists travelling to Germany and soon travelling back, make a scented football: Imagine a football that emits wonderful fragrances once kicked, a flying ambra ball!

Mr. Blatter, the FIFA boss, would wear it too. He is a Swiss guy himself and very, very clever in promoting himself and the FIFA, thus making the FIFA the wealthiest foundation on planet earth (which is cool, they do not have to pay taxes in Zurich, where their head office is….). His girlfriend who is amazingly blond and very beautiful and young, would love it, too. And thus, he would besides building his network of give-and-take (I give you a million to build up football in your poor country, and you give me whatever you want, like your vote), he would promote my perfume, wearing it in Germany, when he meets the boss of Bavaria (Mr. Blatter got a reception yesterday like a king or a states man)…

Well, I have to correct myself. I just remembered the latest Rexona (deodorant) commercial which is very football related. But to my knowledge, neither Blatter nor the Swiss football team wear it….

Well, in four years time, there will be another opportunity, I guess. Until then I will have finished my lavender note and stopped watching the moon, begging it to explain me the last mystery on this world: Why do people watch football?

Dissection

Dissection
As mentioned yesterday on this blog: The lavender is hiding in the woods.
Which is no good. But I think I know now what to do next….I will have to recklessly reduce the woods to a thin line.
Maybe a few words on how I work generally. I have this idea in my head: Lavender. 4 axes (flowery, spicy, woody, green). Approaching these axes I start with the backbone, like painting with a thick brush I make a large streak of Okoumal (woody), add another one with Cistus (spicy, woody), add lavender essential oil and then add the green line (Muguet, Lilly of the valley). (A short note here: This Lilly of the valley line, I composed myself, trying to abstract the scent to its greenness. You may ask:”why do it yourself if there are ample lily of the valley reconstructions out there already?”- Well, first it is a good exercise and I wanted this abstraction, the green soul of Lily of the valley to be used together with my lavender). These lines are the main axes. Now follows the next layer: Another wood, clove (spicy), menthylacetat and peppermint (Yakima) adding a green, flowery twist, and so on, going from the rough lines to the finer tones.
Yesterday, I realized again how thin the line is between a lovely spicy touch and an annoying medicinal pungent disaster. So, back to field one again, keeping the axes (less wood), and the first few lines, but changing proportions.
Finally, Okoumal is a wonderful component, very woody, ambergris with tobacco notes, but… I haven’t learnt enough how to use it. It becomes very easily dominant and hides all flowers and spices and green leaves behind a wall of woody ambergris with a slightly metallic shine.
Don’t get me wrong, please: I do not know whether I will ever sell a Lavender note. But I just love to learn how to bring out the beauty of this wonderful scent with all its facets. (See also Katie's comments in the last past....a poetic description of Oregon's lavender scents in Summer

hunting and fishing excercises

Being hunters and gatherers we human beings are driven most of our time by the urge to … well: Hunt down and gather things. Sometimes we fish, too; compliments for instance. When reading Luca Turin’s newest column this morning in the NZZ, the very first thing I did, even before my obligatory coffee, this was my first thought. As I have said: I had no coffee, yet….. His column is great, this one rocks. I love it. Thus, caffeine deprived I sat there and thought about the motivation of perfume lovers who buy these summer editions of scents that Luca talks about. And the only thing I could come up with was: Hunt, with an aspect of fear not to miss anything – on the consumer side- and hunt with a greedy aspect –on the scent provider side-. I am relieved somehow now that I had my first cup of coffee that I am not the only one, looking at a seemingly endless stream of “version d’été, version light, version citrus with a touch of peach or whatever” in bafflement; who is going to buy this? Why do they even talk about it? Did I miss something?

But here’s another thought that is somewhat disturbing (I had my second cup now): I am kind of part of the game, too. Adding yet another fragrance to this inundation of civilized world with scents.

(An here is a short commercial break by Tauer Perfumes: Tatatataaaa!…In 9 (nine) days, i.e. June 15, 00.00, the world will see the Lonestar Memories eau de toilette.)

My excuse: I cannot but …. in a sense I am a hunter, too. (With limited success as far as the lavender is concerned. This beast is hiding in the woods. More about my lavender hunting tomorrow)

Where's the bug?

What you see to the left is yesterday's visitor of one of my roses, a cute bug, with lovely colours, and a green that brillantly reflects its surrounding.

When I promised you a post for this weekend I did not think in the fact that not for everybody this Monday is part of the weekend... well, for me it is.

This is optimal in the sense that I may do what I wanted to do since a long time: Playing with some lines for my lavender note, and get some sleep. And eventually, combine the two things. Morning in the bed is still one of the best places to come up with the most gorgeous ideas!

Greetings from a bed in Zurich!