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Finally: The picture made by Ernesto Kraehenbuehl on the wall. Ernesto is a wonderful man, family father, artist and friend. Whenever I see this picture, I think in him, sitting on the banks of the river Rhein, more or less where I used to sit when I was a boy.

Well, I guess there will be plenty of time to sit there, once I am pensioned. Live sometimes moves forward in circles.

(pic: Reflexe by Ernesto Kraehenbuehl )

And for all those interested: Here is a picture of this weekend’s task….boxing.
Have a fragrant weekend.

(pic: New packaging for the 50 ml L’air du désert marocain)

Walls are still getting white in Zurich. The picture of water waves is hanging tomorrow there where it is supposed to hang (will make a photo then) and besides bottling some L’air this day was not perfumery related…..
More putting-into-boxes follows this weekend and some work on an idea for the lavender flyer. Even if a launch is still far away, I started to pinpoint the visuals for the scent, based on an idea I discussed with Sands a while ago… somewhat personal, but  we’ll see….

I wish you all a fragrant peaceful weekend.

My post of yesterday seems to have started something. I hope this discussion (on POL and other sites) will lead to a serious discussion what you get for how much where….

This starting discussion and some thoughts on my side fitted wonderfully into the rest of the day. It began with a picture; W., the fragrance guinea pig, wanted to hang up the new picture that we bought a while ago from our friend, Ernesto. The new one was going to replace an old one that is still looking for a nice place somewhere on a wall. But there, where we got used to see the old picture, olive tree in the sunset, there was now a black frame on the wall. Which called for cleaning measures, that proofed to be completely ineffective. W. ended up painting the wall, while doing so he realized the broken floor socket,….
I got home and saw an appartment that looked like it was being rebuilt from scratch. Hence, no bottle pouring and labelling! This will have to follow over the weekend.

Like W., rebuilding the appartment right now, I end up on my blog babbling about prices and arguing why I think the move was appropriate….
- I made a mistake: Well, first, I think I have to correct one thing that I did not explicitely mention; I made a mistake when launching L’air in 100 ml size. Not expecting its success I am -as one man show - reaching a limit of how many liters I can make and pour. Reducing to 50 ml will help a little bit before having to do the next step: Outsourcing….
- Some of you may not know yet….Well, secondly, everything that lands on your table coming from tauer perfumes is made by Andy. And W., from time to time. This does not mean it is more beautiful, it just means that things are hand made and hand poured and that things exist because we do not charge an hourly salary. W. and me do this because we simply find it funny to compete with Mr. and Ms. Beckham….. 
-Going from 100 ml to 50 ml for the same price looks like doubling the price. In a sense it is. For me it isn’t. I had two alternatives: Either increase the price for the 100 ml size to compensate higher raw materials and packaging prices or reduce the amount of perfumee we sell. I decided for the later.
- I personally think, you still get a lot of good fragrance for your money, fully loaded with naturals, blended with care, mixed and poured with love and passion…

Here is the discussion on PerfumeOfLife: POL 

Happily I realized yesterday that we successfully managed to go beyond the shortest day this year. Well, that’s something!
Then, we will soon have managed to go beyond 2006, a year which was somewhat special. (I am an optimist, hence I don’t expect major disaster the coming days….)
Then, as 2006 is coming to a foreseen but nevertheless abrupt end, so is the L’air du désert marocain, which runs out in the Zurich shop. Looking back I feel like I’ve transported an entire Matterhorn to down town Zurich, which is gone, vanished, bang!, just like that…
Thus, this is the end, no more air bottles for my friend Pascal who happily sits in Marrakesh in the sun taking a deep breath of the l’air du désert marocain  in the real sense ;-)

L’air du désert marocain as you know it is gone. The end, for ever, for sure. Some traces are left with some distributors, but soon it will be nothing but a vague memory….

Thus, here’s the official declaration: For various reasons, such as stocks, practicality, money & handling issues, we change the flacon and packaging for the l’air du désert marocain: To a 50 ml flacon that you know already from Lonestar Memories, using the same box and packing concept as you have seen it for the Orris. Otherwise, nothing is changed. The fragrance is not touched at all, promised!, even with some ingredients becoming expensive or harder to get: Not touched, promised!
Thus, the perfumer sits in Zurich, under a cover of grey fog that feels like the universe has expanded for 20 bn years, finally reaching its cool state of max entropy; it is somewhat depressing, knowing that above this fog there is the sun shining, like in a parallel universe….it is there, but out of reach, at least for some folks in Zurich right now… these folks sit in the grey zone somewhere, bottling and boxing l’air again, working on another pile to build.

Greetings from below the fog.
(pix: the new 50 ml flacon for the l’air…)

I wish you all a fragrant break from daily routine and joyful holidays.
I will enjoy some days with family and friends, play with my galbanum head notes, and will be back on December 27. Greetings and peaceful days for you!

Well, besides a lot of heavy duty, outmost urgent and cosmically boring and ridiculous stuff, this week brought about one or two highlights.

One was probably not intended by its creator, Swiss airline; basically it was me, the Swiss airline broschure on my lap, watching the SWISS tv commercial inside the airplane, a woman serving a nice, dark cup of coffee on the TV screen, in an elegant ceramic cup, with a big smile, the same happening to me at exactly that moment, getting a paper thing with a diluted soup that stopped steaming about three hours ago by a German lady that looked at me like she had her stewardess education in the 70-ies with Aeroflot and was forced to fly from here to Mars without having a ticket back. Thus, I learned that life is cruel: You don’t get a decent coffee even if you pay 1000 $ US for your ticket from Zurich to Brussels (which, by the way, is an outrageous price and I would never pay it even if the company pays if I had an alternative), and lying at clients in commercials is no good idea, it comes back.
The second highlight was probably the Paul Klee Museum in Berne. (click here for more information on the museum and the artist). I had a detailed tour, guided by a lady in black who was just wonderful! I have learned that beauty often is found in balanced imperfection  and assymetry. Paul Klee was a genius in setting a few lines, colours on a canvas and creating beauty that has a truly natural aspect. Balanced imperfection. I will keep this in mind the coming days when finally relaxing somewhat.

I am physically back, but not returned to perfumery yet…. still digesting the little Swiss sandwich of yesterday and fixing two or three other issues before I finally have time again to sniff…. what I know already: The next (semi-last) mod on the lavender will be need a touch less galbanum….

The latest trial of my fragrance, built on lavender as one of the core elements, the one with the galbanum and a touch more fir absolute and some minor modifications found its way under the nose of my buddy in arms … (excuse me, my dear Vero, but I just couldn’t resist…). Thus, armed with paper strips, some sample flacons of a variety of lavender trials we sat in the Storchen lobby, next to a couple of wealthy tourists, some from the US, smoking cigars; welcome to Europe, happy sinners! You wonder why these tobacco users did not bother me? First I love the fragrance of a freshly lit cigar or cigarette anyhow and then…if diluted…if see how the smoke brings out notes on a paper strip and sensibilises some receptors in a most positive way, at least for me. In a sense it is like a touch of birchtar bringing out wonderful facets, but as always in life: a question of how much.

Well, we sniffed lavender trials (from ok..to ohh…) and the latest versions was the starting point to discuss green notes and armoise and then sniff “Bandit” (well….) and finally “la nuit” (Pacco Rabanne) ( ahhh and roar…jungle stuff!). Bottomline: we are on a good way, and after a couple of days maturation we will have a look at it again.

Home again, I was somewhat stressed in the evening, and trembling because standing at 3°C outside of Pascal’s shop let my inner body temperature decrease to a level where an aligator would not move anymore… well, trembling I poured part of the lavender soup over my logitech keyboard. The return key is blocked since then. And the keyboard smells like paradise. As a matter of fact the whole room smells like the lavender’s base. Which is nice, but not appropriate once you want to think about other scents….

But no hurry to buy a new keyboard: I am heading off to Brussels anyway and will be back Thursday. Fragrant greetings!

A final word on the Orris. www.tauerperfumes.com is sold out. Hence, it is gone from this site. There a few bottles left with my distributors, though……

Galbanum is one of those essential oils that are tricky to handle. Extremly powerful, a touch too much and it will completely destroy the head (and middle) of a fragrance. On the other hand, at least in my nose, it has this wonderful property to lift, raise and bring about aspects in mixtures that are otherwise somewhat hidden. And it is -for me- a green scent! Green like hope, or green like cut grass in mid summer.
Looking at my Lavender trial, I wanted to reduce the head’s complexity, streamline it a little bit and in a sense raising its character, making the head more unique, talking straight and clear. I also wanted the fir balm absolute to be a little bit more prominent and I wanted a touch, a tiny little bit of a lily-of-the-valley note in the middle.

Frequent readers of this blog may remember my reference to Roudnitska’s 6 rules for a good perfume. I had the impression that my mixture missed a little bit of character in the opening. My hopes rely now on Galbanum, to overcome the softness of the increased fir balm and to bring in a touch of spicyness. Without reducing the softness of the head notes assembly.

First approximation: Not so bad. Let’s see what Vero says tomorrow.

Finally: After meeting with my perfume sister in arms tomorrow I will stand for a few hours around the shop, forcing innocent shopers into trying some southern air. With temperatures around zero Celsius it may be somewhat difficult to find a centimeter bare skin….. Fragrant greetings to you all!