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Onda is fire and earth.

(ONDA, as seen by Andy)

Whoever has worked with Vetiver knows how tricky this natural delight is to use in perfumery and how versatile it is. Vetiver can be made all green citrusy, it can be woody or you can stay close to what vetiver is: The fragrance derived from roots.

Doing so means you are brave, very brave indeed as this is probably the hardest vetiver based fragrance to come up with. I know a perfumer who did so, very successfully. Vero’s vetiver is a brave scent, as it follows a vetiver line that is hard to master: A powerful, earthy, woody, slightly woody, smokey scent. The trick -I think- is her combination of the vetiver root fragrance with spicy scents such as ginger and corriander. Adding a fire to the composition. This, together with a powder line that is just a hint of a powder, just enough to balance the earthy vibrance. There is a rich, warm leather-smoky undertone that links the heat and grounds it. On the skin is develops and jumps forth and back, like flames reaching out, hot first, then warm and comfortable, and finally melting with my skin to last overnight and follow me into dreams of true and good life, an embracement at a cosy fire place.
Yes, ONDA is a masterpiece, and maybe it is time to leave your lover on the banks of the Seine, and get out of Paris, back to your little country house in the Bretagne, where you work in the garden, enjoying the scents of fresh earth, your grand father’s house, where you snuggle up to your memories, at the open fire place sipping at your cognac, in a dark night.
ONDA: Designed by Vero Kern. For the time being, ONDA is only available in Switzerland and neighbouring countries from veroprofumo. Sales to the US is anticipated by mid 2008.

And tomorrow….RUBI! The W.-factor’s favourite…stay tuned.

So we sat on the appartment’s balcony after a delicious meal last Saturday, and after a wonderful scent apĂ©ro. The door bell rang and Pico, the boy from next door was on the door, bored somewhat, joining us on the balcony. So we sat there and watched the moon with him. I asked him “do you know that there have been people up there?”

“No! I don’t “, he said.

I go on like “you know, there were men up there, using rockets, they flew all the way up there!” (you know…I am somewhat educative sometimes and tend to forget that a 5? year old is not supposed to know about gravity or entropy…) and he asks me “what is a rocket?”

We realized, that Pico has never seen a rocket, not one single Apollo launch and we go to the computer and try to find a movie with heavy sound and lots of rockets that fit with the fantasy of a 5 year old. (You don’t believe how much crap there is on the internet…)

We watched rockets and more rockets and more and more. And since then…every evening Pico rings and wants to see more rockets. Ahhh, my lovely boy,,….. but I have seen more rockets than is good for me. He rang just the moment when I printed out the mails from the free Veroprofumo samples competition…and Pico turned from a rocket fan into a “zauberfee”…picking lucky winners.
happy Pico

Pico picking the three winners…

and finally: the result….

and the winners are…

Konstantin M M.
Camille S.
Kathy P.

Greetings from Pico, enjoy!

Kiki is French, very French indeed.

(picture: KIKI, interpreted by Andy)
Kiki is a fragrance where the wild, green freshness of lavender melts with the softness of freshly baked croissants, with a little sugar crust. Kiki is musky elegance, a fragrance that is light and never offensive but nevertheless reaches out; it captures you like a look into green eyes that tell you: I am the one. It lasts for ever on my skin, and makes me dream of times when perfumery was less a business but an art. So, Kiki is much about lavender. But it is more. The lavender helps making it light and Vero managed the most difficult task when working with lavender: To bring in this clean, crisp lavender without suffocating the composition by herbaceous head notes. There is a powdery, musky, bodily base that balances the lavender. And there are light fruity, almost floral notes in the middle that give it this little bit of sweetness that it needs. Not a drop too little, not a drop too much. I get lilies, powdery lilies, that are innocently linking the head and the base and…again…balance the composition. In a sense, Kiki is simple and pure, and yet it is a highly complex perfume, where the notes are harmoniously bound together.
Kiki is taking a promenade along the Seine, returning from Grasse, where you bought a bouquet of wild lavender, picked on the slopes of dry, rough hills in the evening under a gentle June sun. You returned to the city, with its elegance and its parties, its flower booths selling white summer lilies along the streets. You walk along the Seine with your lover, wearing your 50-ies gloves that make you feel like Audrey Hepburn, arm in arm, in love. You realize how urban Kiki is and how sexy, like your lover, who might well wear it too. You walk along the Seine and think of your breakfast with fresh croissants after a long morning in the bed. The memory of freshly backed delights waves into the green, crisp lavender. You dream the scent of linen, white and scrambled at the end of your bed after a warm night, the sun shining through drapes, caressing your skin. The bed is still warm where his head left a little impression. You can smell him. You are in love.
You like lavender? You will love Kiki.

You do not fancy lavender? Give Kiki a try, you might well fall in love!

KIKI: Designed by Vero Kern.
For the time being, KIKI is only available in Switzerland and neighbouring countries from veroprofumo. Sales to the US is anticipated by mid 2008.

www.veroprofumo.com

This is
- a fantastic name for a perfume line
- the answer to my little quiz of yesterday
- the new website of my perfumer friend, Vero Kern.

We have gone a long way together already and have spent many thrilling hours over scented strips. I wish Vero all the best for her launch here in Switzerland now and in the US in mid 2008.

About the quiz: Thank you to all who participated! Tonight, when in front of my e-mail box, I will pick randomly with my magic fingers three lucky winners, announce the happy news and will inform the winners of a set of perfume samples from veroprofumo by mail.

Enjoy.

THE COMPETITION IS OVER, THE QUIZ IS CLOSED! THANK YOU TO ALL WHO PARTICIPATED. THE WINNERS WILL BE ANNOUNCED SHORTLY IN A SEPARATE POST.

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Today is the day where we make something “first” on this blog….The first give-away of perfume samples that are not from Tauer Perfumes!

Take your chance and WIN (yes, YOU can be a lucky winner!)
one out of three sample sets (containing three perfumes) from a line yet to be discovered by perfume lovers. This line is brand new and (if you are living in the US) you can not buy these samples before mid 2008! All three scents are at perfume concentrations, they are outstanding and all three scents will be reviewed in the following days by myself.

So…you want to give your luck a chance: Here is how……
Answer the following 11 questions and write down the first letter of your answer, from 1 to 11, replacing the “x” .
| x | x | x | x | x | x| x | x | x | x | x |

If you are not sure whether you got the right word: add www. before the word and .com after it and check whether you get a nice looking website.

If you have done it right: Send the word to perfumer(at)tauerperfumes.com and be a lucky winner if you are lucky….as we will pick out randomly three winners.

QUESTIONS:

1) You get a trial version from a niche perfumer that he/she asks you to test. What do you tell the perfumer?
Very nice!
Forget it!
Get lost!

2) A perfumer proposes to make a donkey with strawberries perfume, featuring notes of donkey, strawberries, gold ambergris and diamond musk.
What do you tell the perfumer?
Expect troubles when entering the market!
Wow!
Love donkey smell!

3) Which of the following essential oil exists.
Sparrow
Bacon
Rosewood

4) Chypre by Coty is what kind of perfume?
Average crappy chypre
A fruity floral with a chypre background
Outstanding chypre

5) Your guess, the next celebrity perfume: What will it be like?
Probaly fruity floral
Wild smoky leather
Very wet dog with damp sheep undertone

6) Good perfumes can make you happy.
Right
Wrong

7) The name of the one and only limited edition by Tauer
Sands
Orris
Rubbish

8) You get the chance to describe a new perfume, and try to pick the proper words
to describe its fouly tomatoe note. What words do you pick for the post on your blog?
Phruity phloral
Fouly
Red

9) You are happy and get a position at Guerlain’s. You got the power to decide on the fate of the classics.
Asked about the idea of rebuilding Jicky around a blueberry-pineapple accord to make it more fruity floral you answer:

Yes, we can sell much more and find a celebrity for it!
We should use a banana-pineapple accord!
Under no circumstances!

10) Name the animal that got almost extinct because part of it was used in perfumery:
Ethiopian desert poodle. People used to cut its tail off and extract a fragrant oil
Tragelaphus imberis. Found on the Arabian Peninsula and hunted for its feet. The word amber (ambergris) goes back to this antelope as European sailors misunderstood imberis (pronounced :iammb’ris)

Moschus moschiferus, hunted for their glands before organic chemistry saved them.

11) You enter a perfume shop. Sales folks ask you whether you would like some samples of everything they have in stock. Your answer?
Oh, yes, please and you fade.
Ahh, I don’t know, too much to sniff these days. The sales folks fade.
Well, maybe I’ll come back later, with sniffapalooza folks. The shop owner fades.

Now take the first letter of your answers and fill them in, from 1 to 11. And enter in your browser window:
www.———–.com to test.

If you found out the right answers, and want to win one set out of three with all three perfumes samples: Send a mail to perfumer(at)tauerperfumes.com. Do not publish the solution in your comments, please…
And pray that you will be the lucky winner. BECAUSE, YOU WILL BE ONE OF VERY FEW OWNING THESE TREASURES IN THE US UNTIL MID 2008.
WE WILL PICK THE LUCKY WINNER BY HAND AND ANNOUNCE HIM OR HER HERE ON THIS BLOG!

Stay tuned for the reviews of these perfumes…

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THE COMPETITION IS OVER, THE QUIZ IS CLOSED! THANK YOU TO ALL WHO PARTICIPATED. THE WINNERS WILL BE ANNOUNCED SHORTLY IN A SEPARATE POST.

As promised: Here’s the official announcement.

Some you you may know: I have a 100% bread and butter job, besides perfumery, allowing me pretty much to do what I did so far. With perfumery becoming bigger and bigger, it got somewhat troublesome the last year. Meaning a lot of work on weekends, and less time to play and come up with new ideas and new perfumes.

I wanted to change this and will soon do. The deal is fixed now and by end of October, at the latest, I will switch to 60%, which translates into: Reduce the job to the bread and skip the butter for a while. The butter should sooner or later come from my perfumes. W. and me, we are both very excited and hope for more time to enjoy life and to come up with new perfumes.

And tomorrow…your chance to win something very special.

Next week will be a week full of announcements and mysteries…. so stay tuned!

This week comes to an end, soon and featured some highlight like yesterday’s attendance at a OSEC event on the “Russian luxury goods market” where I learnt a lot about luxury goods, Russia, Moskwa, and Swissness from a Russian perspective. And I came to the conclusion that in my next life (not my second life…) I will be born as oligarch in Russia!

Once this Friday with its meetings and travelling forth and back is over: Hurray, Saturday is there! And finally, finally we have our scent apĂ©ro in Zurich (for last minute deciders: 17:00-19:00 at Mirroir des Modes, next door to Pascal’s shop, Spiegelgasse 29, 8001 Zurich), where we will dream collectively a  little garden dream.

Have a wonderful weekend…the day dreamer sends you fragrant greetings.

…to be precise: Empty screen and no idea what to write. Hmmm, not even the newspaper featured anything worth digesting, except for Greenspan’s comment on the Chinese stock markets and the markets reaction. Unfortunately, this is not the world of this blog….but maybe it is time to seriously consider buying some put options anyhow. Reminds in “irrational exuberance”, and things seem to get out of control there; and when everyone buys stocks with money they own or don’t own, retirement plans ending on the stock exchange etc., then it is time to leave or get put options.
Maybe it is yesterday’s birthday party with friends…

Maybe it is “just towards the end of this week, have written enough this week anyway” blockage

Maybe I simply do not want to write about the actual mod of a Frankincense centred scent that I went to bed with yesterday

Well, I guess more later…

It is humid and quite warm around here, like in Houston end of January, but it feels hotter here. The pigeons do not seem to care much and like almost every morning there are a few hoping around on the railway tracks picking what morning travels leave behind them, little bits of croissants or burgers of last night. Not a healthy pigeon diet but they seem to do well.

Like everywhere where there are humans, there is waste, following us like a tail. The very moment we started to conquer space: Waste. Nowadays we produce so much trash of this and that, circling earth in space that the real things like satellites or space crafts are endangered.

Thus, I start wondering how large one’s individual trash tail would be, while waiting for the train, still watching the pigeons and I can clearly see myself wandering through this world with a dirty long tail of stuff that is going to stay around here for a while. Watching this imaginary tail of things that are still there years and years after I have left the world, there is time to muse on Mr Anderson’s The Long Tail, *you know….the fact that all sold low sales volume items in a particular market can make up a market share that is larger than the top sellers* With the internet being a key factor to be successful in this tail, and online business producing longer and longer tails in general, hence allowing niche in a niche in a niche (copy/paste 25 times….) brands to thrive.

Sitting in the train without pigeons but a hot coffee on the side, there are 15 min left on the lab top battery; a good motivation to bring things to the point…Even in pre-internet times, the perfume market was highly segmented, with a LONG TAIL, always was, always had a particular long tail. With the internet market, new communication tools, new marketing tools, on a global scale, the perfumery market is becoming more segmented even, started to do so already. Folks, taking Mr Anderson seriously, this means a lot of posts on new perfume launches….. Somehow this is wonderful, somehow I wonder how we will all be able to follow this. Question to Mr. Anderson: Is there an upper limit for this tail? ….greetings from the tip of The Long Tail.

So there is this idea, of coming up one  day with a bundle of hyacinths, nicely grouped with a little lily of the valley, in the hand, or if you prefer, on the chest, of Mr mechanic,returning home from his job. Vero, my perfumery body, and me sat together last Saturday, down town in Zurich, to discuss some ideas, with the hyacinth idea being one of the focal points. Hyacinth does not mean soliflor and the mechanic translates into juxtaposition of exalted-loud-green-somewhat stingy-flowers with a calm grounding somewhat dirty pole. Sort of.

So we looked at it and we go like, “yes, well, ok, hmm, nice flower, hmm, well ,…” which neither sounds truly enthusiastic nor translates into a Swiss version of enthusiasm. (you know…we Swiss tend to be somewhat coolish) So I turn into Mr principle and start wondering whether the underlying idea might not work. You know…almost everything is possible in perfumery but maybe the idea of combining wet horse with pineapple, driven by a vision to create a “horse carriage in the pineapple fields” scented picture is not what you should thrive for in the first place. Maybe a rose field after a summer rain is a nicer vision to follow.

So I blabber and Vero goes like “no, no, no”, and grabs for the Gomma, by Etro, that I gave her to sniff before, as an example of a well done leather, that I like. Gomma, translates into brown rubber with a slightly fruity sugar crust under quite some smoke. Well, at least in my nose. And combining the flower-power strips of the latest hyacinth trial, soaked with some Tauer tears of frustration, with the smoked rubber we start wondering whether Mr. mechanic needs to work close to a tire incineration field, or spend a day in the Camel lounge at Zurich’s airport (Gate E, at the very end, to the right…this one is made to be a lung surgeon’s nightmare, or -if you will- the foundation of his business. The other lounges are quite well ventilated and will never saturate Mr mechanics overall with the cold smoke of 15 packs).

Well, maybe Mr. Tauer needs to add some tar to his trials, that’s what we thought and I did later at home. But then, looking at this flat hyacinth again, standing in front of me like a freeze-dried hyacinth cluster, flattened by a bulldozer and then sent to a plastic surgeon for correction and broader acceptance, I figured that Mr T. needs to do more, like greening it, and bringing in a touch more lily of the valley and so the story continues and with it the hyacinth stories on this blog.
Somewhere in a dark corner the W. factor is hiding, scared of having to sniff yet another mod of something  that he does not understand.