Welcome to a perfumer's blog on perfumery

Some of my readers (as well as the writer) are still youngsters, in their fourties or fifties. Thus, we lack the experience of getting really old. We miss an 80 years perspective, covering roaring twenties, thirties depression, fourties war, fifties first fridge, sixties revolution, seventies waking up from the revolution, eighties boom time, nineties what?, and the next millenium with more surprises yet to come.

You need some luck to cover 80 years or more on planet earth and to be able to remember what happened these last 80 years.

These and more were my thoughts, coming home from a nearby retirement home, with a picture in my camera that is somewhat special. I took it from the balcony, looking down at an old lady, sitting there in her blue cardigan, a composition in grey, black, blue and orange. With the chairs all laid up against the tables except for hers, it is almost an allegory of this last phase of life.

Today, I want to leave you with this picture and tomorrow, we talk profane things…cross-selling. Greetings from a youngster

  (picture: An unknown lady in a retirement home in Zurich)

I am curious wether I will see the sun this weekend…I’ve got a new toy and will probably spend hours playing with it…greetings from behind my little bamboo toy

I wish you a lovely, sunny weekend….

  (Bamboo original picture from www.wacom.com,slightly modified….)

Some of you may know already: There was a time in my life when I had an animal companion: A rabbit (castor rex, more on this breed here), female, mother of 4 daughters and sons, a happy family for a couple of weeks in an apartment in Zurich (you still see the holes in walls and pyjamas…), huge and living freely in the apartment. With nice weather, she would be outside, in a little fenced grassy area where she would hop around, dig holes, get dirty and eat. Her eating was always very unsystematic. Loving primrose flowers, she would hop here, eat one, then hop there and look for another one although there was one right next to her, but this did never seem to be good enough. At the end of the day, the primrose flowers would be gone nevertheless, and although it is not the most effective grazing technique, rabbit evolution allowed this grazing pattern. Do not ask me why.
Some perfumers are working the same way. Hopping from one scent to the next, one day they will get there, but it may not be most effective….

Some of you may know already: Everything happening in the tauer lab ends up in an excel file, with each story line -such as Orris- filling a sheet. This sheet is filling up, and sometimes it is a hall of pain, of shame and rarely you find some formula in there that reflect something pleasing. Since a couple of months there are a couple of cells, imported from my hyacinth sheet, being a lily of the valley accord. This one then you find again together with black pepper, a hint cumin, some orris, and lots of vetiver, but subtle and green, with cedar and myrrh, running under no particular title so far.

Yesterday, in a peaceful minute, there was the hyacinth theme version 10.0 and version 10.2 in the air. The later being slightly less mechanic, if you know what I mean (if you don’t…here is the idea); and later even there was the frankincense followed by lily of the valley and later more spices with orange flower, in the air.

Now, after a long hopping period around all these bottles and themes and versions, I figured out, it will be time for a consolidation… respectively line up for myself and you what I have there and prioritize what to do next….

(Names do indicate some notes, but are running titles)
Hop 1: spices and orange flower: Finished to a certain point, don’t know what to do with it. Wait for maturation of final mix.Getting tired of spices.
Hop 2: hyacinth and a mechanic: Finished 2 versions with mechanic present in different intensity, but do not know how present the mechanic shall be. To be figured out: Concentration of fragrance.
Hop 3: Frankincense theme: Still some hops to be done, wait for maturation.
Hop 4: spiced up lily of the valley with orris and woods: A first hop but already very, very good.

Perfumer hopping on to the next flower….

With the poll still running it is time for a Saturday wrap-up. But beforehand: Thank you! to all who participated in the poll on the Lonestar bottle label design. And for those who did not so far….today is your last chance!

Thus, last Saturday was a sniffing Saturday morning with Vero from Veroprofumo. As always we sat in our hotel lobby, down town, at the banks of river Limmat, musing and taking time to think. The river passes by, so do busy Saturday shopping folks and we sniff. And think about how to further build our business and make sure folks out there know about us. So I go like…” time to advertise…but where?”. Missing a good answer so far: Commercials are restricted to this blog…hehehe.
[Commercial brake: Is this you? Sniffing perfumes and you wonder whether you are next to a chemical waste depot? Tired of looking for the special perfume, beyond the ordinary? Stop searching now and just come by and visit us. What are you waiting for? Visit Medieval art&vie down town Zurich….an exciting shopping experience for any perfume lover……end commercial brake ;-)   ]
(picture: View from hotel Storchen lobby)

Thus, Vero sniffed my Frankincense mods that seemed most promising (version 3+, out of uncounted modifications) and we were discussing how to address one issue that bothers me: I want the head notes to lead over to the frankincense roughness in a more elegant way, bind in the rose better in the head and soften the frankincense a bit. Vero sniffed a mod that was reduced to a “rose minimal”, with the abstract rose standing there, without any additional flower lines, singing one tone and then hiding behind the frankincense and woods. Well…this rose is not feeling very well, being somewhat pale and singing rather shy.
“Using more citrus?” and “How did it the masters?” and “think about adding a touch more castor”, these thoughts and questions followed me on my way home, more or less following the Limmat; home where a 1.2 m clementine tree sits in a pot and produces flowers more or less on a regular basis.
Thus, after a short rain shower, humidity in Zurich like in the Amazon basin, I made a picture of a wet clementine baby in the tree, symbolizing what I want to get: A fresh citrus chord that brings in light, like a pearl reflecting the sun, shining through and setting an accent that softens the darkness. And I looked at how the masters did it, grabbing my little Emeraude. Emeraude is…hmmm… a lot of citrus indeed!
(picture: A wet baby Clementine)

And so we have  a new mod, waiting for maturation, with a somewhat extravagant head consisting of bergamot, clementine and grapefruit (white) oil, a touch more castor (synthetic) ((thank you Vero!)) and a touch more ambrein to ground the ambergris note.

More on this mod later… and tomorrow we will have an other look in the Tauer lab, trying to consolidate a pile of ideas and mods and bottles.

Here it was! Below you see the result of the Lonestar poll where you could choose one out of the four designs for your vote on the new label for the Lonestar Memories. Thus, we have a winner: Writing.

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The name of the game: One out of these four will be the new label for the Lonestar Memories flacon.
Head

Classic

Writing

Shadow

No more designs…

I finish the flacon storyline for this week with a little picture of the toilette in Berne where I am working. (not in the toilette…but it is one of my favourite places in Berne!)
But before that: Here an alternative to using old soda bottles… (see last post, look for Kathy’s comment). Thank you Kathy, you made me smile!

 (Picture: The next perfume bottle by Tauer?)
I wish you all a nice, sunny, fragrant weekend and look forward to seeing you here soon again!

 (Picture: An intimate look into a toilette in Berne)

hehehe…

I will make a poll, in a couple of days, but first I need to finish some things. Ok, some of you know already: When it comes to bottles, I take things the easy way…what matters most is what goes into it. But nevertheless…Next year I want to approach some more shops and then, a at least somewhat somehow decently labelled bottle makes sense.

When posting the prototype flacon picture for Lonestar Memories the day before yesterday, I did not really expect the following discussions. I love it and starting my morning with basenotes put a smile on my face. Click here to follow the debate that features some quite funny posts.
Thus, I realize that there is an issue on what I find funny in terms of labels, there is an unisex issue and then there is simply a question of taste.

Now, as said before: The soup is more important than the plate; and the BOTTLE is fixed anyway (my standard bottle). We are talking only about the picture that goes on the sticker that goes on the flacon.

But, I could make this whole Lonestar memories picture on the bottle a polling issue. That’s what I thought when grabbing for the old design bottle this morning before running out of the house.

Why? -> Because it is fun! (picture: Lonestar Memories: minimalistic old design)

So here’s the plan:We have the old, minimalistic design, the new prototype flacon picture, and I will come up with yet another new design the next couple of days. Thanks to Vladimir, I think it will be somethink like a silhouette or a shadow thing.

Thus, stay tuned for the poll and in the mean time… enjoy the discussions on basenotes. Ah and yes: The new camera is fun.
and here is my first picture….
(Picture: Sitting on the balcony)

When browsing through the trial versions excel file yesterday, I realized that version 3.0 has matured for a month. Wow. Time’s passing fast these days. Thus, it was time to get a new, really fast digital camera…. yes, hurray! Finally, I got it. Long awaited, in love with it for quite a while in sort of a long-distance relationship (me behind the computer, camera somewhere in a warehouse)…we are finally united. And -like in every relationship that is supposed to last- you have to work on it. I am reading a long manual which reminds me in my early product manager days when I had to write manuals…brrrr! Hard work, trust me! My new machine love and me will soon go for a walk, playing….. Before doing so: Back to the 1 month matured rose&frankincense storyline, featuring some spices, flowers, woods and balms.
So far, version 3 is the one most promising. Knowing already, that walking to mainland China might be faster then getting this baby to a finished level, there is at least some hope. The undiluted soup (under the nose right now) shows a rose that is dark and spicy without turning too fast into a soap opera, and the frankincense is well bound into woods and balms that support it and make it last. Especially the last two points I found most disappointing the last weeks.  It is amazing how little of this or that  is needed to  bring the frankincense airiness to a complete stop.

More: To stop it entirely. You know it is there, but it is gone. Trust me: No question of Frankincense quantity. 25% of the best quality Frankincense dissolves into nothingness by adding an inappropriate mix of oakmoss, ionones and irisones and others. The second last mod was most disappointing, even without any maturation…frankincense deserted land.

Thus, the purpose of this post: Tell you how some notes may complete delete other notes, eat them up, and this post will gear myself towards version 3.  Next: Look for the things that are not good, like the geranium essential oil bringing in an “old rose” touch, reconsider the aldehydes, etc. …but before that…out playing!

Sodeli (translates into “well, well”)…. After quite some veroprofumo focus the last week: Time to get somewhat Tauer focused again…which translates into cowboys! today. ahh… I was asked at the scent apéro two weeks ago what my favourite fragrance was, of course my favourite Tauer, and I answered something like “oh, this changes from day to day, sometimes, mostly it is l’air du désert marocain, sometimes Rêverie au jardin”. Well, I guess I forgot about Lonestar Memories, my cowboy treasure. Thus, this week my favourite looks like the Lonestar Memories, after heavy bottling this weekend. And the W. factor subconsciously follows this path, running out of the house today, wearing Lonestar and leaving a scented trail of adventure and outdoor life on his way to the car, bringing him comfortable through suburbia.
Lonestar Memories still needs an appropriate label for the bottle and so I worked on this a little bit the last week. The prototype of what goes in print these days you see below. Before: Somewhat minimalistic, I have to admit ;-)

Greetings from cowboy land!

(picture: New Lonestar Memories bottle label design, prototype)

Rubi is an orange flower, undertaking a voyage accross the sea, crossing the mediterranean sea, landing on our shore and telling a story about the scented treasures of the Maghreb.
(Rubi, an orange flower from the Maghreb landing on our shore)
Sniffing Rubi is about as close as you can get to standing in an orange or mandarin orchard in Morocco, with trees in full bloom. I remember sniffing this fragrance the first time and immediatly going like “wow, this is phantastic”. Rubi is indolic pleasures and the creamy, white flowers of jasmine add to the indolic crispiness of orange flower absolute, one of the very expensive absolutes. In a sense you have two variations of indolic pleasures married, with the orange flower dominating. But: This orange flower is much, much closer to an orange flower blooming on a tree than the orange flower absolute that is the man made concentrate and often is somewhat sharp and woody.
But wait, there is more…Rubi is elegance and modesty. This orange flower travels the sea in a luxury liner. There is a lightness to it that you do not find in orange flower fragrances that easily. A lightness and warmth, like a breeze on the sea, standing at the beach in the evening, when the wind has changed and comes from the land, warm and fresh at the same time. It is a lightness that stays through all the phases until drydown. First it is citrus that add this line (is it clementines?), later when the gentle citrus accord has left the arena, it is a line of dry , powdery musks that lighten the composition up and make it transparent like the waves close to the beach line. You see the ground and want to jump into the crystal clear sea. Musks add elegance and brightness, and I get in my nose a lily line, gentle, very gentle, a little bit like flowers of may, with their powdery salicylates and ionones.

Looking at this fragrance, and looking back to Kiki and Onda: Yes, there is a Vero signature that links them. What is this signature like? Again, it is about transparency. Vero’s scent are woven tightly and they are complex formulas and you feel that years of work went it them. It is hard to dissect them into individual compounds. I can see a lot of naturals going into these scents which adds to their complexity.  But in all their density there is a lightness and transparency: You can always see the light shining through; in a sense they are like coloured crystals, that break the light up in different colours.
This is true for Rubi, too. And it is amazing how long the orange flower lasts and develops, just to come back, floating forth and back on its voyage on the skin. When finally landing, when the last faint indolic, musky traces and a hint of woods play on your skin, very close and intimate, you watch the sea’s waves under a brillant moon and dream of your day in the Maghreb. And want to go there, again!
Rubi: Designed by Vero Kern.
For the time being, RUBI is only available in Switzerland and neighbouring countries from veroprofumo. Sales to the US is anticipated by mid 2008.