statistics and exhaustion
Sodeli….here is the visual statistic. A snap shot on where the requests for samples came from and where they went to. The font size is proportional to the numbers of samples.
Surprise, surprise… The post woman had to skip her coffee break and was sweating as we had 30°C plus some degree outside and inside it must have been around 28. At first she was happy when we had all non-US envelops done. Until she realized that there was a bag next to me, filled up with the US envelops. At least my post woman could press the repeat button for the US envelops and so both of us slowly drifted away, driven by her repetitive movements, and my dream of samples flying around the globe.
July 17th, 2007 at 12:04 pm
Poor post woman - no break, no coffee, and the heat - that would have been one very crabby me. I am most appreciatvie of her sacrifice. And even more so of yours.
Lol, that’s a picture to behold - the two of you dozing off, the magic of repetetive motion.
July 17th, 2007 at 3:49 pm
Dear Andy, all is good already behind, lucky beggars have pending concealed breath.I have counted fifteen countries Whoah! At you very much a greater cover zone:)
July 17th, 2007 at 5:05 pm
We should get the lovely post office lady a scented badge of honour!
Love the top of your statistics snap shot :-D
July 17th, 2007 at 5:08 pm
Andy,
I forgot - just out of curiosity - how do you feel about Gaultier’s Fleur du Male?
July 18th, 2007 at 8:51 am
Wonderful news, Andy - I am really looking ofrward to getting the sample!!!
Many hugs from the UK
July 18th, 2007 at 11:32 am
Hurray!! for you and Ms Postwoman, what a miracle to pull of under these conditions.
Meanwhile I dream a little dream for me, that one day…. ;-)
Many big hugs,
Ylva
July 18th, 2007 at 3:22 pm
Dear Vladimir
Yes, it feels great to know that there are brown envelops flying east and west and north and south! But I wouldn’t talk of beggars, just curious people ;-)
Dear Sabina
Greetings….
Dear Dusan
Yes, she has deserved it. A gold medal…hmm… rose scented?
Dear Konstantin
Hugs from Switzerland over the sea….
Dear Ylva
I know your dream….! I hope that this one day will not be too far away! The brave scent the world!
July 18th, 2007 at 6:07 pm
Excuse Andy, I had no in view of beggars, he is the wrong translator.
July 18th, 2007 at 8:41 pm
Andy,
I was smiling at your statistics and thinking about you and the post woman and the envelopes flying around in the sky to their destinations, thinking of you as a Mongol conqueror of sort, and then I realized that France is not represented in your statistics. Next time I’ll have to give you my Paris address so that the official land of perfume connoisseurs appears up there and you have one more country under your sway ;)
July 19th, 2007 at 7:53 am
Dear Vladimir
Please do not apologize! I was smiling when I read the translated text. I knew you wanted to say something else, but what came out was very funny!
Dear Scented Salamander,
yes, please do so. Maybe I could do a little French post from time to time, too….. but then: My French is only slightly better than my Chinese…. well….slightly exaggerated , but you get the idea… there are a few missing countries. India! China! Tonga!and some 175 more. ah well, the world’s a big place to conquer.
July 19th, 2007 at 9:41 pm
Kudos to the postal service - got in my sample today! (Netherlands). And naturally, I could hardly hold back from spraying. Applied it to the back of my hand - indeed a citrussy, very pleasant opening with perhaps a few notes of Lonestar Memories? Later on I get a good dose of spices, fierce and sexy, dark but certainly bright enough for summer. This will get a full wearing soon! Thanks again for the generous offer.
July 20th, 2007 at 7:21 am
Oh wow. That’s pretty fast! Thank you for your thoughts…enjoy your full body spritz of dark spices.
July 21st, 2007 at 4:09 pm
I received my sample yesterday - July 20th - here in the USA. It was a surprise, since I assumed I would not be one of the lucky ones and would have to wait to try this fragrance.
Like BrothaG, I immediately tried it out on my left wrist. Like all your fragrances, Andy, it is challenging and complex. There is something almost menacing about it; it is indeed fierce, dark, and sexy (not something I thought I’d be writing about a frag that has “epices” in its name). There is also a sweetness that weaves in and out of the midnotes that is almost cloying (maybe almost annoying) and reminds me of … something. I found myself filled with a vague sense of nostalgia, a melancholy, after a while. I wondered about this. Then I realized: the sweetness reminds me of the smell of my mother’s cosmetics when I was a young boy, more than 50 years ago. Glamour and sweetness, the first fragrance memories of a young boy. But underneath the nostalgia there is something dark and almost menacing, like a half-remembered memory of violence.
Rather than being representational, the frags I love the best take me to a place and time at the edges of my memory: a kind of deja vu that is unconnected to a real experience, a kind of nostalgia for a place I have never been (like one of those finely detailed places in our dreams that are totally imaginary but totally convincing. L’air du desert, Orris, and Reverie all struck me that way. L’eau d’epices is just as effective as your previous fragrances in evoking such a place.
I wish you well in completing your trials, and look forward to trying the final product when it comes out!
July 22nd, 2007 at 3:27 am
Andy,
Hope you are getting some well deserved rest and recuperation after the marathon sampling. I’m sure that the world is a sweeter smelling place because of your work!
Fragrant success in all you do my friend!
Joyce
Noteworthy Fragrances
July 22nd, 2007 at 3:29 am
Andy PS:
When is your next trip to the US scheduled?? Would love to meet you in person for an in depth interview.
Ta ta for now.
Joyce
July 22nd, 2007 at 8:24 am
hi Andy!! Wow I just got back from Alaska and missed your big event! I am curious to read all about it. Good scents heading your way from me to you! Laura (who is loving that perfume I got from you… ;) THHHHHHANK you!
July 22nd, 2007 at 8:30 am
Dear Vasily
Thank you for your comment. I appreciate a lot. And I am amazed how fast you got your sample! I thank you for your lovely words, too and will think in them when jogging in evocative rainy woods this morning. Fragrant greetings from Zurich
Dear Joyce,
well, there might be a chance in November in NY, but I do not promise anything.
If you do not hear anything about these plans in September, October: Just give me a reminder , please!
Dear Laura
Ah..how was Alaska? Now that’s a place I would like to visit once (in summer!!!!) Thank you for your lovely lines and good scents heading back to you.
July 23rd, 2007 at 10:44 pm
Thank you so much for the sample — it arrived over the weekend (I’m in the USA)! I can’t believe I was lucky enough to be one of the 75 to get one. I love the fragrance. It is complex and delightful and I was immediately captivated at first spritz, and is still fantastic a few hours later. Thank you!!
(P.S. Also as a note, I love that you mentioned Tonga in your comment #10 above. I lived there for 2 years and it’s a very small country that many haven’t heard of).
July 23rd, 2007 at 11:23 pm
Hurray, I finally received my sample today. Boohoo, because I can’t smell anything since I woke up with a migraine this morning (and having migraines totally screws up my sense of smell). Both my kids liked it however when I sprayed it on, so that is very promising.
I’ll have to wait till migraine subsides to let you know my impression. In the meantime just thank you very much for the very generous sample.
July 24th, 2007 at 12:53 pm
Dear Sabina
I hope you will get better soon and will wake up tomorrow with a clear head, without pain, and a nose willing for discoveries. All the best and thank you for your note.
Dear SMY
Thank you for your note. Of course, you deserved your luck! And I am glad you like it. And finally… I never was in Tonga. But I have seen documentaries…it must be beautiful.
July 25th, 2007 at 1:07 am
Hello, Andy, thank you! The sample arrived today. I’ll share one fun impression to begin with: early on, there was a point when I felt as if I were amidst the spices in an Indian market. Very enjoyable. I’m taking your questions seriously and will be thinking about them as I spritz some more. I’m retyping the questions and printing them with black ink on white paper so I don’t have to work my eyes quite so much. :-) :-)
July 25th, 2007 at 8:02 am
Dear Maria B.
Thank you! Interesting how some samples take longer than others although they were all shipped the same day from the same place. Well, the Indian market… there is some truth, as the spices are cinnamon, clove, coriander, cardamom: All of them you might find piled up in Mumbai. Hugs to you and enjoy!
July 25th, 2007 at 9:30 am
Dear Andy,
Thank you so much for my sample - I’m enjoying it immensely!
July 25th, 2007 at 11:27 am
Dear Dinazad
Thank you, too! Well, then… ENJOY! (and enjoy the sun that finally appears again) Fragrant greetings from around the corner
July 27th, 2007 at 2:17 am
Andy, thank you for your well wishes, I’m finally migraine free (after three days) and able to smell your wonderful sample.
The opening immediately transports me to a citrus grove, I’m standing there amidst the trees, rubbing the leaves between my fingers, upon which they release their fragrance (I don’t know if real citrus leaves would do that, but it’s a habit I have, whenever I wander into a garden or gardening store to rub the leaves between my fingers and smell). Very refreshing. This phase, however, doesn’t last long. Shortly thereafter I find myself in the desert, there’s a lot of heat, and there’s a spice caravan coming through, camels laden down by loads of spices, lot’s of spices, and fierce, very fierce.
Unlike Vasiliy (my body chemistry must be different) I don’t smell any sweetness whatsoever. Personally, I would like to smell a little more sweetness, as I don’t smell any at all.
Later it softens again, spices mingle with some floral citrusy scent (the orange flower?). There’s coriander, cardamom, cinnamon weaving in and out. A picture of an old German cookbook of mine comes to mind, with spices in pretty glass containers set out on the table (a warm but dark composition), ready for baking in a recipe that has yet to be concocted, as it doesn’t smell of anything familiar, such as gingerbread.
Thank you, Andy, for painting pictures with your fragrances.
And my 16 year old wants me to let you know she loves it a lot!
July 27th, 2007 at 7:11 am
Dear Sabina (hello 16 year old! thank you too!)
Thank you, and I am glad that you feel better again. I have a Clementine tree in a pot and I can tell you , the real citrus leaves do exactly what you described. At least my Clementine tree does it. It is a very refreshing, petit grain bigarade like scent. I appreciate your description of how eau d’épices develops very much , especially the caravan coming through, that is a nice picture, I can see the camels in the desert, like a pearl string,….
Greetings to you!
August 4th, 2007 at 4:02 am
I find it fascinating that perfumes can vary so much based on body chemistry. I spritzed a little eau d’epices on my wrist a few minutes ago, and on me the sweetness starts out rather light and floral, moves quickly into a sweetness like that of fresh citrus juice, then descends into a complexity and richness over time that becomes almost treacle-y. All within a symphony of spices and citrus. And yet, having tried this sample several times now, it doesn’t seem so sweet or so cloying as it did at first.
I wonder how much of the sweetness for me is associational: spices plus citrus equals spice cake, and the holidays, and a note of treacle under everything. Maybe it’s the wonderful holiday memories that spices always evoke for me that stirs up the sweetness in my circuitry. Or maybe it’s really there on my skin: a friend commented that on me it smelled very sweet, perhaps too sweet. Thanks indeed to Andy for stirring up such wonderful and complex pictures for us!
August 4th, 2007 at 7:45 am
Dear Vasily
Thank you too! For me, this variability of fragrance impressions, depending on skin, on memories and (maybe) on personality is like a mystery and I think, this is part of the fascination of creating fragrances. Like building a kaleidoscope and then have people muse about what they see.
Fragrant greetings
August 13th, 2007 at 10:45 pm
I have worn it now four times, and it is different for me every time. My husband came rushing in yesterday from the other end of the house: “oh! You can tell which scent you are wearing even from all the way in there– and it’s so soft. Very interesting.” It’s ravishing. Sometimes there is a real skin note in it that makes it very personal and sensual… other times it is an etherial aura around me. Always, I adore the sweet and spicy elements and the crisply rich, lasting wood notes that weave together its changeable moments. I adore this one.