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Wordpress told me this morning when logging in to my blog account that this is post number 519.  So I go “wow. Basically I have written a book by now.” Or filled a couple of NY Times Sunday editions. Or added my share to the exploding parallel universe of 0 and 1 sitting in servers somewhere.
And while sinking into this soothing pillow of a unhealthy self pride and little reflected reveries of what has been accomplished, a little neuron fires and goes like “Sorry, Andy, to trouble you, aehm…. you’d better think about your art thing now!” And a couple of other neurons start wondering why the heck they can not enjoy 5 minutes peaceful glory of having written 519 posts. Fellow neurons located further away and turning red seem to activate subroutine [modesty], while a couple of neighbours still wait for input what to do with the fingers sitting over the keyboard.

So, here comes post 519
Imagine…I am invited to give a lecture at the opening of Sand Murray-Wassink’s exhibition of his work, Nov07-Jan08, in Munich, an honour, and an opportunity to talk to a public, interested in art, about perfumery, about art and perfumes, about touching artists with fragrances,  perfumes reflecting trends in art, about artists  working with perfumes, about my art, …well…you name it! I am basically free to lecture and muse on anything.

And this is the trouble for a couple of neurons: They fire and visions pop up of a perfumer performing, talking about natures beauty, the beauty of bodies, partially hidden by clothes and by this becoming more beautiful, like a rose absolute that is partially hidden by  spicy leathery woods, perfumer spraying, talking about a body painting on a wall and why the perfumer wanted these pictures on an experimental, limited edition of an orris scent, featuring this hidden rose.

Well….What would you do/say/muse on? Fragrant greetings
    Picture: The beauty of nature…a fir cone picked up in Zurich this summer

Before coming to today’s short incense intermezzo: Lonestar Memories on Duftarchiv! What a surprise this morning.  Thus, if you understand German, you might want to go for a quick ride to visit the land of the wild and free….

Now, back in the land of the disciplined screen watchers, mouth wide open looking at Dow indices all red, thinking in x-mas bonuses vanishing and starting to get seriously worried about their end year numbers:Let’s talk incense, today not the extrême trial, but the more classy, elegant, citrus headed, rose with castor, heavy and dark incense trial.

I made a last modification: Making it a touch lighter, a touch less castor, a touch less dark, reducing the patchouli and myrrh in the base. So far so good. Quite “churchy” if you know what I mean, quite woody in its base, lasting, good and somewhat elegant in my nose, quite there where I wanted to go. Like the extrême, by the way, just different. I am waiting for the W.-factor’s 15 seconds evaluation and others. The extrême version of incense passed W.-factor test, although for him, it is the l’eau d’épices that’s still on top of the list.
“So…What are you waiting for? Go to the lab, mix your liters and go, honey go!”, you might say.
Well…greetings from Fabius Cunctator! I think, there is time to wait and plenty of time to bottle next year anyhow. Next year will be fun with lots of new ventures…until then, we continue riding on our wild horse right into a beautiful morning sun.

Finally: Consider visiting Adam Jahiel’s beautiful “the last Cowboy” black and white pictures.  You might even buy prints there. …

After stupid dreams featuring cowboys and horses in Lonestar land, I am trying to aerate my brain,. flooding it with coffee, and to kick-start it thinking on art. Two or three readers might know why. For those who don’t: I think I got the change to present my perfumery later this year to art lovers in a yet to be defined context. This, and the Duftarchive’s daily newsletter (very well done, indeed!) note on Comme des Garcons’ approach towards naturals and synthetics made me wonder once again on a question that Helg brought up in her interview: How important are the building blocks for what we do?
And assuming, in line with Roudnitska, that perfumery can be an art form, what is the piece of art: Isn’t it the formula per se? Like Pachelbel’s canon: He left a few black dots on white paper with lines, yet within this code you find beauty and perfection paraphrased; this code is the piece of art in a sense. But to appreciate this piece of art you need a medium.
In perfumery it also boils down to: Perfumes are pieces of art that need a medium to be appreciated by the public. The same is true for paintings (absorption of materials at different wave lengths, needing the medium light), music (waves, needing air), perfume (molecules, needing …hmmm!)

What is the medium for perfumes? I think perfumes need skin. They might be smelled on paper strip, like I do now, sniffing the latest vetiver trial, but perfumes are made for skin. Well, ok… I admit: “Combien de bruit pour une omelette!”…..
….Perfumer continues pouring coffee into brain and tries to come up with artful thoughts….

fragrant greetings

My way of creating perfumes involves a lot of naturals. In my perfumery world this is part of being niche. Being niche allows me to use naturals that are beyond the reach of non-niche perfumers, because of limited availability, price and changing quality from batch to batch or season to season.
Thus, I am working on my frankincense trials, using my super-trooper frankincense extract, and I sometimes forget what is behind it. One day, the Frankincense fragrance will be ready, and by then hundreds of hands will have been involved, air planes, engineers, secretaries, local farmers,…And although the frankincense material is natural, it is a truly high-tech product, and its production spans the entire globe.
After locals in India have collected the resin from Boswellia trees, it must have changed hands a dozen time, and of course those collecting the material earn the least…., it was packed, shipped to a place in Germany, where folks unpacked again, and then extracted the resin, little fingertip sized, honey coloured, fragrant hardened effluent, using big machine. Carbon dioxide, yes …that’s the gas the makes to world go hot… is compressed until it is a liquid, in a super critical state. This liquid then extracts what can be dissolved. It has quite unique properties and it extracts soluble ingredients very gentle, much gentler than water steam. And it extracts following a different pattern than steam. The fluid is then collected, pressure reduced, carbon dioxide is released as gas and what is left is the frankincense CO2 extracted oil. It is has a very rich smell, truly close to burned incense, it has a touch camphor, but is less rich in medicinal terpene notes, it is woodier than other steam distilled qualities and lasts very long on the skin.

And again…it is filled up, packed, shipped, unpacked in Zurich, mixed with other materials, and one day it will fly over the ocean to be unpacked and….

After yesterday’s post on extremes….can not resist to continue in that line. Realizing that the Incense extrême mod is in its 20th day of maturation, I will do a couple of dilutions, probably 10 and 20%. Next week, we might look into this and the other, last Frankincense mod, in a little bit more detail, hoping that the dilution won’t disappoint!
The rest of the perfumery working day will see samples making, as we run out of them in the Zurich shop soon. Talking samples: Maybe you want to visit Marlen’s blog and  read his post on samples. Link to the PerfumeCritic Blog.
Thus… have a wonderful weekend with exciting fragrant discoveries. See you next week again

Today some thoughts on “extrêmes”, probably initiated by rain clouds stuck over central Switzerland, damaging a lot, sticking there and unloading their wet freight. We are getting more than what our rivers and creeks can handle.
After an extremely busy evening, packing things and getting a pile of paper for customs together that seems to be more than an entire constitution, there was time to look with half-open eyes at an “incense extrême”. Minimalistic and with an extremely short formula for Tauer, this mod is still maturing. I wanted to create a contra-punto to the rich, rose, castor and precious woods enriched frankincense mod that is somewhat retro and that was described more or less here. This incense extrême features a touch citrus (petitgrain bigarade), lavender, a reddish musky cedarwood, orris, frankincense and a crystal clear ambergris. The frankincense is of course the CO2 quality that you find in Rêverie au jardin in a different context.

Thus, reduced to the max, cubism inspired, without compromise in quality of ingredients, I am extremely happy with this. One reason: It would challenge folks who expect Tauers to be rich indolic tar loaded fragrances. Trust me….this one will keep us busy.

Finally, a discovery of yesterday, for our German speaking fragrance lovers. Very fresh, new and extremely exciting: Das Duftarchiv, www.duftarchiv.de
fragrant greetings from within heavy clouds and a reddish frankincense extrême.

Now, this word creation of mine… I like it…vetiverometer. It has not really much to do with Vero, of course. I imagine the vetiverometer to be a machine measuring the “vetiverness”, the proximity to the real thing (=vetiver) and reading the results, on an open logarithmic vetiver scale, you get an idea where your scent is.

Now: This is no quality measure at all. It just tells us about the proximity to vetiver essential oil….assuming there is something like THE vetiver. As a matter of fact, there is not, of course: Vetiver is very different depending on where you get it from!
Nevertheless, let’s assume, pretend, imagine, play: let’s turn our vetiverometer on and see. Injecting a little drop of Malle’s vetiver and WUFFF-Ping! we get our numbers and the exquisite vetiver extraordinaire vanishes in the exhaust. We get quite a high number: 4.7 Without the sandalwood and musky line we would easily approach >5 (don’t forget: We are talking logarithmic here!). Next: Guerlain…WUFF-Ping! and we get a 2.5. Aha! Too much citrus going on there….Next: Vero profumo Onda…WUFF-Ping! and we get a 4.1 (but a totally different take than whatever I have seen so far). Next Villoresi…WUFF-Ping! 3.65 (birchtar). Tauer trial 1: WUFF-Ping! 2.7 (oups…). Not matured number 3 from Tauer (very trial indeed): WUFF-Ping! 3.6 ……. ha! That’s pretty much there where I want to be. The vetiver line clearly visible within the pepper, clary and lily of the valley, but not too dominant. Let’s see what the fragrance looks like after maturation; until then: Vetiverometer is turned off.
Now it is your turn: Where is your favorite vetiver perfume on the vetiverometer scale?

Picture: Vetiverometer ;-)
(original picture from: cosmic log…The Bing Bang Machine)

So, we continue with yesterday’s line: Osswald and what we did there last week. I was sniffing some vetivers, different interpretations of a smelling root. I like to focus on one theme, like vetiver, allowing me to get the different nuances and facets more easily. Of course, I can’t do more than a couple, especially in a perfumery, before the nose is saturated. That is why I tend buy: But only the fragrances that I find interesting enough for a more thorough appreciation later at home and on skin.

I bought at the end of a rather long row of vetiver perfume bottles…guess! well: Frederic Malle’s Vetiver extraordinaire, reviewed excellently by Robin on NowSmellThis, a truly extraordinary vetiver interpretation created by Dominique Ropion.

So much to the activities. Now allow me to focus for a second on a very basic question, going at the very root of smelling things: Why? Why not just taking a vetiver natural oil that is a perfume in itself, having hints of top notes, middle notes and a base that lasts forever? Why not take a bottle, get some jojoba oil, add 5% of the best vetiver oil you can get and spend your day embalmed in a high vitamin E protective layer and a vetiver fragrant coat?

I am sure, Malle asked this question too. And the Malle vetiver is coming quite close to the pleasure of wearing an excellent, natural vetiver. So why? Especially nowadays…there must have been created hundreds of vetiver interpretations on planet earth since the dinosaurs left our little furry ancestors. So why try to come up with yet another take on vetiver?
Feel free to enter you answer here…[…]… mine would be something like: Because we are humans, newer satisfied in a sense, hunters and gatherers, still and always searching for the bigger mango….ha! This might be the explanation for the never ending stream of fruity florals……hehehe…

This is why at the end of the day: Malle’s vetiver is more interesting then the all natural vetiver. There are little twists and hints here and there. Spices, citrus, some musks and other woods. Rendering the vetiver, transforming it into a new fragrant experience.

Tomorrow we will need to discuss the vetiverometer….!

Back. Hello world.

So we talked about Niche Perfumery. I was a nice chat, in one of those very few perfumeries that I tend to visit. Chatting with Mr Abt from Osswald perfumerie down town Zurich, very down town Zurich indeed. 20 meters from Paradeplatz, in closest proximity to UBS and CS, Channel’s boutique and some other super powers, this shop thrives. They do (because they are charming and very knowledged….and….) because when you look for the exquisite and special with a high quality factor, chances are good you might find what you are looking for. A nice ambience, but far away from those clean antiseptic, minimalistic, expensive by design places, where your biggest fear is to leave finger prints on a shelf or your sneakers leaving traces of cow droppings from your latest hike. The perfumery house Osswald you might visit in your not so clean sneakers, they will take good care on you and I appreciate this approach very much.

So niche perfumery?

We (yes, I was there with Vero) learned a little bit about what is selling and what not. So one approach to niche might simply be market size, a figure based definition.

Somewhat closer to where the term niche is used ( Bio-ecology): Niche might mean a suited fit between products and client groups, or client groups and products. Now, you might start wondering how this is done….
Niche also means a perfectly fitting marketing and approach to special groups by niche marketing.

Then: Niche could also mean, but quite often does not!, a brave approach to do what others can’t. Go where no perfumer has gone before. Make a small step for a perfumer, but a large step for perfume lovers….. In this context: Check out the newest folio article by Luca Turin….nitriles!

So, we talked about Niche Perfumery, and agreed that there are less niches served then we might think. And that being niche per se is no quality sign. Being niche might just mean: You have to do better than the others.

Tomorrow, we will have a look at a vetiver in general again, and a look at it from a “semi-niche” perfume house’ perspective….until then: Sweating at 30°C…..
What is niche perfumery?

Next week we are back again….looking forward to routine! Traveling by train to work, musing on scents and discovering flowers and other stuff….
This morning, although early August, it felt like autumn on the balcony. Cool morning air, humidity on rose petals and sun light that was crisp like shining through September air.

Next week, featured themes will be a little private sniffapalooza in Zurich (of course, by no means comparable to the real thing!), and updates and more thoughts on vetiver.

Until then: Have a wonderful weekend, enjoy the summer days and sunny scents…
Fragrant greetings!

 Picture: Rose from the garden, cut be the wind, and blooming now on a black table, with a delicate, slightly peppery, fragrance.