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Uiuiui translates into: Hurry up…we are getting closer.

Days until X-mas: 27.

Days until I will participate at a “Talk on the senses featuring  the sense of smell”, integrated into the celebration of a mass (yes: Thrilling!): 23
Days until the scent apero in Zurich: 16

Days until the  “Boudoir” (kind of a high level sales thing, got the final confirmation and invitation yesterday, my fragrances will be there, and me too, talking about …hmm: roses maybe?): 8

Days until the Public Swiss Public Radio is in my house, doing a feature on me, and later on Vero and in between on the two of us: 1

Days until the Mandarine tree blooms: 0.

Enjoy!

Clementine tree (about 1.5 meters by now) sitting in Zurich, in a perfumer’s house….

As announced yesterday: Today’s post deals with spices again, but it is about missing spices. Yep.

I went jogging on Sunday, after a spicy Saturday night, right into a white sharpness in the woods nearby, the cold air freeing the mind. I spritzed some eau d’épices, newest take, before I left for the cold. And thus, while jogging and wondering how many billion the US tax payer will be announced to have to pay for City, and the Swiss tax payer for UBS, and continuing to wonder how long folks will continue to say “yeah we’ll do”..up to the moment when they will say “the heck. Let them go under and we will rather start from scratch again”, thus, while doing serious thinking, I wondered about the fragrance I was wearing.

It took my by surprise when I realized the role of the mandarine oil in the composition.. Actually, it is an entire accord, consisting of mandarine oil, methylanthranilate, and others, playing into a highly complex ground, described here many times, consisting of orange flower, ambrein, a tonka note, vetiverol, incense and the orris line.

To be honest: I am more curious about scents than banks, thus I continued for some more 90 minutes wondering about an “eau d’épices without épices”.

Bottomline of all this: Eau d’épices without épices was mixed, seems to smell great, it is thrilling, and the W.-factor found it to be a “pumped-up version” of what he sniffed before. And now?
I need to do more jogging. And make sure I can save on my taxes.

and the Incense extrême is in: In this weekend’s edition, of the UK Times Style edition November 23.
I haven’t seen the real world printed version. But you may read Tania Sanchez’ and Luca Turin’s article titled “Smells good” online. Please make sure not to miss the section  “One of the best a man can get” by Luca Turin, featuring also Incense extrême in this top ten list. ….and here is the link to the online edition of the Style section of the UK Times.
And tomorrow we will talk spices again. The following picture is a teaser. It shows (part) of the spices that I used on Saturday to prepare a chicken curry.
Picture uploaded by Andy:
Some of the spices used for a curry prepared Saturday

And the winner of Wednesday’s Sample Discovery Set give-away, picked with Random.org is…. Vasily!

Congratulation. Please e-mail me your coordinates at perfumer(at)tauerperfumes.com.

Now, that this is done… packing another big box with fragrances, making samples, and labeling Incense rosé bottles of yesterday is on the to-do-list of today.

And, from time to time, I will visit my Jasmine in the living room!, saved two months ago from snow and ice, in bloom these days, and transforming a room in grey Zurich (snow around the corner, a sky that is dark like the economic outlook these days) into an oriental fragrant delight.

Fragrant greetings to you all and a lovely weekend. Enjoy.

Picture uploaded by Andy:
Jasmine in Zurich, in bloom. Amazing…

Added:< THE drawing is over and we have a lucky winner>

Flyerline delivered the 2500 flyers for the “Sample Discovery Set” in English. 2500 because this is the minimum to order. Flyerline because I order all my flyers and dingsbums there; so here is the link for folks living nearby and needing some boxes of flyers from time to time. The English version because I want to be able to make special offers in 2009 for my on-line clients and some preferred point of sales. And I want to serve the press. Well, sort of. And I wanted to test the folded flyers from Flyerline first before printing a German version that will end up in the shop in Zurich later.
For those of you new here: Sample discovery set = all my fragrances as samples in one box with a flyer on top. The flyer is folder  folded and tells folks that they smell nice if the spritz my fragrances.

For the time being: No regular product. Except in Switzerland where folks can buy it in the shop in Zurich, in a German version.
Thus, a happy day with many sample discovery sets to follow. The first one is for one of you. I give away one sample discovery set, to one perfume lover, sent to you where ever you live. Maybe, I will pick you just make sure you comment. A simple hello is enough …
  The boxes full with flyers…

  The sample discovery set..

I am not sure what the proper translation for dingsbums is… “thingummybob” maybe? That’s what leo, the online-dictionary, proposed. Dingsbums means “something, that I can’t remember the name right now, something not so important”. May neighbour who teared me out of my dreams when passing by her yesterday evening on the street, could have said so. She came accross something “extrême” and wondered whether this was mine…

You would not believe how many clients ask for the “L’air pour elle” or something similiar.

And even the W.-factor and me we sometimes talk about “eau d’extrême” ;-)

Names are tricky.
I am sitting in front of a little piece of paper with eau de dingsbums on it. I showed it to Vero, too. A couple of days ago we both found it better than the original version of a while ago. The base is untouched, but the head notes miss some of the spices’ sharpness. It is more pleasing. Easier. Nicer.
And because this is so, I decided to buy the remaining stock (not too much left) of orange flower absolute from my preferred supplier (You never know!), that is nice enough to give me all the certificates for the European superpower of bureaucratic dingsbums.

I mixed another batch of L’air du désert marocain  on Friday. It sits now in my cellar, 2. 5 liters of thick juice, waiting to become ready for dilution in about 3 weeks. Mixing air du désert develops into a regular task these days and brings about insights; every time I mix, I rediscover a formula that is quite a challenge to understand. And I enjoy the colors of the oils I mix. Like Birchtar rectified oil. Mixing is also like bathing in oils which -for some- is eye opening. Sniffing Birchtar, a thick dark brown juice right from the bottle transports me to a place 30 years ago, playing in the woods, thrilled eyes reflecting the flames of the fire, smoke impregnating the skin.

Although I mix 2. 5 liter of a batch, I need to dilute Birchtar first in order to be precise enough. Talking big impact of a few drops! This is part of the magic of perfumery; the game with sub-promile numbers.
Picture: Diluting Birchtar in ethanol before using it to mix a batch.

I decided for Eosin as color for the invitation flyer for our Scent Apéro (German flyer: Download here) that will take place in Zurich, December 13.

Eosin is not pink and not red. And kind of a 80% solution to my request to have color that matches the theme.

Anyhow. The color is not critical. For those of you who want to come and join: We start at 5 pm. Egon will start reading at 5.30 and a second time at 6.15. I will prepare dilutions of rose damascena absolutes (from Morocco, Turkey, Bulgaria), steam distilled oil of rosa damascena from Bulgaria and Rosa centifolia absolute from France.

There are daily flights from LA, NY, Tokyo, Moskwa, and other places.

Picture: Eosin colored invitation flyers…

I am doing it again: Filling up bottles. And it is my pleasure to show you yet another detail of this task: the gloves…..Looks like I am ready to do the first cut ;-)
Scalpel please!
Greetings from Dr. bottle filler.

Picture: hands in polysomething gloves.

Selling goods to people is a fascinating and tricky business. People are not always easy to understand. Goods may not be right. There are many lesson you can learn, like “markets can be cruel” if you produce cars that are too big or “nobody loves you anymore” if you don’t give enough discounts on electronic gadgets. Even if the discount might kill you in the end. I happen not to give discounts at all. In my opinion giving discounts is like saying that you charge too much for your non discounted products.
Nevertheless, I asked for a discount in our neighbor’s shop, opened last Sunday morning, for a few hours before he went out of business again.
You see: a tricky business…

Picture: Our neighbour’s shop this Sunday in our house. I wanted to buy the chewing gum, but this was a private collection.
I bought the yellow car in the middle. With zero discount.