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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?

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)

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)

“And it reminds me of the smells around my late father-in-law’s gas station/car dealership. Happy memories for me.”

more on Lonestar Memories and l’air du désert marocain on SavvyThinker.com. Enjoy…

My post of yesterday seems to have started something. I hope this discussion (on POL and other sites) will lead to a serious discussion what you get for how much where….

This starting discussion and some thoughts on my side fitted wonderfully into the rest of the day. It began with a picture; W., the fragrance guinea pig, wanted to hang up the new picture that we bought a while ago from our friend, Ernesto. The new one was going to replace an old one that is still looking for a nice place somewhere on a wall. But there, where we got used to see the old picture, olive tree in the sunset, there was now a black frame on the wall. Which called for cleaning measures, that proofed to be completely ineffective. W. ended up painting the wall, while doing so he realized the broken floor socket,….
I got home and saw an appartment that looked like it was being rebuilt from scratch. Hence, no bottle pouring and labelling! This will have to follow over the weekend.

Like W., rebuilding the appartment right now, I end up on my blog babbling about prices and arguing why I think the move was appropriate….
- I made a mistake: Well, first, I think I have to correct one thing that I did not explicitely mention; I made a mistake when launching L’air in 100 ml size. Not expecting its success I am -as one man show - reaching a limit of how many liters I can make and pour. Reducing to 50 ml will help a little bit before having to do the next step: Outsourcing….
- Some of you may not know yet….Well, secondly, everything that lands on your table coming from tauer perfumes is made by Andy. And W., from time to time. This does not mean it is more beautiful, it just means that things are hand made and hand poured and that things exist because we do not charge an hourly salary. W. and me do this because we simply find it funny to compete with Mr. and Ms. Beckham….. 
-Going from 100 ml to 50 ml for the same price looks like doubling the price. In a sense it is. For me it isn’t. I had two alternatives: Either increase the price for the 100 ml size to compensate higher raw materials and packaging prices or reduce the amount of perfumee we sell. I decided for the later.
- I personally think, you still get a lot of good fragrance for your money, fully loaded with naturals, blended with care, mixed and poured with love and passion…

Here is the discussion on PerfumeOfLife: POL 

Happily I realized yesterday that we successfully managed to go beyond the shortest day this year. Well, that’s something!
Then, we will soon have managed to go beyond 2006, a year which was somewhat special. (I am an optimist, hence I don’t expect major disaster the coming days….)
Then, as 2006 is coming to a foreseen but nevertheless abrupt end, so is the L’air du désert marocain, which runs out in the Zurich shop. Looking back I feel like I’ve transported an entire Matterhorn to down town Zurich, which is gone, vanished, bang!, just like that…
Thus, this is the end, no more air bottles for my friend Pascal who happily sits in Marrakesh in the sun taking a deep breath of the l’air du désert marocain  in the real sense ;-)

L’air du désert marocain as you know it is gone. The end, for ever, for sure. Some traces are left with some distributors, but soon it will be nothing but a vague memory….

Thus, here’s the official declaration: For various reasons, such as stocks, practicality, money & handling issues, we change the flacon and packaging for the l’air du désert marocain: To a 50 ml flacon that you know already from Lonestar Memories, using the same box and packing concept as you have seen it for the Orris. Otherwise, nothing is changed. The fragrance is not touched at all, promised!, even with some ingredients becoming expensive or harder to get: Not touched, promised!
Thus, the perfumer sits in Zurich, under a cover of grey fog that feels like the universe has expanded for 20 bn years, finally reaching its cool state of max entropy; it is somewhat depressing, knowing that above this fog there is the sun shining, like in a parallel universe….it is there, but out of reach, at least for some folks in Zurich right now… these folks sit in the grey zone somewhere, bottling and boxing l’air again, working on another pile to build.

Greetings from below the fog.
(pix: the new 50 ml flacon for the l’air…)

Momo is nice. He works for DHL, drives around in Zurich with his yellow car and brings me parcels. Usually, I am not at home. Then Momo has to leave a yellow paper with numbers that I hardly ever can read, telling me that he was here, and I spend an evening, trying to get through on the phone and get a line, listening to endless repetitions of how important my call is. Sometimes I wonder, why I have to wait so long if my call is important. But then, after a while, I get through and , like yesterday, I talk to nice people, tell them that Momo was here and I wasn’t. We then try to figure out the numbers on Momo’s piece of paper and ask him to come back again. With every visit by Momo, I realize that the bottle neck in globalization is the final delivery to my house….
Today Momo brought me 4×20 kg of paper;and he helped me bring it all downstairs (amazing how heavy paper can be). Momo really is nice. The paper comes in many boxes, a pile standing in the living room right now, waiting to be distributed. It is a leporello featuring everything about Morocco…perfumes, travel, calligraphy, handicrafts and more. We will do some experiments with it. One being a mailing in one quarter of Zurich, to see whether we can interest potential clients. I am now a proud member of the businesses that fill up your letterbox …

The leporello design is by Tauer, the content by the four of us, travel=Brahim Tours, calligraphy=Daniel Reichenbach, handicrafts=Medieval art&vie and perfumes…well I guess you know.
Thank you Momo.

A commercial break for this weekend: Preorders for the Orris are now possible on our site, for the real stuff and for samples, too…..shipment by November 15, promise! Happy surfing and fragrant wishes for your weekend!

Well, referring to yesterday’s post: Here are some pictures outlining how the visual sense is engaged when unpacking Orris. The tactile senses are engaged by working on the satin ribbon when unpacking and fooling around with some gold paper. I couldn’t resist bringing in some gold. Don’t worry, the price for the Orris will not be affected by extravaganza…

The concept is similar to what you know from Lonestar Memories. Here, the front images was selected by the artist Sands Murray-Wassink. Click here to read the interview with the artist and perfume lover on this blog a while ago. I find the picture fitting perfectly  with the scent. It is wild, and dynamic. Dramatic in a sense, and joyful. When I have seen this proposal to illustrate the scent the first time, I thought: “Wow, what a dramatic, lively picture for this scent!”.
I love it. In it I see the headnotes, the dark rose, with the cinammon and the pepper lines. I can feel the heartnote, a wild orris, with frankincense and the agarwood extending all the way into the base
There, in the basenote I can graps the sandalwood, the vetiver and hints of ambergris.
Thank you Sands for bringing in your very personal appreciation of this scent!

Lui means “he” in italian.
And Lei means “she”.

Writen together like in “LuiLei” it may still sond italian, but it isn’t really. It is more a signal post for a nice concept, a stylish shop and a cool web page and most important: Lovely people building up a business of their own.

Thus, whenever you come close to one of the most thrilling cities in the world, please stop by at LuiLei’s in Brooklyn and get a sniff of Tauer Perfumes there. Or visit them online.
Fragrant wishes