There is a moment of tranquility in the house of Tauer and I wish to share a few impressions from this year’s Esxence in Milan. Tomorrow, I will go to Paris, in preparation of my event with Antonio from Marie-Antoinette where we will present Miriam. This will take place on Tuesday evening.

Today, Sunday, is the last day of the four day Esxence show and I got the impression yesterday that it got bigger. I feel that the exhibition stands were a bit larger than last year’s and with the many visitors the place was pretty crowded. There were a couple of brands that I was looking forward to get to know a bit better and to get into touch with the brains and hands and noses behind the beautiful bottles and scents. My Inner Island was one of them. I was honestly impressed by the look and feel and smell on Valentina’s stand. Nice! Equally nice and charming was Neela Vermeire and her scents. I had the pleasure of getting to know Neela a bit better over dinner and I am looking forward to meeting again. Her fragrances are sure worth exploring.

I loved the Osmotheque stand and chatting with Cristiano. I smelled a Tuberose from his lab, created by himself, and I loved it very much. It was with me all day and captured this airy, salicylate, musky side of Tuberose in a lovely way. I took it with me to the presentation by Michael Edwards on 300 years of freshness and colognes. Awesome.  He handed out scented paper strips of colognes from the very beginning all the way up to Hermes and CK. Michael was so nice to let me have a look at his new edition of fragrances of the world and enjoy the stunning pictures therein, by IFF. Wonderful.

And then I bumped into Ida Meister, who was visiting without telling anybody. Yeehaw! We haven’t met since years. And then there was Raphaella, whom we all know from  the Perfume Magazine: Although we talk since years, we never met, and the same is true for Mark David Boberick. And guess who was there, too, traveling all the way from Southern California: Lovely Elena and Zoran from Fragrantica. The link brings you to a recent article by Elena on translating scents into words.

And I continued hugging and talking: One of the nicest perfumers out there, Keiko, with her husband, but their stand was always sooooo busy that there was little time. I wished I could have talked longer with Roberto and Spyros and Ermanno and Giovanni and Sebastian and so many more, but my time was very limited; as I was sort of commuting between via Brera, where we showed the fragrance Miriam and the new display at the perfumery Profumo and the Esxence.

And, besides seeing beautiful bottles and meeting many, many people, I smelled some fragrances. But – and this is an irony- a perfume fair is not really the best way to discover scents. Too much is going on there. But one of the highlights was Roberto Dario’s all natural cologne. We discussed that people say “oh , it is just a cologne”, but thinking a cologne is simple to make, especially if you work all natural: this is not really true. A good, shiny, sunny, warm, and balanced all natural cologne is something wonderful and Roberto has shown me a lovely specimen.

So I loved that. And I am glad I made the trip. Although a lot of artisanal, indie, niche brands were missing, and although the balance at this year’s Esxence was tipping more towards distributor’s brands, it was inspirational and interesting. You can find a list of all brands and news on Basenotes, too. And yes, I bumped into Lila and Grant too. Nice to see so many fragrant enthusiasts!

Today’s picture: A look at the train main station’s entry hall. Amazing. Milano is sure worth a trip, too.