Good morning from Zurich, back from Bologna and Roma! Rome saw me talking to and sniffing with perfume lovers, celebrating the moment and a birthday of CHERRY (here’s their facebook page, with nice pictures of me and Marina) , super lovely, super niche, and super located perfumery in Rome. Marina, the shop owner is just one of a kind. And shop owner sounds a touch too cold, actually. Maybe it is better to say: Marina is the shop magician, transforming a perfume shopping exercise into a trip to wonderland.

Bologna, the day before, saw me giving a presentation, translated by Roberto Drago, with a lot of smiles and a happy crowd. OK, here’s the thing: Italian perfume lovers are one of a kind. And it saw me give a workshop, as mentioned before. Today’s picture shows you a snapshot in the middle of it. Busy noses smelling and busy hands mixing. The printed pages that you see on the Photo: An excel print out with information about all the raw materials that went into PHI-une rose de Kandahar, with empty fields for the attendant’s remarks about the raw materials, and a column where they were supposed to write numbers, volume to be pipetted later for their own creation of une rose de Kandahar.

Before we all smelled the raw materials: We discussed how we imagined a rose de Kandahar: Fascinating! About 10 more ideas for a perfume popped up during this short session. And then, then, the room morphed into a perfume factory.

Everybody who participated could take home a 15 ml spray flacon, with his/her own mixed rose. Of course, I gave some hints… basically I told (in the excel) how the base and top might be mixed: But the rose heart had to be imagined. It was super fascinating to see how diverse all the perfumes turned out.

Some were very good. Some where, as one said: Insect repellent.

But even there is hope: As I told my perfume loving friends at the end of the workshop… your mixture needs to mature now. Who knows how much it will change….

After this wonderful experience, I have to admit that I do not really know whether I would love to repeat this workshop. I could say a lot about the why. Maybe just this: a gut feeling. And with that I have said nothing, really. OK. What’s next?

No train ride for the next few weeks: I had my share there (5 hours delay on way to Bologna, 1.5 hours delay on way back).

Feeling motivated to prepare now for the fragrance show Pitti Fragranze in Florence.

And feeling ready to hit the creative mess in my perfume creation “studio” again, knowing that studio as term does not fit really. Let’s say: fragrant joy capsule.