This is a serious post. Maybe a difficult post to digest for a few out there. OK. Let’s start. The picture is from Avignon. A great piece of art. Love it.

I am trying to create perfumes beyond the ordinary. Yet, they need to be packed and shipped using the ordinary way: Postal services. We decided definitely for a folded paper inlay, yesterday, in our meeting with the design guru. This guy spent days on coming up with a paper cut that can be folded in a way that fulfills all criteria: Easy to fold. Holding the flacon inside the metal box, being aesthetically pleasing.  AND being light. Actually, we need it it as light as possible. Here in Switzerland, we have the 500 grams kill-off barrier set by the Swiss Post. Everything heavier than 500 grams costs a fortune to ship. And they weigh everything.  Ending with one or two gram too much on the balance from time to time,  we needed to do something there.

Thus, once we got through the rest of the boxes of series 1 (with simple black paper, crumpled, inside), we will do the folded thing in series 2 of the boxes that is already ordered and will get here end November 2010.

Keeping stocks is one of the biggest issues these days and also a cost factor. And getting the natural to work with is getting more and more difficult. Hey: Who out there is using real Sandalwood? We are a bunch of a few passionistas left. Sad, but this is how it is.

I am trying to create perfumes, using about 50% naturals in my formula (weight/weight, and number of ingredients/number of ingredients). This per se is not a guarantee for a good perfume, but it is a statement on a style. I usually do not talk about others, thus: I was so happy to read Nathan’s blog entry. Finally, someone points to the facts: Zero naturals out there. All gone. An art form dying. A thing of the past but nobody realizes and all talk as if they lived in a different world.

I am trying to come up with new perfumes from time to time.  Yet, I haven’t visited a perfumery since months. I stopped reading blog stories on new kids on the block, too. My interest for new stuff is running dry. I have read March’s post over there on PerfumePosse and said to myself: You are so right, lady. I wish all were so honest. Yes, it feels like a lot are all running dry in the perfume department. Guess why this is.

Thus, I am trying to create perfumes from time to time, not dealing with the rules of a market (that is going nuts these days, spinning faster and faster), and at the same day I am packing perfumes that will sell.

It is a balancing act, I guess.  But March’s post still bothers me. Glad it does.