On Friday, I did a photo of the 02-l’air du désert marocain flacon with its outer packaging. I kind of like it a lot, as there is a certain unpretentiousness going with it. … you know: No pseudo vintage arrangements of objects, no human beings, no body fluids, saliva or alike, a presentation stripped down, to the essentials. A bottle, a label and a packaging.

OK, I admit it, there is some bling here, too. “Il minimo culturale, que vuole…!”

That’s the way I like it. The last few days saw me working a bit on scent, too. Although, to be honest, not really in a very focused fashion. I am still in exploratory territory there, and have not isolated the path that needs to be followed. Love it! I love it when there is no pressure to come up with anything serious, short term, and I love it to explorer ideas, in a somewhat wild fashion, like “ok, we might want a leather note there” and then see what happens.

To be honest, again, usually, what happens, is no miracle, but often a dense cloying sticky thing gets worse. Of course, you can cheat yourself and start with what has worked in the past, copy paste building blocks and just adjust here and there. Et voilà, it will sure work, but it will be comparable and not really innovative. Starting from scratch often means -in my case- total overload within formulas, dense beasts that feel like a wooly fabric after cooking it for an hour.

And then, minimalism as savior of a lazy perfumer, does not really work, either, not always.

But here’s the funny thing, and that’s how creative things work: With every detour , be it crazy, be it fun, be it by being lazy, be it baroque or be it stupid, with every detour, the target comes more into focus.

Overall, this weekend felt like early spring and was a busy one. I needed to write another interview, and was answering emails a gogo. Ah, yes, a side note: If you think that it helps writing me an email about PHI: it does not. There is no stock and I cannot ship. Even to you. Mi dispiace. But I am working on it, hoping to bring it back towards the end of this year. Other highlights:

I managed to squeeze in some time to paint.

We got the design for the Sotto la luna flacons labels, and sent off a test print of one of these.

We go into print with the last missing explorer set size labels, including Eau d’épices, edp, which will be back in a few weeks, too.

And finally, I read a great article with interview, about myself and the way I do things here, in the St. Petersburg Times (in English). I hope that you will find the time having reading this piece, too. Here’s the link. Enjoy!