Today, there is more time to think on form, reception of forms and a little bit on function. Why this? Because I will have to do quite some boxing and labeling and sample making today. Time to meditate, think about mails that I need to write and time to think about a packaging issues. Packaging is so important when it comes to presenting fragrances.

Frighteningly important; so important that I always fear spending too much time and energy on these issues. So many aspects come together and need to fit. Yesterday, for instance, on the way to the movies, all excited because I got to see King’s speech in a lovely vintage like cinema, the W.-factor and me discussed briefly the rubber stamp for the Collectibles, respectively for the first fragrance there: The Linden blossom theme.

I will need to use two rubber stamps for the information that is prone to change from year to year or batch to batch: The EU allergen declaration and the haiku, as I may want to change to another haiku based description sooner or later. This translates into another manual extra step, which means more work to pack the perfume or to produce samples. We discussed this aspect, which translates into more time to get things out. We grumbled a bit about it, realizing that on the other hand, this linden blossom might be one of the few fragrances in this strange perfume market that has a rubber stamp mark on its labels, maybe even with a handwritten “2011” for the year of production, like limited photography prints.

And, at the end of the day, this matters.

But what matters more is the form of the perfume. And here is a nice , says it all, concentrated into one sentence description of the form,  by Jo Fairley, in Mail on Sunday Magazine (UK), on roses, featuring a few great rose perfumes, such as Clive Christian’s 1872, or Creeds “Fleur de The Rose Bulgare” (I will need to try both  the next time when I am in the UK.)

She describes the rose chyprée: “Like all chypre perfumes, it’s sophisticated – and a little bit “vintage”, too.” This is charming. And like most creators, I am susceptible to charming words, thus her “With turbocharged staying power, one of the two new rose introductions from a self-taught “niche” perfumer who is the talk of the industry.” makes me smile, too.

But, I smile even more, when I look to the right, where my new camera sits next to me. My old one did not survive surgery and I needed to get a new Nikon. Nikon was nice and gave me a discount. Cheers to Nikon!

Today’s picture is the first shot done with the new baby, shot at 7 am, with shaky sweaty hands. All excited