Friday, March 29, 2013

Variations on a Theme


The simple round tins with solid perfume are being added to the E-shop today. For the moment I've put the fragrances into three basic tiers to make pricing a bit easier. Keep in mind there are still a few tweaks to be made.

Tier 1 is made up of the most expensive fragrances in my line, these are perfumes that are complex and/or have very expensive ingredients, in the case of these five it is a combination of both. For example, GreenWitch contains four chords, one which is a chord within a chord as well as jasmine, rose and seaweed.

TIER ONE

Gracing the Dawn
Green Witch
Hedera helix
Rosa
To Bee

Simple Round Tins, 8.7 grams  $69.60
Round Compact, 5.3 grams $90
Oval Compacts $98


Tier 2 is made up of the fragrances that are not quite as complex as those in Tier one and contain very expensive ingredients. For example Chaparral and Terrestre are not quite as complex as Chiaroscuro, however both contain Oud, one of the most expensive raw materials currently available.

TIER TWO

Chaparral
Chairoscuro
Cimbalom
Figure 1: Noir
Page 47
Terrestre
Vera
Vespertina

Simple Round Tins, 8.7 grams  $60.90
Round Compact, 5.3 grams $82 - $85
Oval Compacts $95

Tier 3 are fragrances which tend to have the least complexity in their formulation and the ingredients are not quite as pricey as those in the two previous categories. For example Aurora does contain some precious essences like jasmine, rose and carnation but there are only seventeen total ingredients in its formula.

TIER THREE

Aumbre
Aurora
Figure 10: Blanc
Lyra
Q
Sierra Solid Gold

Simple Round Tins, 8.7 grams  $52.50
Round Compact, 5.3 grams $80
Oval Compacts $95 - $85

Wednesday, March 27, 2013

Artisan Fragrance Salon, SF 2013


This past Sunday I participated in the second annual Artisan Fragrance Salon which took place on at Fort Mason in San Francisco alongside a large Chocolate event. Greg was teaching an Artist As Brand workshop in Seattle and Eve is away at college in Vermont, thus I had Jerusa help me out at the booth. Jerusa is a very dear friend, lover of fragrance and doctor of psychology in the bay area.


Since I chose to fly up and make it a quick trip I hooked up with the extremely talented gals from Studio Choo, a local San Francisco floral design team. Alethea and Jill created three absolutely gorgeous bouquets for the table. The main, large arrangement included lilacs, jasmine, boronia, ranunculus, sweet peas and many more flowers in perfect harmony with the palette of the booth. One of the reasons I longed to work with the talent at Studio Choo is that they combine exquisite aesthetics with a love of things wild and natural, choosing to work with locally grown, fresh and seasonal flowers whenever possible.


The event opened to the public at 10am, at 11:30 I presented "The Cabinet of Aromatic Wonders, A History of Natural Perfume" to a very attentive group with all seats full in the Fragrance Pool area. The content for the talk came from the aromatherapy classes and workshops I taught back in 1996. After the presentation I went back to the booth where Jerusa was successfully holding down the fort all on her own.

Green Witch, once again, garnered the most interest. Something that I had not yet witnessed was numerous men showing great interest in Vespertina, which now has me rethinking the branding of the fragrance. The incense and wood note paired with the florals in Vespertina smelled quite perfect and wonderful on the four men who desired to test it on their skin.


Fig. 1: Noir was unveiled and greatly appreciated. The perfume is now finished in both solid and liquid format and will be making an appearance at the shop shortly. One of the things Greg did while on his last day up in Seattle was a photo shoot for Noir using the model Jessica Lough. Although I haven't seen the photos yet Greg's excitement from the shoot is quite palatable. He and Jessica, along with the models boyfriend Andre and workshop facilitator Tara Chang Larson all had great creative chemistry together.


It's difficult to gauge whether these events are "pay off" or not. For me I greatly adore meeting each of you in person and hearing the stories you share. There is also a feeling of camaraderie amongst the perfumers who represent a variety of disciplines from those who formulate and create each fragrance by hand, those who use formulators and labs, those who sell at stores like Anthropologie and the newbies just starting out. Perfume is an art form with an extremely diverse palate from the spectrum of pure botanicals to synthetics and everything in between.

Here's a few photos from various booths in the fragrance salon, everyone had taken their presentation to new heights compared to the last SF event. As you can see, pretty much everyone is utilizing some sort of bell jar for experiencing the perfumes.

Tuesday, March 19, 2013

Full throttle


It is full throttle "get ready for the show" here at in the woodland apothecary. Between creating synergies, decanting and making solid perfume I'm also working out all the final details for the booth.
Helpers have been orchestrated, its mostly down to all the fine tuning of the visual and scented accoutrements. I'm giving a presentation at 11:30am thus there are a few things to take care of on that front as well.

I'd love to hear from you which liquid perfumes to take to the show. I have eight little glass domes, in which three I have chosen for sure are: To Bee GreenWitch and the brand new Figure Noir. For the other five I'm considering: Rosa, Q, Hedera helix, Chiaroscuro and Vespertina. This selection covers the most popular selling fragrances as well as a difference range.


Tuesday, March 12, 2013

The Looking Glass


Greg and I ventured over the Santa Monica Mountains yesterday for a meeting at the Hotel Del Mar in Santa Monica. Those of you who read this journal regularly know that I am on the constant search for bottles and containers that meet my aesthetic and environmental criteria without needing to order 10 to 25K units.


Well, I'm excitedly to report I finally may have found an alternate source for my liquid perfume bottles and sprayers. Nothing is for sure until I have the actual order in hand, but, there seems to be a bright light at the end of the long and crazy road of uber niche, conscious, natural perfumery packaging.


In general I haven't been getting out of the studio much due to orders. Yesterday wasn't the smartest day to be out and about, however, the day was gloriously beautiful and a treat to look out on the blue ocean and clear sky. Santa Monica is one of my very favorite places to go and the outing in the fresh air did both of us good a world of goodness...besides the thrilling aspect of new bottles!

Thursday, March 7, 2013

Dance of the Spirits


Aurora in her liquid form has returned! The formula is the same thus there should be no to very little shifts in the fragrance of this botanical perfume. Unlike many of my other perfumes, Aurora is quite simple in her composition, with only seventeen individual essences and no accords/chords. One of the precious ingredients is a carnation absolute from France that is absolutely stunning and I am happy to say was instrumental in getting me to start making botanical perfumes. I adore the spicy floral scent of carnations.


On Saturday I asked Greg to pick me up some fresh carnation flowers for new photos. He brought back a bouquet of deliciously scented red blossoms which I used for multiple shots including the solid. I still have more to do. If you feel inspired please let me know which photos you like the best.


Since people are becoming more and more visual and less into reading specifics about a purchase, I took some photos with a ruler to indicate size of the vial containing 1 gram of fragrance. I used my Women Rulers of Science for the shots.


Almost all varieties of Aurora are now in the shop, including a bottle from the 2012 edition and in the new honey bee cases. The round flat tin will be added shortly.


The name Aurora was chosen for the sparkle quality of the fragrance which reminded me of the phenomena that occurs in the sky at the magnetic poles of the Earth, both in the north and south. The Cree refer to the aurora borealis as Dance of the Spirits, which works rather nicely with Greg's image and a botanical perfume created with grape spirits.


The illumination that accompanies this fragrance is a detail of an image by Greg titled Snow Faerie, featured in his 2009 Calendar Divine Nature. The image is available in his shop with a set of postcards and a fine art print.


Wednesday, March 6, 2013

It's happening now!


For the last two months there have been little signs of Spring here in my little wild wood garden. First is the ever persistent non-native grasses, which pop their vital green sprouts up after the first rains in the late Autumn.


While in the Santa Monica Mountains, close to the coast the white ceonothus blooms across the hillsides, my blue variety slumbers...until today! for some reason, this event is always very exciting, I squeal in delight when she surprises me with her beautiful, delicately scented, cerulean blooms.



Meanwhile, the plants and seeds we put into the warm earth of the early Autumn are thriving with lots of volunteer natives making an appearance. In two different locations we have Artemesia californica, cowboy sage, coming up on its own. The wild roses and Matilija poppies are sending out underground shoots and spreading nicely.



Baby oaks are all over the slope, thanks to the acorn fairies, the squirrels.



I can just imagine the excitement in the bees hive, which reminds me, must do a check and add more boxes for the honey flow!




Friday, March 1, 2013

Everything is Connected


I finished reading A Song of Fire and Ice, the first book of the Game of Thrones series and enjoyed it very much, although not as much as I am enjoying Cloud Atlas. I've found that the David Mitchell novel addresses so many contemporary issues and has female characters I can relate to more intimately. 

In one of the six nested stories in the novel Cloud Atlas we meet our potential dystopic future where the corporation has finally achieved control. As Obama seriously considers moving forward with the Keystone XL pipeline, supporting big oil, I can feel ourselves inching toward the future described in the book. Meanwhile the EU fragrance regulators want to further there list of banned natural materials from the palette of perfumers. I smell a corporate chemical rat.

I mentioned to a friend the other day that we use Credo as our cell phone provider because of their progressive values but am conflicted because I want an I-phone and they don't offer service for the I-phone. His response was, "We are all just ants, supporting Credo over ATT makes no difference." Well, I refuse to entertain that limiting belief system and counter with what transpired here in the woodland with saving seven oaks.

Although the corporation appears to be making great strides I'm holding out for humans to wake up to what is in their best interest. I'm just about finished with the Cloud Atlas novel, next stop will be Mutant Message Down Under and seeing Cloud Atlas once more this time by way of a BluRay disc.