SAN FRANCISCO PART 2

After the breakfast (which was also lunch), the Saturday activities continued with the San Francisco Sniff, organized by Tama Blough (photo, with the colorful hair), who writes for CaFleureBon. Tama had put together swag bags for everyone who participated, so I scored some samples of things I would not otherwise have had a chance to experience, including some by perfumers who were not at the show. The Sniffers gathered first at the Alexander Book Store for a reading by Alyssa Harad, accompanied by sampling of a number of vintage perfumes. I think I was most taken with Jean Patou’s 1000, which I had not smelled in the vintage version before. I have to say that Alyssa’s reading was extremely moving. Everyone was practically in tears by the time she was done. If you like to read books about perfume, you should definitely check it out.

My copy of Alyssa’s book, pre-ordered from Amazon, arrived the same day I got back from SF along with the third book in Naguib Mahfouz’s Cairo Trilogy, which I am compelled to read first to find out what happens to all of the characters that I followed through the first two. A while back I had the good luck of finding the first two books at a local thrift store for next to nothing, but of course the third one was missing. Anyway, I’m halfway through Sugar Street, and will start on Alyssa’s book very soon. By the way, all of the Mahfouz books mention perfume frequently, although the details are mostly left to the imagination.

Rather than going to the department stores for the remainder of the Sniff, Michael and I took off on a walkabout and ended up at Yerba Buena Gardens where the Merola Opera Program was performing. It was the only sunny day we experienced while in San Francisco, but it was magnificent, with not a cloud in the sky. Lying on the grass on a cool day with warm sun, listening to a full orchestra and some really good singers – what an afternoon! The big surprise was the second excerpt that they performed, from Boito’s Mephistopheles, the scene where Faust enters into his deal with the Devil, as well as some subsequent scenes featuring our friend Dev – yet another example of synchronicity given that Sunday was the official launch of the DevilScents.

 That evening there was a champagne reception and dinner organized and partially sponsored by Yosh Han, who was the primary moving force behind the Salon. I’ve been continually impressed by Yosh’s ability to network like mad and get things done, and when I met her in person it was a pleasure to find that in addition to being highly efficient, she was unpretentious, down-to-earth, and altogether a nice person.

A huge thank-you to Yosh for organizing the Salon !!!

The dinner was at the Press Club, an upscale wine bar. The food we had was excellent, but the portions were so minimal that Michael said he wanted to stop for a burger on the way “home”. We didn’t, but we did compensate the next day by pigging out at the Buckhorn Grill, a fast-food “steak” stand in the Metreon food court.

The Press Club dinner was a wonderful opportunity to meet people and get to know them and their families. I had a great time talking to Shelly Waddington (En Voyage Perfumes, left in photo), Mandy Aftel (Aftelier Perfume, middle, bright purple top) and Lisa Fong (Artemisia Natural Perfume) and their respective husbands (Mandy's husband, Foster, is second from right, in orange shirt). I also enjoyed meeting Ragna Rostad-Ruffner (Divine Life Perfumes, second from left), Brent Leonesio (Smell Bent), Laurie Stern (Velvet and Sweet Pea) … and the list could go on and on. I know this sounds like name-dropping at its worst, but it was exciting to meet so many people that I’d read about or interacted with online, and I’d like to share my impression that they all seem like genuinely nice people. Perfumers, at least the ones I’ve met so far, are not the pretentious creatures that advertising copy writers might want us to believe. How can you be pretentious when you spend your time smelling things?

By the time the evening was over, I felt like I’d made connections with a whole new community of real people, and went to sleep looking forward to Sunday’s show. That report up next!

[Alexander Books photo from their website, group photo at Press Club by Mario Gomez, others mine] 

SAN FRANCISCO PART 1 AND THUNDERSTORMS

Where to start with a report on San Francisco? I suppose I could start at the end and tell you that I’ve been feeling terrible since I got back, sleeping a lot, and not getting much done. This means that I’m even more behind on shipping out orders and posting here than I would otherwise be. Little by little I’m feeling better and trying to get caught up.

It would make the most sense to begin at the beginning, with our arrival at the Hotel Abigail aka America’s Best Value Inn on Friday night. In terms of location and price we couldn’t have done better. It was located at the border between the Civic Center and Tenderloin districts, right next to the law school. It was only a few blocks from Market Street and a BART stop, and was within easy walking distance of all of the event venues. It was an old building from the 1920s, partially renovated and reasonably clean, and before we left they even got the ancient steam radiators working to take the chill off the cold San Francisco summer! The hotel had just changed owners and the staff were not the most competent, but you can’t have everything.

On Saturday morning I attended the “Supplier’s Breakfast”. Here’s a photo of (left to right) Lisa Fong (Artemisia Natural Perfume), yours truly, Alyssa Harad (Author of Coming to my Senses: A Story of Perfume) and Roxanna Villa (Roxanna Illuminated Perfume) at the Wichcraft Café (‘wich being short for sandwich, not a misspelled sorceress, but it seemed appropriate anyway). The breakfast was sponsored by Fragrance West, a company whose business is making large quantities of perfume concentrate based on clients’ formulas or briefs. It seems that some “artisan” perfumers have gone this route, in whole or in part, especially those who sell to distributors in Europe or other places where everything has to be certified IFRA-compliant. I have mixed feelings about this approach, especially given that making the concentrate is only one part of mass production. A more labor-intensive part (if you do it yourself) is bottling and packaging.

I suppose the major advantage of this approach is that one has an official “kosher for IFRA” certificate, but I’m not to the point where I want to sell thousands of bottles to European department stores. I don’t know that I ever will be. What I do know is that if I were producing for the mass market through a third party, especially one that was doing the formulating, I would no longer be an “artisan perfumer”, I would be a perfume company CEO. The question of what to farm out and what to do oneself is an ongoing topic for contemplation. Right now I do literally everything myself, but wouldn’t mind delegating some routine tasks like sample-making to a part-time employee. Beyond that … I don’t know.

Overall, the breakfast was a great opportunity to meet many of the participants in the Salon, as well as others who were there. One of the highlights for me was getting to meet Linda Andrews, of the Perfumer’s Apprentice, who is one of the only suppliers of aroma chemicals in small (less than 1 kg) amounts. I have bought a lot of things from Linda over the years, and it was wonderful to get to talk to her and have a face to put with the name. She’s one of my perfumery heroes because her work makes indie perfumers’ work possible. Thank you Linda!

I started this post yesterday and abandoned it halfway to take some aspirin, a hot bath and sleep. I’ve been feeling a little better today so got all of my pending orders filled, packed, and ready to go to the post office. All but one. Michael took this person’s payment, name, and address at the show, but didn’t write down what it was that he ordered. Michael’s famous last words were, “I’ll remember”.  Lesson Number One: Write down what people order!

Ever since last night we’ve been having freakish thunderstorms. We almost never have thunderstorms in the Pacific Northwest, but when we do, they go all out with massive amounts of lightning and thunder. This afternoon the lightning was so close that there was no lag between the flash and the boom. Of the half dozen storms that have come through, only two have had rain, one with big hail. It’s mostly lots and lots of lightning. Not a nice welcome back to Seattle.

The next post will continue the report on Saturday’s activities and probably more lessons learned. 

[Hotel photo from their website; lightning photo from Wikimedia, other photos mine]

CLUES FOR THE CONTEST

Now that I’m home again, I’ll get around to writing about my experiences in San Francisco, but first I’d like to announce that no one came close to guessing which posts got the most hits. Some titles that you mentioned were posts that I would like to have had get lots of hits, but that wasn’t the case. Those who guessed “Ambroxan and Not a Perfume” came close, since it’s somewhere in the top 20, but it’s not in the top 5.

Here are the clues:

Two posts deal with a food material and a perfume material.

One post deals with pruning of trees and shrubs

One post deals with a seasonal perfume and an orchid.

One post is about a small fragrant orchid flower and a perfume.

Happy hunting, and good luck!

[Puzzle picture from Wikimedia]

A CONTEST WHILE I'M OUT OF TOWN

I don't plan to post anything until I'm back from my San Francisco trip on the 11th, and it may be a few days before I get around to it even then, with catch-up to do after leaving the orchids in the care of a house-sitter.

To provide a little fun and games to brighten up your summer, I'd like to set up a contest. It goes like this:

In the two years that this blog has been in existence, what are the 5 posts that have received the most page views? Frankly, I was surprised when I checked. The person who comes closest to guessing will get a BIG gift package full of fragrant surprises. The second place person will get a medium box of fragrant surprises, and third place will get a little box of the same. If no one guesses any of them, I'll start giving clues to aid in the treasure hunt, and it will be over when it's over, i.e., when there are three people who correctly guess at least one to three of the most "popular" posts.

Over and out.

[Roulette photo from Wikimedia]

A POTPOURRI FOR THURSDAY

I didn’t start this intending to write about making a potpourri, although potpourri would certainly fall under the umbrella of perfumery. When I started writing, what I had in mind was a random mix of snips and snails and puppy-dogs’ tails of information that wouldn’t fit anywhere else, sort of a clean-up operation before I leave town. But writing has a way of taking its own course once I sit down at the laptop, sort of like characters in a play.

I have to say that I am not a fan of potpourris, tending to focus on the “pourri” (rotten) aspect of them, and having far too many memories of being gifted with cellophane or cloth packages of dried, crumbling plant material impregnated with nasty-smelling synthetic scents. The thought of making a real-life potpourri had never crossed my mind until I sat down to write this. My mind having steered itself in this direction, however, I’m thinking about what my criteria would be for an acceptable potpourri, and how I would use it.

I’m not big on scenting my drawers or closets. Lord knows there are enough fragrances floating around the house all the time to fumigate any moths that might be lurking in the shadowy corners of these places, and I don’t wear wool. It’s too scratchy, and I think I might be mildly allergic to it. I do occasionally enjoy burning incense, so potpourri as a room scent might be the way to go. Maybe potpourri would work best as a dry perfume that could then be tinctured, or maybe it could even be burned as loose incense.

For a potpourri to be acceptable, it would have to be natural, not scented with anything synthetic since that seems like that defeats the purpose of making it in the first place. I’ve got enough rose petals to dry and start with, but I don't think they’re going to be the primary scent material. My guess is that flower petals mostly just function as the sponge that absorbs other things. I’ve got tons of peony petals, and they could also function as a scent sponge. There’s plenty of lavender growing nearby, there’s rosemary, mint, sage, thyme, and lemon verbena, there’s my overflowing spice drawer, and there are all of the various dried herbal things sitting around in my storage area with the idea that one day I’m going to tincture them.

I don’t think I like potpourris in bags, so maybe a pot of some sort would be the way to go, like the nice ceramic orchid pots made by my sister-in law, who is a potter. My idea is that potpourri should be a cumulative project to which things keep getting added as they become available, so it would be constantly changing with the seasons, but with a common thread of old the stuff combined with the new. 

Now I see that writing has led to a new experiment, which I’m actually going to undertake and report on from time to time as it progresses. The first batch of rose and peony petals are drying in the sun right now, and I’m finding that as they dry, the scent intensifies. The white peony petals smell fabulous! When it’s finished, some lucky readers will have a chance to smell the result. But in the meantime, what do you think about potpourri? Would you use it at all? What for? What characteristics would your ideal potpourri have? 

PACKING FOR A PERFUME SHOW

We’re leaving for San Francisco on Friday in order to be there for the pre-Salon events on Saturday. I thought it might be fun to post a “before” account of my preparations for the Artisan Fragrance Salon, followed by an “after” account of what worked and what didn’t once the learning experience is over. For anyone in San Francisco interested in checking it out, it will be held on Sunday, July 6, from 11:00-5:00, at Gallery 4N5, 863 Mission Street. 

First of all, I opted to ship all of my product to the hotel where I’m staying rather than take it in a checked bag. I’m bringing full bottles in 5.5 ml, 15 ml, and 30 ml sizes. The small sprays include all of the fragrances in my line, as well as all of the DevilScents that I’m launching, and I expect to use one of each for a tester. The larger bottles include some that I had on hand and some of the most popular ones, but not everything. If I don’t have a particular fragrance, people can order it at the Salon, and I’ll ship it at no charge. I debated selling sample packs, but was swayed by Ayala Sender’s comment, in which she said something to the effect that she didn’t want to travel to another country just to sell samples. I think that makes a lot of sense, since samples are primarily for people who can’t try a fragrance in person, on the spot. After I shipped my big packages, I did decide that I should give free samples with purchase, so ended up shipping another package of just samples. The big question is how much stuff will be left to ship back after the Salon is over.

Along with the product, I shipped advertising cards, business cards, display stands, testing strips and baggies to put them in, and press packets with hard-copy press releases and samples.

In last-minute packing, following last weekend’s orchid show, I bought 3 yards of non-wrinkling, beautifully-draping crushed velvet to cover the table, changed out the signs in the acrylic stands that I use at orchid shows, cleaned up my table banner, tested my new Square device for scanning credit cards, and am now agonizing over the eternal female question of “What to wear?” 

I like to travel extra-light, so will probably stick to my usual repertoire of basic black easy-pack items, but there’s a part of me that thinks I should go all high fashion for this event. However, I hate schlepping around anything more than the basic necessities, so will probably forego the fashionable approach, given that the event is out of town. I can always rationalize the decision with the argument that I don’t want to upstage my creations and that launching the DevilScents requires the wearing of black.

Countdown is now 1 day to takeoff and 3 days to the event itself. I think the most exciting part of the whole experience is going to be actually meeting so many people I only know through the internet. 

[Sea-Tac and San Francisco Airport photos from Wikimedia; Gallery logo from their website]

OF GREENHOUSES, MOTEL SMELLS, AND HUMAN EVOLUTION

I spent the weekend at an orchid show and sale in a small town in the southern part of Washington State. While the rest of the US is cooking in record heat, we are currently suffering the usual midsummer doldrums of weather that’s neither hot nor cold, just clammy and mostly cloudy. Usually on the 5^th of July the sun comes out and stays out until September, but that’s still a few days off.

The orchid show was held in a commercial greenhouse. On Saturday, the sun was shining part of the time, warming the greenhouse up to at least 80-85 degrees F (28-30C). It was surprising how quickly things warmed up once the sun started shining in. It was a perfect demonstration of the “greenhouse effect” on a relatively small scale. Of course as soon as the space got warm, everyone started whining about the heat. I was perfectly comfortable after stripping down to my tank top, but everyone else insisted on keeping their long-sleeved t-shirts and fleece hoodies on, sweating, and complaining about how hot they were.

People in the Pacific Northwest wear fleece jackets or hoodies year-round as a sort of uniform.  I’ve come to do so, too, usually as a middle layer that can be removed if it’s warm (seldom), or added to with a leather jacket if it’s cold (often). It’s a practical way to deal with the unpredictable weather, but a lot of people don’t seem to realize that the fleece is removable.

Saturday night I stayed at a cheap motel. The room smelled like it had never been aired out, retaining the smell of years worth of steamy showers and the resulting odor of dirty hair and mildew. I will have to say that it wasn’t as bad as the smell of years worth of cigarette smoking in the old days, before non-smoking rooms. Every hotel or motel room has its own characteristic odor, some worse than others. A lot of them reek of cleaning supplies, some almost to the point of being intolerable. In the US and Europe, the cleaning odors are caustic and vaguely synthetic-citrus, and can be practically asphyxiating. I remember once staying in a hotel near the airport in Madrid where the cleaning supply smell was so bad that I picked a lot of lavender and rosemary from a flower bed outside and slept with it under my nose to mask the odor of the room. In the old DDR and other Soviet bloc countries, everything smelled of a certain type of phenolic disinfectant – I still think of that as the smell of communism.

The other thing I noticed at the motel was that the air conditioning unit in the room next door was running all night long, making noise. The temperature outside was about 68F (22C), so I don’t know whether the people were heating or cooling the room. It could have gone either way. My guess is that they were cooling it, given that the restaurant where we ate on Saturday evening was significantly colder inside than the temperature outside. I’m always puzzled by the practice, common in the Pacific Northwest, of using air conditioning when the temperature outside is in a comfortable range. There’s something that’s just not right about having to bundle up in cold-weather gear when shopping in a supermarket or eating in a restaurant. The most ironic thing of all is that the production of energy to run all of the air conditioners in the US must be generating a huge amount of CO2, which contributes to the greenhouse effect and global warming, which causes people to run their air conditioners even more … a vicious cycle if ever there was one.

It’s my understanding that humans first evolved somewhere in Africa, where the temperature is warm to hot. Speaking for myself, I’m pretty sure my remote ancestors were closer to monkeys swinging in a jungle than walruses sitting on an iceberg, so I like to be warm enough to go barefoot and take off my fleece jacket. I now seem to be in the minority, since most people like to be much cooler than I do, and I can’t help wondering if humans are evolving in a way that is causing them to lose the ability to temperature-regulate when it’s warm. 

[All photos from Wikimedia]