WATER PATTERNS

Yesterday I took the Kingston Ferry to pick up orchid flasks. Riding the ferry across the sound is always like a mini-vacation, and yesterday was unusually beautiful. The weather was warm, the sky partly overcast, the smell of freshly exposed seaweed in the air, and the water completely calm. It was the lowest tide I’ve seen for a long time. I stood on the front deck of the ferry and stared down at the hypnotic, moving reflection patterns in the water. Those water patterns are more fascinating than any psychedelic show if you focus on appreciating their beauty instead of looking at the gaggle of summer shorts-clad, selfie-snapping, soda-slurping tourists that infest Seattle ferries at this time of year.

At one point the sun partially broke through the clouds, and the shifting water patterns were joined by bright rainbow patches that danced around and took me completely by surprise.

I noticed a young tourist girl who seemed as fascinated as I was by the water, ignoring her family’s loud comments about her clothing, and their suggestions that everyone should go inside, “out of the wind”. I like to think that she saw the same beauty that I did, and that there are still children and artists whose minds have not been completely shaped to only perceive and value manmade things.  

Here’s a question for you, dear reader: If you have seen the kind of water patterns I’m talking about, or the dancing patterns of sun and shadows on a stream bed, what sort of perfume would represent them?

[Painting by Claude Monet, who seemed as fascinated by water patterns as I am, other images from Wikimedia.] 

FREE FLOATING SUMMER

If everything had gone according to plan, we would have been on vacation in Ireland this week – our first real vacation since our honeymoon 15 years ago, and I would probably be hiking somewhere, not writing anything for the blog. I did a marathon grading and end-of-academic-year cleanup session, submitted all of my grades early, cleared my calendar of all commitments, and was set to leave the day after classes ended.

Then husband Michael broke his ankle. The highly orchestrated whirlwind trip has been postponed until August and I feel like I’m floating free in a dreamlike state most of the time, living the lifestyle of our cat, who has no responsibilities, comes and goes as he pleases, and enjoys the long days of summer to the fullest. Other than driving Michael to medical appointments, I’m free of commitments, and have not made an effort to reschedule any of the ones that I canceled for the trip.

I’ve almost caught up on filling and shipping orders, have been working on replenishing perfume concentrates and stock, and should actually have time to update my websites and send out newsletters next week. I might even have time to update my perfume bottle photos, something that’s been at the back of my mind for years, but never manages to rise to the top of the “urgent” list.

The sensation of jumping from a packed, hectic schedule one day to no schedule the next day has been a fascinating experience. It felt like going from being constantly knocked around like a soccer ball in full play to floating freely in a void where time stands still. For the past week I’ve been able to get enough sleep, go running every day, go grocery shopping and cook, and just enjoy being outdoors in the perfect warm, sunny, summer weather that we’ve had all through the month of June.

The experience of floating through a week of summer with nothing on my calendar and almost no one knowing I wasn’t out of town made me think about what sort of perfume would epitomize that state. My favorite experience whenever I’m in LA is walking down the street and smelling jasmine. It’s everywhere, and to me it epitomizes being in a carefree, sunny place. When I travel, I usually try to take an extra day just to float free, out of touch with everyday life, wandering around the city, foraging my way through parks, museums, eating places, markets, shops, or whatever seems interesting. Sometimes it’s just sitting quietly in a coffee shop enjoying being alone. There’s something magical about the anonymity of being in an unknown place, with no one I know being aware of where I am. This is the free-floating experience that I’d like to capture in a perfume. Maybe magic can't be captured in a bottle, but I’m willing to try. 

[All photos from Wikimedia except the second one, of the madrone tree on a cliff. That one is mine.]

TOO MUCH OF A GOOD THING WINNER

The winner of Last Monday's draw for decants from Azar's big bottles is CCDOUGLASS. See last Monday's post for information on how to claim your prize.

Congratulations!

[Photo by Azar]

HOW TO MAKE E-COMMERCE VENDORS LOVE HAVING YOU AS A CUSTOMER

I never cease to be amazed by the proliferation and apparent popularity of articles on how to be better at something or other. Ten ways to improve your time management. Five ways to get more sleep. Fifteen ways to leave your lover. Six ways to train your cat to fetch your perfume samples. Because I’m always happy to pontificate about things, I thought it might be fun to start a series in parallel to mass-market Mondays: Self-help Saturdays. I’m going to start with something I’ve written about before, but will expand on here – how to be a better e-commerce customer.

There is no better way to learn what not to do as a customer than to be a vendor for a while. Here are my ten tips for ingratiating yourself with the people who sell you merchandise online. Believe me, if a vendor likes you, you will get the best service they can offer. If you screw up royally, you will go on their no-sell list.

1. Do not try to scam the vendor. I assume none of my readers would try to do this, but it does happen. Scamming behavior is what gets you on the no-sell list.

2. Do pay for your order and give me your correct shipping address. Proofread your order before sending it. If you need to specify choices, do so. 

3. Do not start bombarding me with spam or ask me to like your irrelevant Facebook page that I know nothing about.

4. Do like my Facebook page if you honestly like my products, and let your friends know about my business. Leave a review on my website. Every vendor loves feedback.

5. Do not e-mail or phone me the day after you place your order and ask why it has not shipped yet or why it has not arrived already. Small businesses may need a few days lead time on shipping, or more than that if the person running the business and/or doing the shipping is out of town, has an emergency to deal with, or receives an unusually high volume of orders.

6. Do be patient and wait a reasonable amount of time for your order to arrive before asking whether it has shipped and when to expect it. For domestic orders, this would 7-10 days and for international orders 2-3 weeks. There’s nothing wrong with a little delayed gratification.

7. Do not order a large size of a product and then complain that after using it you don’t like it and want your money back.

8. Do try small samples before you buy a large size. For products that can’t be sampled, read consumer reviews carefully and do your homework before ordering merchandise. Be sure it’s what you want. Impulse buys and frivolous returns cost everyone money.

9. Do not communicate with vendors in an abusive way or blame them for problems that occurred in transit.

10. Do send the vendor a polite message if a product malfunctions or a product is damaged in transit. The vendor will almost always work with you to send a replacement, refund your money, or otherwise troubleshoot.

I will end this post by saying that I love 99% of my customers and 99% of the companies from which I order merchandise. None of us wants to be in that other 1%. 

[Shop window painting by Isaac Israels (1894), bookseller print "The Bookman" (1896), children in a shop painting, W.L. Laguy (19th century), retro postman photo from Wikimedia]

IS THE SIGNATURE SCENT DEAD?

This morning I was surprised to see a short article entitled “How to find your signature scent”. How many of those have you seen over the years? It doesn’t appear to be a zombie article from decades ago because it was published just this week on a website mostly dedicated to business, not perfume. In all fairness it’s probably directed at people who have never used perfume before. Still, I thought that the alliterative concept of the single “signature scent” was a relic of the 20^th century. Maybe I lead a sheltered life in the ivory tower of perfumista-hood.

The advice on how to choose a signature scent was basically, “go to a department store, try a few things, decide what you like and buy the perfume and a matching lotion”. OK. That’s one approach. What I wonder is how many people today actually do that? How many people ever did that? I know that even in my pre-perfumista days I liked to smell a variety of scents and would never have worn the same perfume two days in a row, or even two days in the same week. I always checked out every perfume shop I saw, looking for new things, especially mini-bottles. I’ve had a collection of those as far back as I can remember.

Wearing a signature scent makes about as much sense as wearing just one type of clothing all the time. Come to think of it, some people do exactly that, like Steve Jobs and his iconic black turtlenecks, or my colleague from Texas who is never seen without his one cowboy hat and one pair of cowboy boots. I guess it makes life easy if you don’t have to spend any time thinking about what to wear or what to spray. However, to me, life is too short to spend it as a caricature of myself. On the other hand, maybe this strategy is the ultimate form of self-actualization. Is it a metaphysical achievement to find the one thing that epitomizes one’s being and stick with it exclusively and faithfully, setting aside all curiosity about everything else?

I really didn’t intend to make this post philosophical, but the question of severely limiting one’s style is an interesting one to explore, as are the pros and cons of having one perfume that announces your presence like a fanfare leitmotif and prompts people to say, “Oh, it smells like X was/is here in the room”.

One thing I love about living in the 21^st century is the amazing variety and lack of rigid societal norms about what we wear, either as clothing or perfume. We are free to play. I would not want to give up that freedom for an iconic “signature scent” or a black turtleneck. What do you think?

[Steve Jobs headshot from Wikipedia; poor Pepe Le Pew, who cannot get away from his/her signature scent, is from a Loony Tunes themed website, the sterile perfume counter is from a commercial website] 

FLASHBACK TO MARCH

The past two months have gone by like a tornado, leaving in their wake the usual post-tornado cleanup work to do. This includes sucking up all the twisted mobile home scraps of guilt about not posting here for months and getting back into the routine of blogging, tending my Facebook page, and updating my websites.

Flashing back to March, there was an out-of town orchid show, followed closely by the Artisan Fragrance Salon in San Francisco. Then there was a local orchid show, followed by another out-of town one in early April, followed by the Art and Olfaction Awards in LA the next weekend. The weekend I got back to Seattle started tech week for the theatre show that I was producing, which just finished its 3-week run on Sunday. To make matters worse, the student intern who usually helps me with orchid care and shipping was unable to work during much of this time.

You have to understand that because of my “day job” at the university, the prime time to work on orchids, perfumes and theatre is on the weekends, so being away or otherwise incapacitated on weekends puts a severe strain on my ability to take care of plants, fill orders, and work on production. I’m not complaining, mind you, because I acknowledge that I have a neurotic need to be constantly overbooked, and actually thrive on it. It’s just by way of explanation of why there were no blog posts between then and now.

I have to say that it has been an amazing and surreal couple of months, with some very successful shows of all types, Woodcut winning the Art and Olfaction Award, the business expanding, and just generally having fun.

It’s good to be back on the blog. This post is all about me, but I promise you that future posts will be more interesting!

[Tornado photo from Wikimedia; Golden Pear photo from the Art and Olfaction website; rat on running wheel from the website of a manufacturer of such equipment. ]