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What a week, the sale has been keeping us very busy, and at the same time trying to create some inventory. This is always the problem, keeping up with the demand. I am going to have to set up to make samples, which is an all day job. Plus continuing to bottle and box. Love Speaks Primeval dropped this week, and for the first time we are selling more bottles than samples in the online shop. Usually people will purchase samples first. Not with this one. A lot of die hard vintage style chypre lovers out there. I am wearing it today. And I must admit, I smell goooood…… And for those who might be thinking it is too green, it isn’t. The balance of the actual chypre accord pairs nicely with the florals and other grounding notes. It is completely genderless on my skin.
Sneak Peek: I received an pdf file of the upcoming article on Oud featuring Oudh Lacquer for AYN Magazine. It is absolutely gorgeous. I am not sure when the magazine comes out, but have asked for permission to share the article. Wow do those folks do great work!
Monographs – I recently wrote a monograph of Grand Canyon for The Scented Salamander Blog. After receiving several positive responses to the piece, I have decided to add Monographs of all the scents in the line. Or at least the ones that have a back story. I will work on these as I have the time, but eventually plan to add a section at soivohle.com, to showcase them. Some of the stories are very interesting, as I did a lot of research for them, as it related to the perfume that was being created. It isn’t going to come about over night but is on my list of things to do.
Satellite Location – I am no where near where I need to be to open the boutique next week, and I have been thinking about renting a space in one of the big artist studio buildings in the city. Years ago I had a studio in the Pendleton Art Center, and am seriously considering renting a space. I have a few friends who have their art studios out away from the city as I do, and may be able to get a couple of people to share the space. The center has open house (gallery hop) every final friday and saturday of the month. It is well attended. Eight floors of studios. I would only use the space for the end of month openings, networking and retail sales. Sharing with a couple of painters would leave me some floor space to set up a counter/ display case for perfumes. It would be a great alternative to having a retail location in the city. Less expensive and I wouldn’t have to hire a staff… I would still take appointments for custom work at my home studio as I do now. But not have the boutique.
That’s all I have for now, getting back to making up samples, my least favorite thing to do.
Peace & Blessings ZZ……..
I feel like I have jumped a hurdle, and can take a long deep breath. I finished some of the web work today, and will start on the
newsletter tomorrow. For those who have been hanging around long enough, as well as pre-soivohle, you will remember when my bath and body line was part of our family business Peace Angel Farm. Over the past couple of years I have been trying to figure out how/or if the body products fit in with my vision for Soivohle’. I have finally decided to add them to the website full time, rather than seasonally. We will see how it goes. Many of these products have been around for a long time. Bath Salt Blends, Tub Teas, Oils, etc… I have also been adding some new things, in particular the Best Balm and Cold Cream. I spend a lot of time researching ingredients, and learning about how natural plant based materials are beneficial to human skin and health. Many of the new nutricutical ingredients used in cosmetics are not new at all, but naturally occurring in many of the plant oils and extracts that have been around for years. It was because of my skins own refusal to take to many of the synthesized versions of these materials that I first started making my own products, using a high degree of natural materials. All natural in many cases. I am not a purist, in the sense of having an agenda against all things synthetic. I do see the benefits to some things, but feel that it is more about 
making intelligent choices and at the same time creating a safe product. Having said that, I am really pleased with how the line has evolved. The new cold cream is great, and I have been using it just about every day for several weeks. I am also using the new Best Balm, and have a pot of it here on my desk, one on my night stand and one down in my office. I am currently stocking our boutique shelves with the new products, and am happy with the packaging. It all ties in (sort of) with our perfume packaging, giving the entire scope of products a more cohesive look. Once I get past the growing pains of adding in this new line, I will be fine. We will be fine. Now it is on to more boxing and gearing up for the holiday shoppers and meeting new people. Love that part.
I spent the better part of the afternoon trying to get my web service to work on my office computer. Ready to upload web pages and no web. Went in and reconfigured everything several times and it finally started to work. Thought it might be my ethernet cable, but it worked fine for the airport wireless on all the other computers. Pulling out the hair. Anyhooo… I did get the pages up and did a quick run through to make sure all of the shopping cart links work. So far so good. I am not happy with the header though, will fix that tomorrow. Thanks go out to Nathan Branch for letting me use his image of Tobacco & Tulle for the index page. It is such a festive shot with the light shining through the red paper. I thought it would be pretty for the holidays.
I am also adding a sale page to move out some of our overstock on a few perfumes. This will coincide with our site wide sale that starts next week, so lots of savings there. All of the details will be in the newsletter, which goes out Monday.
LOVE SPEAKS PRIMEVAL – is now available on our website. I will officially announce it Monday, but a heads up to some of my readers who have been waiting for it. I don’t have a number but know that I sent out around fifty free samples of LSP with orders over the past month. So at least a hand full of folks have already tried it.
JoJo and Sunset Rider are also back online in the parfum mini. This for all of our die hard Jasmine lovers.
SOIVOHLE BATH & BODY – Finally, was not sure that this would be ready for the web, but hey, miracles happen everyday, or at least that is what I have been told. The bath and body line are available in our shop all year round, and now will be a permanent addition to the web store. I have a lot of other news and things to add, but for now I am calling it a day.
Peace & Blessings, ZZ……..
Still at it. Work, work , work….I will get some of our updated web pages up today, and start working on the newsletter. It seems that early holiday shopping has begun, as we have gift wrapped several orders this past week. I even ran out of gift wrap this a.m.. A basic white. I will have to go out for a small roll, while I wait for the new shop roll to arrive from our supplier. I am also waiting on the last two boxes. The one for our Tub Tea in the glass jar, and the one for our creams. I also ran out of dropper bottles for the essential oil blends that we have in the boutique. I know I said it before, but by this time next week everything should be in place.
As the year winds down I think of all that happened this year. I turned down more projects than I accepted, and am still being quite picky about who sells our perfumes. We have had a lot more press/interest in our perfumes from around the world. As well as several great reviews of our new perfumes. I have read recently some nice interviews with commercial perfumers on Fragrantica, and am amazed actually by the bodies of work. Of course this is work they do for other people, but still turning out a lot of perfumes, some of them quite good. This has been our most productive year. And when it is over we will have released three new original scents. Oudh Lacquer, Bottleneck Blues and Cumberland TI. Everything else was a reformulation of a former scent, including the new Love Speaks Primeval that will be released next week. The first version of that scent I created for myself years ago, it was called Chanteuse. All of the original wedding scents in our boutique collection were reformulations, and two are now available online. Acoustic Flower and Daybreak Violin. I also have a scent, not a wedding scent, but a trial scent that I started for a client that I would like to finish for our Studio Collection. I have dozens of these sketch formulas, and would love to do something with them, but for practical reasons must keep the collection manageable. If I released every scent that I created I would have a collection that numbered into the hundreds, if not more. This year I tried to focus on things that are close to my heart. The Oudh Lacquer was a three year project. Cumberland TI took more than a year to develop, Bottleneck Blues grew out of a series of songs that I wrote awhile back and the new Love Speaks Primeval is updated from a 1980’s original.
I have not checked the sales records yet, but can say from the frequency in which we ship them out. Oudh Lacquer, Pink Praline, Tobacco & Tulle, Grand Canyon and Underworld are the most popular naturals. In the Moderne and Studio Collections, Daybreak Violin, Violets & Rainwater, Green Oakmoss, Domino Viole’, Sonoran Leather, Raspberries & Black Pepper and Cassis et Violette are the current best sellers. Although we have not had regular hours in the boutique that much over the summer our best sellers in house are Ankhara and Writing Lyrical Poetry.
So with all of the rush to get ready for the local shopping I have pushed back the new hours until I can get our body products on the shelves. Once we do open it will be daily until the end of the year. Crazy, yes it is… Be back soon with the final draft…
Peace & Blessings ZZ……..
It seems to me that our holiday season (online) has already begun. I am trying to keep up and at the same time have yet to add our new web pages or send out the holiday newsletter. We will be adding back our body line, as well as a new natural parfum. Over the next few days I will try to get all of the updates finished and hopefully the newsletter by the end of next week. Some of our outside projects have been put on hold, and boy am I glad that I said no to a few folks. Otherwise I would have no idea which end was up.
I ALSO HAVE A LITTLE SURPRISE FOR SOME – As we were getting settled into our larger lab space, I found (while moving) two boxes of bottled perfumes. The Limited Edition Oils. I remember thinking back in the summer that I was short a few things, but in all of the craziness, assumed that we had sold them. I will be offering these final bottles, and will post a list of what is available as soon as I sort them out.
I am adding to our website a special page for Limited Editions, Special Projects and Studio Exclusives. Not everything that I create is part of a collection, nor is it something that will go on and on. Particularly where exceptional materials are concerned. If I create a scent using an enfleurage or tincture of a particular years flowers from my garden, I can’t very well offer an unlimited supply. These things are what they are. Everything doesn’t need to be predictable or fit into a neat little box. So for those fleeting out of the box adventures, they will soon have their own room.
I sent along the final (I hope) images for the inclusion of our Oudh Lacquer in the debut issue of AYN fashion and lifestyle magazine based in Qatar. We have had several press inquiries in the past weeks, one that didn’t pan out. We were actually cut from the piece in a Fall/Winter issue, where we were led to believe that it would be featuring fall/winter scents (which is what, (by request) we sent them). In the end they chose to showcase a selection of spring/summer scents, which made no sense at all. Go figure.
So, as I get back to work, know that by this time next week everything should be in motion for our final offerings of the year. I know I have not answered everyone’s email, but hopefully the newsletter will take care of that.
Peace & Blessings, ZZ…….
It is raining here, not cold, but dark. At least the pretty colored leaves are still on the trees, and I can see them outside my window. As I mentioned in my morning tweet, we took the kittens to the vet today for their nip tucks. It seems strange when a fairly sizable chunk of energy is missing from the house. I wonder how it feels to them when they are alone in the house and us humans have gone out for the day.
Now that I am finally caught up on shipping, I have no energy to do the other things that I had planned for the day. I have a sample of the new Symvanil on my work bench down in the lab. It is a natural vanillin made from rice. It is a bit yellowish, a powder and smells yeasty. Traditional vanillin natural and synthetic is white, and of a light fluffy crystalline consistency. It has no yeasty odor, but is a very clean smelling vanilla. I finally got some numbers from the company on how to dilute it (symvanil), best materials to use for dilution etc. So when I get my groove back on I will go make up the dilutions. Beyond that I am waiting for a few materials to arrive so that I can finish out the body products for fall and winter. I was low on several of the essential oils for the body and bath oils, as well as some key materials for use in my body cream. I am also going to try out a few vegetable (vegan) waxes, and will likely offer my balms in both bees wax and the alternative. Personally I don’t have a problem with bee products. I have known several bee keepers and when he was still living my next door neighbor kept bees. Right against the fence line by my veggie garden. Never were my harvests more bountiful than when the bees were near by. It was a beautiful relationship between man and nature, bees, and beans. I remember vividly three different occasions when wild swarms would congregate in our pine tree just on the other side of the neighbors bee boxes. The queen I suppose would land in the tree and all of the other bees would pile on around her creating a funnel shaped cone that would trail down to just a couple of bees at the end. I remember once they called in a professional crew to capture the renegade hive. I sat out there all day watching them move the hive from the tree to the boxes. I have photos somewhere and will try and remember to look for them. But anyway, it was way cool, and I miss the bees.
I rarely get a chance to just hang out, so while I am waiting for my supplies I will be doing just that. Puttering around, but not getting in a big hurry about it. Monday comes so fast, it is nice to have a few hours to myself from time to time.
Peace & Blessings, ZZ….
I spent some time yesterday tweaking my formula for a basic body cream. At first I wanted to switch out one emulsifier for another, but found that I needed to do a lot more than just switch them out, so will leave that for another (new) formula. The original formula is a no frills cream, and to make it more interesting as well as nourishing to the skin, I have been adding different plant extracts to see how it holds up. Make a batch and part it out, adding in the extracts to each part. Some things react differently in a formulation so it is important to test everything, and make adjustments based on the individual results. I have been making my own creams and lotions for a long time. One of my all time favorites is the one provided by the well known herbalist Rosemary Gladstar in her book: Family Herbal. This is a cream that you can make at home, I have always used rose hydrosol in this formula. For a cream to add to our line of retail products, the formula must be a bit more sophisticated. I have tried some of the pre made bases thinking that I could use them for our brand, but have never found them to be to my liking. So finally took the time to develope my own formula.
When it comes to creams and lotions, I have not had the best experience. Commercial brands have too much crap in them. I have yet to find one that doesn’t cause my skin to turn red and itchy. And eye creams, forget it. Ever wake up in the morning with your eyes swollen shut because your eye cream went all postal on you.
So making creams and lotions is a lot like baking a cake. It requires a sound recipe. Each ingredient must be measured precisely for it to work properly, Which is why everything in formulary is measured in grams. A good gram scale is a must. Otherwise you end up with a less than acceptable product. As I am adding in more liquid by way of plant extracts, I must adjust the other ingredients to compensate. particularly the emulsion part. I am currently working to add both a Green Tea and Chamomile Extract to my formula. Now that I have the expanded work space next to my lab, I can spend more time on the body products, and offer most of them year round. We are almost ready to add back the body oils, and will try and keep them available online. This is really a seasonal item, not too many people by bath and body oils in the summer. So we will see how it goes.
Peace & Blessings ZZ……
Bringing in some of the plant’s today, before the cold gets them. Continuing to move things down to my new space. Not to mention trying to remember where I am putting them. Had all of the Cologne Suite’ perfumes in a big box (packaged singles and samplers) and could not find them. Kept going back over and over, until poof! there they were right in front of me, and the box was marked too… Still organizing the studio/boutique for the holidays.
Area News – The girls at Cincy Chic are hosting a fall showcase (fashion show) on Nov. 7 at the Phoenix. We were invited, but at too late notice. sounds like fun. Maybe next time. Saturdays are our big day during holiday hours and we will be in full swing on the 7th.
Also of note: Oudh Lacquer will be featured in an article on Ouds in a middle eastern magazine. I am hoping to get a copy sent to us. Just to have it would be awesome. Aside from newstand fare, have never seen an arabic language magazine. So looking to expand my horizons.
Reviews: Having a hard time keeping up with it all. Scent Hive, Nathan Branch (two posts), Perfume Posse, Fashion Tribes, Uptown Social (uptown magazine) and Specktra.net have all written positive reviews of Oudh Lacquer. Perfume Posse also featured a very cool review of Bottleneck Blues. Thank You! everyone for your support.
Everyday this week has been a late night packing orders and boxing perfumes. Trying to get a few things boxed ahead for the holiday rush, as well as bottling up some of the new oils. Which is what is on the agenda for later today. Also the new Soivohle’ natural parfum: Love Speaks Primeval, will make it’s debut soon. I ran out of bottles last night so it is out to storage to bring in a box of mini parfum bottles. I will also be bottling JoJo and Sunset Rider parfum. Since adding the Grand Canyon in parfum back to the collection we have almost sold out, so batching that as well. I had not worn Grand Canyon in such a long time, I poured myself a small bottle and have been wearing it at night. Like March from Perfume Posse wrote in a story last year, it is a perfect scent for wearing to bed at night.
Our new brand has a dragonfly theme, and I have been looking for a mini charm, so far no luck. There are lots of them available but none that I really like. I have also looked at some perfume bottles with dragonfly designs, but still nothing is popping. Will keep looking. The parfums in the collection will be available in a roll on, but at the same time I would like to be able to offer a slightly more concentrated version of each scent in a nice flacon. Will keep searching… (notice I spelled it flacon instead of falcon) I misspell that word more often than anything else I think, and spell check doesn’t catch it, and if I am too lazy to double check, well you know how it goes. People send me emails all the time pointing out spelling mistakes, so here’s to all of you proof readers out there. Me and my dyslexic fingers thank you for your time and diligence.
Off to work now, have a dinner meeting later so will cram in as much work as possible before heading out. Have a great weekend and stay warm all you folks in the cooler regions.
Peace & Blessings ZZ…..
Three day weekends can be deceiving, causing one to think that there is more time to not do things.
Up early today getting all of the weekend packages ready for the mail, only to find that the in-box was filled with new orders. We will be on a three to four day turn around during the fall/winter season. So if ordering for gifts, please allow for the extra time.
Seems a new review posted yesterday or this morning. Perfume Posse: Soivohle’ Bottleneck Blues. With all of the attention that Oudh Lacquer has been getting, the other new release Bottleneck Blues was not getting as much attention. Now they both seem to be on the radar. I have received quite a few positive e-mails about Bottleneck Blues, and am glad that people are also enjoying this parfum. I have been wearing it a lot lately.
I also (this morning) made up a few samples of the new natural chypre parfum: Love Speaks Primeval. I have a little on the back of my hand and can’t help notice how much the apple note has come to the front in the mid-heart. Maybe it is a hormone thing with me, but I do not remember it being so dominant in my earlier trials, and I tested it a lot. Curious to see how it works for others. I will write more about it later. It is coming out in November and will wrap up the new Soivohle’ releases until next spring. I missed my window on the other floral that was ready to go this year. It is more spring/summer, so it will be released next spring.
In the meantime I am going to be in the lab batching out more of the oils. And trying to stay stocked up on samples of the new fumes.
Peace & Blessings ZZ……
Sounds like something out of the bubbly pit, but for Soivohle’ it is a rose perfume.I created this scent back in the spring, thinking that I would release it late summer. The formula is one from many years ago, with a few updates. Another in the one of a kind, limited edition realm, where the carrier is comprised of floral tinctures. In this case it is Phlox (the tall garden variety) Grape Hyacinth, a citrus and spice tincture and apple. On its own it is quite sweet, and adds depth to the overall fragrance. I can detect the apple in the opening as well as the heart. A nice natural apple, that plays a supporting rather than domineering role in the parfum. Overall it is Rose dominant. A Floral Chypre/Oriental Type. In plain alcohol it is a completely different scent. People have remarked in the past about the change in line up of our perfumes, and this is true to some degree. There have been a few limited production scents that are no longer available, and with this new scent as well as the Oudh Lacquer, the carrier is a unique formulation unto itself. With the Oudh lacquer it can be duplicated, and will be at some point, but due to the difference in the agarwoods themselves, a slight variation is to be expected. With this new Rose scent, the carrier depends on future years production of the live flowers, and the tincture and or enfleurage from those flowers. I could just make all of the perfumes in plain alcohol and be done with it, but this is not what makes it interesting. There has to be something artistic, unpredictable, nebulous and fleeting in the process, and with the natural parfums, I am able to express to the fullest this desire and ideal.
I am waiting until next year to release a Gardenia scent in the natural collection. It is set into a mock orange tincture. My mock orange has not been the best in the last few years, possibly due to our dry conditions. We had tons of rain this year, so I am hopeful that next spring the mock orange will be overflowing with blossoms and at that point I intend to make as much of the enfleurage as possible. I have said before and it bears repeating. I have no idea why this is not commercially available. They are so easy to grow and when they produce, are abundant in fragrant blossoms. They carrier fat overflows with the scent of the flowers.
Also, in repeating. The Jasmine heavy scents will be back. They have not been discontinued. These include JoJo, Sunset Rider, Quan Yin and Yin Hao. I will not be changing the Jasmine percentages in the natural collection, but will be using a variety of different jasmines. I will rework the modern collection jasmine accords. This will probably be the case as well for Writing Lyrical Poetry. It is one thing to comply with industry guidelines, and another to totally strip a perfume of its soul. My intention is to be true to the integrity of the perfumes, and at the same time, make a few non invasive changes. I made it pretty clear when we had the sale back in the spring that many of our scents would be getting a makeover and that some would not be coming back at all. To date the only scent not coming back is Allegory. We are not stocking many of the oil perfumes, yet they can be special ordered. Our new brand which will debut in a sneak peek in a few weeks are all oil parfums. The entire line will be alcohol free products. Oil and solid parfums, room sprays and related products. All of our perfumes, minus the limited editions, can be special ordered. People special order things all the time.
We are in the middle of expanding my work space in the basement, which when finished will be completely closed off and directly adjacent to the lab, which is a separate room. As such the temporary set up for packing and shipping is in the studio, and is a total mess of boxes, packaging materials etc.I have my fingers crossed that we will have everything finished by mid October, so that we can be open for the holidays. Not sure if we will be doing an open house party this year. With Mr. Z running for public office, and all of his other obligations, it is a mad house, and I am taking it one day at a time. Again…Fingers crossed…
Peace & Blessings, ZZ…….
