Penning Perfumes

Today I've been working on my contribution to the latest Penning Perfumes project: a splendid idea pioneered by Odette Toilette and Claire Trévien to combine two art forms.  Poets are given perfumes from which to take inspiration and Perfumers are given poems.

The poem I'm responding to is by Claire Trévien herself and I've spent some time today in correspondence with her to better understand the work I'm responding to.  It's called Listening to Charles Ives, which is enough to tell you that the poem takes some of it's inspiration from music - so my perfume will be a third generation derivation of art in a third different medium: I hope I can live up to the earlier works!

Festive Greetings

A short post this Christmas Eve to wish everyone a very merry Christmas and a prosperous and happy New Year for 2013.

Snowy branches and Shropshire countryside from the hard winter of 2010

BiG Red's House

I'm very pleased to report that the Pell Wall Perfumes range is now available to try and to buy at a new art gallery and craft workshop in Whitchurch, Shropshire.

Situated at Victoria Yard on the High Street (next to the Red Lyon pub) it's easy to find and a fun place to explore for all sorts of art, crafts and other interesting things.  Check out their website for further details.

BiG Red's House is open now but a formal opening event is planned for 17th January 2013: watch this blog for details!

Woodsmoke Room Fragrance

Regular readers of my blog and of Basenotes may remember that I had my doubts about the commercial viability of the concept of a Woodsmoke room fragrance.

Well as I was packing up another bottle to go out to a customer tonight, it occurred to me I should give an update: after some months in the doldrums, this Winter it seems woodsmoke is the scent of choice and they are selling like hot cakes - both via the website and from the Newport Pop-up Shop.

I'm very pleased that the concept has been validated and I've already made up a new batch.  The new size and bottle seems to have helped too.

Woodsmoke in the new 125ml, black bottle

Insight into the fragrance industry

For the second time in succession I find myself presenting a video that gives a great insight into the world of fragrance creation.  This time it was made by IFRA North America - the NA branch of the International Fragrance Association - and it features interviews with several perfumers and others involved in the creation process.  It's about 17 minutes long and I heartily commend it to anyone with an interest in the subject.

Koku - an interview with a perfumer

I'm including here a video made for television featuring an interview with another perfumer, working in Turkey.  It's in Turkish but with English subtitles, which though occasionally imperfect are easily good enough to enable understanding.

Vedat talks to his interviewer about the nature of olfaction, the history of scent, its connnection with art, science and the industrial scale production of most modern fragrances: fascinating stuff and well worth a few minutes of your time to watch:



 Oh and Koku? It means scent but also fragrance, smell, olfaction and so on - a wonderfully multi-purpose Turkish word.

Pop-up Shop

Update: The Pop-up Shop in Newport - opposite the Shakespeare Pub - now features over 30 local businesses & I'm there myself every Wednesday afternoon if you want to talk perfume.

I'm very pleased to report that Pell Wall Perfumes products are available at the new pop-up-shop in Newport, Shropshire (details on the 2nd of those links).

The shop is open 9-5 Monday to Saturday with late opening for the Newport Christmas Lights Fayre on Friday 30th November.  Just in time for all those Christmas gifts you've not started thinking about yet!

Besides perfumes there are several types of handmade jewellery, silk cards, hats, furniture, wood-turning, art, candles, pictures and more.

And while you're browsing you can enjoy a hot drink and check out the community notices too: it's a genuine local community project I'm proud to be associated with.