Box It

More Holiday news: Seems like each day I get a little closer to having things in place. Today I added our Little Black Box back to the Soivohle website. This is the same one that was photographed so nicely by Nathan Branch awhile back. At that time it was part of our regular sample program. Now it is strictly a gift box. Five screw cap vials, individually wrapped in our signature red mango leaf paper.  Each via contains 1ml of essence, and the box is shipped in a black velvet pouch. Gift boxing is available by request. They are available in a mix and match, same as our Coffret, and as some preselected collections. But that's not all, I have added a couple of images of our gift boxing. Which is a gloss black box (various sizes) with a quality pewter packing paper. We also have a white set up gift box for large orders. The reason it has taken so long is resizing our new logo and printing the labels. All have the new distressed flower image, as seen on the Absolutes, Demis and Specialty Scents. Our Studio Collection has not changed, yet also carries this same flower motif, but in a lighter color. We are offering free gift boxing through the holidays, and will also ship to your party. Just provide us with all of the pertinent information and we will take care of it.

Element

Having finished the bulk of our updates and web work at soivohle.com I am feeling a bit better about the shift. In my element once again.
The comments have been coming in about the new look and the stripped down offerings in the collections. This is temporary in regards to some scents. There are around six or so that will be back in the line up, most over the next few months. I am working on some of them today, rebatching, and bottling. Also evaluating the downtown trends, which are completely different than what they are online. It takes awhile to know how to stock a shop, and I am still taking notes on downtown. It is hard to believe that we have been open there since late April. The time has gone by so quickly. I did realize that I would not be able to present a scent art installation each month, and have two of them on my calendar for next year. They will stay up for two months each instead of three weeks. I am using the space now to showcase our perfumes.
Also in my element, the process of distressing the new soivohle art liquide boxes. I still have paint on my fingernails today from yesterdays session of box painting.  I also have a few surprises coming in regards to the artistry of scent, with a new collection of ??? more on that later.......
The more hands on I am with the process the better I feel about what I am doing.
For those interested I will be downtown on Friday for an appointment and open for a few hours in the afternoon. As far as I know the ground breaking for the new Casino construction has not taken parking space from our building, since we have our own lot, so there is always a place to park during the week.

Deconstruction

Websters describes Deconstruction as "a method of critical analysis of philosophical and literary language that emphasizes the internal workings of language and conceptual systems, the relational quality of meaning, and the assumptions implicit in forms of expression"
blah, blah, blah.... so on and so forth. and I pull out the tid bit about forms of expression, as this is where my own interpretation is relevant, or not....
It is very apparent, even with all of the indies, that perfumery is still one of those spit shined and polished industries where image is everything. I myself have fallen for the trappings at times. Got to have a better box, got to have a better bottle, got to have a better look, got to have a better....fill in the blank...........

It's exhausting, and at the same time, each time,  it happens I lose a piece of myself, a piece of my true intention. Not because I think there is anything wrong with having a nicer, newer image. It is that with the upgrading, the image seems to become less of what I want  on the inside, and more of what people tend to expect on the outside.
The artistry of scent has to be about what I want to express. Not what I think will sell, or what I think people will like. Amazingly, and for the most part people do have an appreciation for my work. And it isn't that I am anti-art. Or want to create things so difficult that they will be challenged and dismissed. I have never worked this way. Or been all that into the shock factor in art. Instead. If something is difficult, or a subject not one that people can readily embrace, I tend to look for ways to create unity. It is not as easy with scent, but could be. And it took me, going back to my visual art for inspiration. For many years I worked with metal and found objects in my paintings. These things resonate with me. I love handling old rusty metals. Old gears, wire mesh, mechanical parts. I guess it is my grandfather rubbing off on me. He was an inventor and machinist who worked and created things from metal.

So when my new boxes arrived yesterday, I pretty much knew what I was going to do. The boxes are handmade. and I wanted to put a handmade finish on them. Distress them. As I was rubbing metallic paint into the boxes by hand, it reminded me of a series of sculptures I created years ago, where each piece was leafed by hand with metallic leafing powders that I rubbed into the figures. Today my fingers are a kaleidoscope of metallic silver, red, copper. Like old times, and it feels great. Feels great because I am at my best when my hands and mind are working in sync. From the feel of coarse linen to be feel of incense resin, there must be something tactile in my work. As there must be something cerebral organizing and challenging me onward. At some level the juice in the bottle must have something in common with the package it comes in. To place a bottle of handcrafted liquid art into a box that has no connection makes no sense to me. I can feel the disconnect, and it gnaws at me. So much so that I just want to stop what I am doing all together.  I would truly rather dig holes in the ground than be disingenuous with my work.
I know this will not be for everyone. And some may not like or get what I am doing. Those preconceived ideas about what scent is, and how things should look, are deep-seated. Turning back the clock on a hundred years of consumer advertising and image making is not an easy thing to do. My aim is to not go backwards but forward to something new. Now that my head, heart and gut are all on the same page again, I feel absolutely amazing, and hope that my high spirits rub off on everyone else. Now I am going to go do a little happy dance, and batch out a kilo of Underworld.
The images (boxes) are art pieces for a visual project in my studio. Not the finished look of the new packaging.

P.S. For those with an interest. Thanks for asking. This change only covers select parfums in the naturals and moderne collections. Particularly the ones made with special tinctures, carrier's etc. The ones with an authentic artisan foundation. As well as adding things like the original parfum version of Honeysuckle Bird, instead of the reworked EDP. Adding an parfum version of Journeyman. Or Fan Dance, which is made from a combination of several floral tinctures from my gardens and a vintage style chypre base. Things like that....