Holidaze

By this time next week we should be ready for the holidays. I will be going downtown to Scentual Artistry later today, hanging artwork, and stocking our shelves with bath an body products. Bath Salts, Body Wash, Lotions.  As well as gift boxes and misc. bath accessories. I will also be adding back to the Soivohle website our 5pc. Little Black Box. A sampler that contains hand wrapped (in our signature red Mango leaf paper) screw top vials containing 1.2ml of perfume. We will be offering several pre-selected boxes, as well as a choose your own from a drop down menu. This is a wonderful gift mini for a scent lover.
I also received an email from Lucy at Indie Perfumes. She has included us in her holiday gift guide. Thank You Lucy!
I will be placing on our soivohle website an entry form for our Meerschaum  giveaway on the 26th at our Open House. Would love to have everyone there, but if you can't attend I will be happy to place your entry in the bowl for the draw. If it were not for all the leaves on the ground I would not believe it was November. Our weather has been very mild, and I am hoping that this carries through for our holiday schedule. If you missed the posting you can get the info on our Scentual Artistry page at soivohle.com.

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.

Olfactory Burn Out

The last two days I have been shuffling from order fulfillment to making bath products for Scentual Artistry. I do wish the nose had more staying power when working with essential oils. After the making of bath salts last night, I can smell nothing today. I knew going in it would be a rough ride, As I have a love hate relationship with Lavender. It makes me sneeze, and ties my sinuses in a knot. But this is a very popular scent for gifting, so for the past years, ten or so, I have made up Lavender Salts, and various other bath thingies. I also made Lemon Eucalyptus Salts ( love this), Rosemary Mint and today will make a Tangerine & Cedar along with a Honey Ginger. I have a formula for these so I don't need my nose. The only non natural blend that I make is Lily of The Valley. This scent is so popular here that it is uncanny. Just last week I sold out of Daybreak Violin at SA.  I still don't have the accords available downtown, but when I do finally get around to offering them I bet the LOV accord will be the first to go.
I wish there were an easier way to do this without being down to the wire. I don't like to make bath salts ahead and have them sitting around, I want people to experience them at the peak of freshness, as I do when I use them at home. Nothing worse than getting a jar of scented bath salts from a store, where it has been sitting around forever. So I make them in smaller batches. It also makes a big difference in the scent. Naturals will lose their potency a lot faster than synthetics. Yet synthetics will turn quicker.  Either way, fresh is best, so I am doing it now. Good thing I will not need my nose for a few weeks.

Wake Up Lizzie

We had a great night last night at the opening, very busy and festive. The pimp the pumpkin event was a lot of fun, and everyone seemed in great spirits. I saw a lot of musicians coming in and out of the building, so someone (s) was/were having live music. With eight floors of artist studios anything can happen, as each artist is having their own opening of sorts.
We left a little after closing, and I am still pooped. I think it is the sustained energy rush that gets me the next day, or maybe it was all that iced tea. Or the sugar, as I had a few cookies. Living large...hehe..
In spite of a few things that are not lining up, we are back in business. The new computer works, the printer works and I can get my mail. NowI can go ahead and finish up the orders that have backed up, and finish the last details for the newsletter and site launch. The newsletter goes out on Monday.
I think I mentioned this before but in regards to the new perfumes and packaging. We will be including in all 15ml parfum boxes 1 empty 5ml bottle and transfer pipette and 1 spray, screw top atomizer. This is for folks who want to spray the parfums, and have a small travel size for purse or pocket. It has gotten to be a big mess of trying to keep track of who wants a spray, who wants an extra empty bottle etc. Half the time I am sending them along later which is not an efficient way to work. We are not adding to the price of the perfumes. It is just our way of making things a bit easier for folks who want the option.
I can not believe how fast this holiday season has rushed in. I know I am prepared (mostly) but still feel like I am running in circles. It is also a time of increased appointments downtown, so there is a bit of sport, keeping all the balls in the air.
Overall I think we have the best customers in the world, everyone is so interesting, and the love of scent is inspiring. Would not change a thing!

Final Friday, New Computer

Tonight is Final Friday at the PAC. Our shop Scentual Artistry will be open from 6-10 pm. We are on the ground floor #108. I will be driving down in a bit.
Am still adjusting the settings on my new computer, some of my migrated settings are not working, so I will need to manually add some things back in. Meaning I have to hunt down my master list of passwords.  And find the driver disk for my printer. Yuk!  As a result our lead time on getting orders out will be another couple of days. So by the first of next week things should be back to normal. Again, always something. Just when we are set to launch our new site look at soivohle. Thankfully I keep all of those files on a different computer.
Looking forward to visiting with a couple of friends tonight, who are coming downtown, as well as family stopping in. Should be a lot of fun, as the building owners have really been talking up the Halloween events scheduled for the evening.

Open House at Scentual Artistry

Today is Final Friday, the last Friday of the month, and the day when our building opens up to the public for the monthly art walk.
The Pendleton Art Center is an old factory building that houses eight floors of artist studios and shops. Because these are primarily studios where artists work, they do not have business hours, so once pr. month the public gets a chance to come in and check things out. There is valet parking available, and most months there is music, and local food vendors set up with everything from a tea/coffee guy, to Mexican Food, Burgers, Veggie etc.. Individual studios have their own set ups.
My studio/boutique, Scentual Artistry is part of the new Artisan Shops area on the first floor. We have not kept regular hours through the summer, but are there a couple of times pr. week , by appointment, and on the Final Friday, which is open from 6-10 in the evening.
There is always something going on in the city, but this month is different. The MPMF (Mid Point Music Festival) one of the largest music festivals in the country is in full swing, and very near the area where we are located. The city will be overflowing with people. The folks who own our building also own other buildings in the area, with nice sized parking lots, so are able to offer valet parking to visitors coming down for the Art Walk. I can't say how parking will be elsewhere, and on the street, but if anyone is coming down tonight, it might be a good idea to leave a bit early.
I was thinking about not going tonight, just staying home with the family, but I will get them squared away and head downtown in a bit. I really like that solitary drive into the city. As long as I don't hit rush hour traffic, which can sometimes turn my 40 minute drive into an hour and a half of creeping along. That part I don't care for.
Anyway, that's it. Come if you can.
PAC  - 1310 Pendleton Street, Cincinnati, #108

Crazy Life

It's been a wild couple of weeks. Getting ready for the launch of our new brand Acousticjus, and finally deciding what to do for the Opening at Scentual Artistry this month. The opening last night was great. A little less foot traffic. Probably due to the recent heat and all the activities in the city. At one point I was sitting talking to Mr. Z and mentioned that I should have brought my guitar. He replied with you should bring your CD's down here and sell them. I then looked around the room. My art was on the walls, my perfumes on the counter, teas.... The only thing missing was the music and  two books of poetry. All of my life I have been making things. When I stop and look around it is overwhelming. I attribute it to an early time in my life when I was dubbed a Golden Child, with a high IQ, and put on the fast track to success. I was eleven or twelve. By fifteen I was a stick a fork in me I'm done, outta here, fed up mixed up forty year old in a teen's body. Anything they could throw at me they did, and for that short period, I had no control over anything. My parents were not equipped or prepared for any of it, so they tuned out and I was on my own. I have been on my own ever since. I never wanted for myself the things that others wanted for me. My brain is wired  in a way that allows me to create entirely in my head. Perfumes formulated down to the last drop. Recipes, poems, songs. By the time I get around to writing anything down, I have lived with it in my head for weeks, sometimes months and years. I do the same thing with science and math. Formulating theories and then trying to solidify them with the math. It's a lot of fun, and hopefully the kind of thing that stimulates my brain enough to ward of senility at some later date.
But anyway: Back to present day reality.  I was happy that so many people who came in last night had an interest in tea, and my tea display. I was able to debut my latest Soivohle Perfumed teas as well. They will be available on the website soon.
Now that I have lived with the space (Scentual Artistry) for awhile I am ready to make a few changes. Including expanding my blending station, and making it more of a focal point. For the next two or three months, instead of installations and displays I will focus specifically on the perfumes in the collections, and getting back to custom perfume work.
I am still waiting for the two Lizzy clones that I ordered. Hopefully they will arrive soon, and I can put them to work.
Today I  continue to work on Acousticjus, batching out Flamenco.  It's coming along nicely. We will launch with the Stellar Oil Parfum, Stellar Lips and Stellar Soaps. Everything heavily laden with music speak. Moving on.....

Scentual Artistry News

Once again our Final Friday opening was a success, and the interest continues to be  across the board. From essential oils, perfumes, teas and herbal blends.  It didn't seem as busy this month, and the interest in the giveaway was met with a bit of confusion. The idea was to have three different essential oil essences under scent globes. Guess the essences and win a bottle of perfume. I had assumed that people knew what essential oil were. Many did not, and thought the essences in the globes were actual perfumes. They were easy by most standards. Lavender, Anise and Geranium. Most people guessed the Anise, but the others were not as easy. One person wrote on their entry form the names of three commercial perfumes as their choices. Unfortunately no one guessed correctly.
I think I will stick to the Olfactory Installations. The next one is at the end of August. Not sure what it will be yet.
I am starting to get more people in during the week, and the interest in our blended and perfumed teas is very good. I am in the process of creating a set of teas for an area eatery, and am planning on doing a class on tea. I am still looking for my tea books. I have several that I had collected over the years. Stored away somewhere in boxes. Still not able to find them. We have so many books. One of our spare bedrooms is stacked full of books. Mr. Z can't resist bargain books and is always coming home with a stack of them. Over time they add up. But on the tea front, I am working on a new collection of perfumed teas, and have some new teas, Organic Fair trade on the way to me now. Can't wait to try them all.
We will be open this week and for the next few weeks Tuesday and Thursday 11am - 3pm.