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I haven't decided yet if we're going to stick with the four-perfumes-per-quarter release thing this year or not, but in the meantime: have a new fragrance! Our limited edition Valentine's Day fragrance, called Amelia, was released in our Etsy shop over the weekend. This is the fabled icy-bergamot-of-death / tuberose-black-cherry concoction I was tweeting about last month. It is sultry, sexy, and sinful, but ethereal and musky with twinges of wood. To boot, $5 from every bottle of Amelia sold will go to the American Red Cross Haiti relief, and the first five bottles sold will come with a FREE Madeline cupcake fizzie made by our good friends at Dirty Laundry. Only 8 ounces of this aviatrix-inspired fragrance have been brewed and after that, it's gone!
In other new news, although this may not be news to most of you, I decided to update our packaging for 2010 with actual waterproof labels rather than the twine-hung tags we'd used in 2009. We've begun the update on our glass bottled fragrances and will figure out what to do with our solid perfumes + other potential offerings soon, but we've had some really great feedback so far about the update. Everything from "stunning!!!" via Twitter, to "they're both like a classical book cover and an event announcement" via our Facebook fan page, where I debuted the new product photography last night — which I'm pleased as punch to say I took myself.
Also notably, our full size (1/2 ounce bottles) now ship in 100% recycled brown jewelry boxes, tied with some custom silk screened ribbon that was handmade by Taylor Made Designs on Etsy.
That's enough for you to chew on momentarily; in the meantime, I want to know what you think about the new look.
Everything begins in parts, it seems. Labels start in full sheets and then get cut down to size (by hand, mind you). Bottles start in pieces — the container, the pump, the overshell. There are so many bits and pieces to the perfume manufacturing puzzle, but I'm getting much faster at doing it all by hand.
I want to be better about documenting our processes. I don't mean in the "step one: decant into bottle" kind of documentation but mostly in photographs. It's a good reminder for me on days when I think nothing will ever get done that actually we can make a whole lot by ourselves, and the end result is almost always fabulous. So I took these the other night while we manufactured a bunch of mini misters:
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So simple, and yet I love how a huge row of them makes me feel like we put together an army of fragrance samples. These are available exclusively on our Etsy shop for now in packs of 4.
The following was posted yesterday on the Perfume Possee blog, and is good food for thought for serial fragrance sampleristas:
...there are no guarantees. Any sample, tester, or bottle I run across might be "off." Unless I'm standing directly in front of Frederic Malle or Isabelle Doyen saying, hey, does this smell funny to you?, which I am not - I have no way of knowing. If you like what you read and you buy a bottle of something, even if you tested it in the same store you bought it, there is no guarantee that what you tested and what you bought will smell the same. (Raise your hand if this has happened to you!) Shit happens.
As we say on the internets, THIS — a thousand times THIS. Fragrances can change from batch to batch depending on production and where they were produced. Even small batch fragrances like mine can change depending on supplier stock, seasonal production, and cost to produce — though I try my darnedest not to let it happen, I can tell you that I've changed agarwood suppliers and helichrysum suppliers, for example, to cut down on any number of costs (environmental or otherwise). Not to mention, any particular fragrance — no matter the fragrancier — can change day to day on your skin.
So, please! Avoid disappointment (and checkbook damage) by testing a sample several times — consecutively and sporadically — before committing. Date around. Play the field. And then fall in love.
Apologies for not warning you of this sooner than yesterday, but we will be closed as of now through Monday morning, Jan 11th to play catch up and take inventory. We had a ton of sales over the break (thanks!) and I'll be trying to get as many as I can out by end of next week.
A shopper on Etsy recently asked me a question about our perfumes' longevity, or how long they last on the skin, and I gave a pretty lengthy answer that I thought might help some others out. So here you go! Here's my two scents cents about how to tell whether or not one of our perfumes (or any, for that matter), will last a long time on your skin:
While your personal chemistry does make a bit of a difference, here are some general things to know:The best way to tell if they will last, of course, is to try a sample or two, and to try them more than once. Sometimes your mood, the alignment of the planets, and/or your hygiene can affect how they wear. The other sure-fire way to make a scent last is to layer it with a similarly-smelling body product, or using them as scented oil in the bath as well as a body fragranace. I've also heard spraying or dabbing some on a scarf or using a scent locket works better for some people.
- our feminine perfumes are roughly 85% concentrated and our men's colognes are 40% concentrated, which is typically much higher than regular department stores. which means a little goes a long way.
- our foodie scents and resinous scents tend to last longer than some of our other citrus/floral scents.
- our perfumes are oil-based (vs. alcohol-based), which will usually help with the longevity factor.
- there's a handy new chart — more on some of our web redesign (sometime) soon — on our website shop with a category called "body". I consider this not only to be if the fragrance is light or heavy, but also a good indicator of how the throw and staying power is. If the fragrance has a body over 3, you're probably in for a long haul with that fragrance.
Hopefully that answers some others' questions! I have a lot more news to post, but... I'm running out of time for this weekend already, and it's only just begun!
It's that time of year again for New Year's resolutions. I'm not normally one to make personal goals that I can never attain, but I do believe that the only way to accomplish a task is to know what you want when you first begin. I decided to skip personal resolutions this year (my to do list is already long enough) and work on more business-related resolutions.
Please do not hesitate to provide any thoughts and feedback you might have about 2009 and its ongoings, and I will be sure to take everything to heart as I prepare for 2010. Hope everyone had a happy holiday! We are still on break until next week, so for now I leave you with my inspiration mood board for our 2010 resolutions.
10. Save more of everything.
Oh Deer bookmarks by crowandiris
The rest are after the jump. :)
Continue reading 2010 resolution board..
It has been since last spring that I released four regular-catalog perfumes here at Sweet Anthem. But... over the weekend, I added four new fragrances to the Etsy shop and today finished setting up their entries here! Please to welcome our new vaudevillian- and vintage-Broadway-inspired beauties, which have already been garnering some attention via Twitter (and in person sniffs this weekend).
Esther: A companion scent to Emily, this is the cool, cold, wintry, snow-capped flanker to the warm and spicy version. Esther opens with oriental fruits, a colder marzipan-type prelude, and falls very quickly into a barely-there smoky, musky white chocolate dry down. I put this on well over 6 hours ago and the white chocolate is still pure, fluffy-white heaven.
Evelyn: For fans of Molly, Evelyn is another chocolate-patchouli number that opens with tender green fig leaf and matcha tea leaf notes. Somewhat sweet-sour and smoky-woodsy all at once, Evelyn is a bright red oil that is more softer than some of our other woodsy category scents. The guiacwood is an accord of several woods and finely-crafted aroma chemicals, and accompanied by a patchouli c02 that will knock the socks off any patchouli fans out there.
Sophie: On the heels of our very successful Halloween release, Rebecca, comes Sophie — another agar/amber duo, with several different varieties of amber and agarwood co-distillations. This perfume is finished with a sultry, musky black tea in place of the sugary honey that anchored Rebecca. This composes a much more feminine, herbal fragrance — gossamer hazes of black currant and neroli linger on top.
Stanford: A new masculine release for us, Stanford is a fragrance I've been personally daydreaming abut since early October while listening to lots of Andrew Bird's Bowl of Fire during the gorgeous fall we had here. Falling into my recent love of all things green tea, this is a more true-to-scent green tea note than some of the more "brewed" and warm green tea notes out there. At the heart is a very rich and steamy osmanthus that is matched with sparkling fig. The whole darn thing is spiked with absinthe. Y'know. For funsies.
We're running a Twitter contest to win a sample pack of our beautiful winter releases, follow the RT instructions here to enter (through Christmas Eve)! If you've already sniffed yours, please leave a review!
Sorry this is short and sweet, but I'm beat from the recent holiday madness and definitely ready for some upcoming vacation time. Please have a very happy holidays, from all of us at Sweet Anthem!
Another reason we've been so quiet on the blogging front: our joint-label effort (called Eos) with local energy company Blue Marble Energy was released this week. Blue Marble Energy is the first biorefinery in the world to create petrol-free aroma chemicals, and we were on the scene to turn that into a carbon neutral fragrance.
Check out King 5's report here! Eos for Her contains neroli, sandalwood, green tea, and banana; while Eos for Him contains cognac, honeysuckle, white ginger, apricot, and candied fruits. The Eos line is presented in elegant, square glass bottles with silver metallic caps with roll-on applicators, and the silver-stamped tags were handmade by local jeweler Carolyn Buss.
You can buy a 1/2 ounce bottle of this limited edition fragrances directly at Blue Marble for just $30. Local folks can pick it up in time for the holidays — contact BME for details.
Last but not least, Eos was voted #2 on the top 5 bio-based gifts for the holidays at Bio Fuels Digest.
In antiquity, perfumes impregnated everything. In a few years we may witness the same frenzy. There is therefore no occasion for anxiety in connection with the perfumery industry as such or for worrying over the future of the "odour merchants". However, perfume itself is threatened; it is more than threatened, it is attacked. Thus, instead of asking whether perfumery is still an art, it would be better to give it every chance of showing that it can still be one. — Edmound Roudnitska, Where are we going?, S.P.C. Yearbook 1969
I was briefly distracted today by the impending release of quite a few English writings of Edmound Roudnitska from the 60's. Anya McCoy will be publishing them in PDF format here at her Web site, but is just now under way with the scans. These will likely prove invaluable; I myself have said many times how I wish I would have stuck with my French in college simply in order to read vintage perfumery texts. And I can imagine many more Nose Words installments to come.
Yet again, blogging has come to a standstill over here while I am in pre-holiday frenzy mode. I have been busy busy busy between retail, wholesale, show prep, and moving! My studio is now in a new location (in my apartment) and still somewhat in disarray. But I'm still getting as much done as I possibly can. I have a lot of stuff to post, but sadly, it will have to wait. *sigh* More soon!
De Gunzburg naturally fell head over heals for the one-of-a-kind Fleur d'Oranger that Kurkdjian crafted specifically for her, and before he knew it le tout Paris was buzzing about his original olfactory works of art. It didn't take long before overseas beauties sniffed him out and he was back on those red eyes following his clients around the globe with his "labomobile," a Pinel et Pinel custom steamer truck filled with over 200 scent samples.
This installment of Nose Words is from the following article about Francis Kurkdjian, Big Boy Perfumer-turned Globetrotting Bespoke Designer in Paris. This seems is so modern, what he's doing: the somewhat kitschy rock star lifestyle matched with a traditionally loner-profession like perfumery. (And check out his nifty travel organ.) Quote & photo from Parisbao.
"Even though Ellena's perfumes often evoke the smells of nature, he believes that scents containing only natural materials are not, fundamentally, perfumes. The art of perfumery, Ellena believes, is the art of gracefully combining different chemicals, some natural, some synthetic."— Chandler Burr, The Scent of the Nile (The New Yorker)
Emphasis mine. This time, Nose Words comes to you from perfume critic and editorial writer Chandler Burr. Now, note: these charged words are not necessarily Burr's opinions (and I haven't found the full article yet to read, though I have read his book The Perfect Scent and now I want to go thumbing through it again), as he is referring to Hermes' Master Perfumer Jean-Claude Ellena. Found via the blog, Fragrance Bouquet.
Personally, I bridge the natural-synthetic gap myself, but not for lack of respect for natural perfumes or our planet, and don't feel like I need to really own up to why or why not. So really, all I can say is that one day I'd like to see Ellena and one Mandy Aftel have a fight to the fragrant death.
"My biggest indie challenge is hitting the off button, setting limits for myself, or putting myself on a normal schedule. Most days I work from the time I get up till I go to bed. My idea of an extended vacation is fifteen minutes out by the pool in the evening with a cup of tea. But at the same time I am very low key. So I can't really complain. I am doing what makes me happy."Liz Zorn, in a recent newsletter on the Indie Beauty Network
Liz also says in the article: "Our niche of hand poured small batch perfumes isn't quite so niche anymore."
Nose Words isn't so much of a new column in this blog as it might become an inspiration board. Things I need to remember, interesting stuff perfumers and perfume critics have to say, and ideals I agree with or would strive to adhere to. I read a lot, but barely write about it. Maybe this will at least get me back in the blogging habit. :)
It was a really tough decision, but I've decided that I won't be vending at Urban Craft Uprising this summer. I apologize profusely for anyone who was looking forward to getting their sniff on, but I just don't have the stock (let alone the energy for a two-day crafting extravaganza) right now. Everything has been spoken for by outstanding featured seller spotlight orders, and every time I think I finally have enough stock of something, I run out. Good golly. I never expected this, at all.
That being said, I'm still hard at work cranking out packages and I have really appreciated everyone's patience. All of my customers and supporters have been fantastic and I cannot thank you enough. It is just me around here, but I did also have a little bit of help from my boyfriend, at least, helping me to tag and label and drag stuff to the post office, and keep me sane when things got a bit rough the last couple of weeks. So, we're getting there. I think I am down to the last 50 packages with only 25 orders remaining to produce. PHEW.
I have a couple of other things on my plate, too, which is kind of making for some interesting exercises in time management. I am hard at work on a DIY tutorial for Indie Fixx, one of my all time favorite blogs. Additionally, I have a few graphic projects, including a logo for an old bandmate of mine who is now the Director of Comedy at Breakthru Radio (how rad of a title is that?). And lastly, I'm attempting to streamline my processes further so that when massive rushes like this arise in the future (one can only hope?) I am much better prepared.
To that end, there will be some changes around here when we reopen in September (I am taking the ENTIRE MONTH OF AUGUST off of retail - yay!). I won't be removing any fragrances, but some will be sold in limited supply only. We'll have a few new formats, and I'd like to start doing more one-off, limited edition runs, and focus more on custom and DIY perfumery and events.
I'll have more details as I know them, of course, but that's the weather as it is now. Speaking of the weather, it is STIFLING in Seattle and the heat is making it difficult to melt wax properly. I'm hiding out in corporate America as long as I can afford to today.
I had this long, angry post about the IFRA (International Fragrances Association) Amendment #43 and its destruction of natural beauty products, the political misguidance and the bad science it seems to be representing, the consumer fear mongering it so feverishly supports and promotes, and the seemingly "meh" response among my perfumer friends, even those bent on using only natural ingredients. I had this long semi-witty diatribe about what it's doing to the niche perfumery world, how one of my friends is having to close her shop to reformulate, etc ad nauseum.
And then I came across Magickal Realism's Trashion perfume series, an experiment at using only synthetics in creating perfumes, an attempt to realize the world that IFRA seems to want so badly for consumers.
In the perfumer's words:
The protest of this formulation is in its syntheticism; IFRA wants to create a world of nothing but synthetic perfumes, and this is an example of what you'd get - a smell with little substance beyond the first hit. Think of it as hands on education about what an all-synthetic world could get you.
Brilliant and said much better than I could have at expressing my anger at all of this (if they're regulating oakmoss, why not polycyclic musks containing galaxolides? why not parabens? you can't regulate one with a modicum of moral superiority and not the others on the transparent agenda of "known to cause allergic reactions"). This is the kind of action I've been seeking from fellow perfumers. I don't want to just roll over and take it, despite how much or how little pull I think IFRA would have over some of us in the end as it stands. Regardless, kudos, Diana, for you are sheer genius.
As for me, I won't be reformulating anything. Caroline uses such little oakmoss in the end that it's no point, and while I use an essential oil of jasmine in quite a few of my perfumes, it is not sambac. I'll simply continue to strive for transparency as I always have. I actually plan to open a synthetic-related shop at some point, mostly because of my interest in chemisty & science, but, like I said, I will always tell you what's what. Till then, go support Diana, and say no to IFRA.
I plan to post a follow-up entry at some point with more informative links for those outside of the industry going "bzuh?". Watch for that soon!
There's a lot more to any fragrance launch than meets the eye, and it's that "lot" of things that has been keeping me too occupied to blog lately. Apologies, as I know I've been meaning to post about some things, but it's just how it is.
We launch four perfumes every quarter and I'm beginning to wonder if I really am a masochist. Four fragrances. That's four bottles. So everything that ordinarily comes with a fragrance launch -- you know, brewing, decanting, bottling, listing, writing copy, spinning the theme, creating the artwork, gathering the packaging materials, testing, sniffing, resniffing, retesting, rebrewing, redoing sometimes some things entirely -- is multiplied by four. I can't even imagine how many hours of actual work it boils down to. Why yes, I guess I am psychotic. Thank you for noticing.
And it is not lost on me yet that I haven't actually worked on the final two perfumes for summer. I know it. I own it. I'll work it. But the fact is that two are still conceptual sketches. Two are complete (well...mostly...): Lori, a tea/jasmine combination that may or may not evolve further than that (and probably will...as is the reason for the previous qualifier...), and Elliott, the first of our men's fragrances, an oakmoss, labdanum, rain, and pine number that I'm particularly satisfied with. I should mention that Rare Device has the initial version of Lori on their shelves already because they are special.
I admittedly wrestled with the men's line, not wearing a lot of men's fragrances myself and not having dated anyone in awhile who does. I created quite a few before deciding Elliott finally, truly worked for me...and worked in a grand way. The others were all too powdery, too purple, or too...something. Angelica, ambergris, grapefruit, saffron things that were so very much not men's fragrances despite my insistence on throwing in a little black pepper. They were all bent on some sort of bluesy hues jazz number, and came on too powdery instead of smoky blue like I'd hoped. Too darn feminine, I suppose. So when Elliott was done and strong and brooding on bottom and yet somehow clean and crisp on top, I breathed a huge sigh of relief. Victory, at last.
And that's not all that's been going on, either, because it's not like with four fragrances to launch that the daily wheels stop turning. For instance, last night, after completely cleaning out my closet and gathering five bags of clothes to donate, I made 65 solid perfumes for regular retail everyday orders. Sixty five 3ml solid perfumes in one sitting. That means of the containers I ordered last week, I am already low again. That means that business is great, which also means I don't slow down. I am even out of soy wax. That means the precarious dance of reordering supplies just in the nick of time continues. Occasionally, we get ahead, but it really is wonderful that we have so many local suppliers or we'd be truthfully screwed.
Other things are crazy as well. We have our photography quarterly update scheduled next week so the prop gathering has been relatively crazy (cue typewriter theme!). Signage making is in full gear. Some screen printing needs doing. Taggage needs to be assembled, checklists need to be made, and products need to be future-proofed. Other new lines are being developed. And we're still continuing to expand our stockists list, locally and afar.
So you might imagine that I'm insanely excited to be taking a couple of weeks off here shortly, as is our quarterly tradition. I'll be doing it early this quarter, which I realize sounds crazy but that's why I'm busting my butt right now to try and get ahead at all if possible. Directly following the Punk Rock Flea Market (more details on that soon), I'll be heading to New York for what should have been my four days of networking at the Perfume Expo America, which I won't be attending since they changed the conference dates just directly after I booked my flight. (Thanks for that. A brief grumble: if you cite swine flu as the excuse, it would be more prudent, in my opinion, to postpone the event until much further than three weeks later.) Besides, I know enough people in the city to have a good time without having to sit through 8 hours of industry lectures.
If I don't get a chance to post before then, see you smelly cats on the flip side! Our quarterly launch begins June 20th and will last throughout July.
For the followers wondering where Brianne, one of the original four perfumes offered in this shop, had wondered off to, she's back. Through the end of this month, you can find her on Etsy as a limited edition fragrance for an early summer launch. Unfortunately there just isn't enough local dewberry to go around, and we're darned picky about our dewberry, so for now this is all we have left of this popular and hard to find perfume of ours! It's just too good to hoard with the summer weather finally starting to embrace the Northwest.
In other news, the Whos Your Mama? craft show this weekend was a roaring success, and we had such a pleasure (even if I am red from head to toe, thanks, elusive Seattle sun!). I have photos to post at some point, but you know how that goes... many thanks to Gretchen, Emily, and Dakota for inviting us!
It's odd that I have downtime, but this weekend has been full of it. Now that I've resolved to only fill packages during the week it leaves me time to actually do all the things that I said I was going to put off until spring or summer. I'm also sort of between a lot of things, right now. While I could start new products or perfumery projects, I'm waiting on some essential oils that I'd really like to crack at, and I don't have any full releases planned until July as it is. While business has been steady, it's also been wonderfully chill. I was, admittedly, burned out, and looking for new projects to keep me interested.
That being said, I think it's time to redesign the lab a little. I've been hunting down inspiration and thinking about DIY projects I can do to spruce up my current furniture. Since I've been steadily working in this room since Octoberish of last year, I now have a better idea of what I need (and want). And while part of me daydreams of moving to a different part of town or into a more live/work loft type situation, I'm content here. I know the neighborhood. I can walk to 3 of my suppliers. I've been here three years, which is longer than any place I've lived outside of my childhood home. So maybe I ought to just concentrate on fixing up the space I love once and for all.
We'll see how this goes. I am not an interior designer, but I do have a pretty keen sense of color and style (and read plenty of design blogs cough). For now, I leave you with Pink Loves Brown's lovely studio tour which has long been sitting in my inspiration bookmarks folder.
I just finished watching tonight's episode of Lost and waiting for the new episode of Demetri Martin's Important Things to start. So while I did, I took out some scratch paper and began working on our DIY Perfumery Kits that I'm premiering at a local event later this month, and on this website and Etsy in April.
Putting together a kit is a difficult thing. There are so many amazing oils and it's important, I think, as you dabble in perfumery, to be able to appreciate them all. Honestly, I didn't appreciate vetiver until I smelled it paired with chocolate at one point and then I understood. Now, I'm dying to use it. Sometimes it's those unexpected notes you think you might cringe at that end up being your favorites.
That being said, and inspired by Lost (somewhat), I decided to come up with my Desert Island DIY Kit list of essential and fragrance oils I just could not live without.
Continue reading Tacobel Canon.
When my last roommate moved out, I swore never to have one again. Since I'm finally able to make that work, I set up shop in my 2nd bedroom and it's been amazing. Initially, this was my bedroom, but now: it's a fantastic workspace. So here's a little tour of my studio!
(Above are my mascots, Errol and Jareth. Guess which is which. I got the owl at the same shop I bought the card catalog chest, and my boyfriend bought me the wind-up caterpillar for Christmas when we were at the market.)
I was hoping to spend today of my Detroit trip actually in Ann Arbor, meeting up with Molly, one of my long-time online partners-in-crime and fellow Etsyian that I had yet to meet in person. That was, most unfortunately, a busted plan. So for most of the evening, I have been perusing perfumery websites and listening to Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy in the other room (y'know...Alec Guinness, Patrick Stewart, BBC spy series...?) and occasionally picking up my shiny new Nintendo DS when the mood strikes.
One genius thing I discovered today during my moping was The Perfumed Court's brilliant usage of categorizing their perfumes by Guide ratings. My standard transit book as of late, Luca Turin's Perfumes: The Guide, has kept me pretty well occupied on the bus, at the airport, and during dayjob lunch breaks. If you haven't picked it up, it's fascinating at what it does. And what does it do? It reviews just about every major perfumery release you could ever dream of, categorizes them, and then rates them on a five-star system. NO, it's not the first perfume book on the market, but it might be the first commercially entertaining one.
Mandy Aftel: on staying niche
Yes, for example once a year at the holiday I open my studio for people to come and see it and shop. I am very involved in all the packaging and the displays. It is a party really, we have music and food and I feel thrilled that people will buy my things and put them under the Christmas tree for people that they love and give them to people for their birthdays. I like being indirectly involved in the pleasure and the love in other people's lives by things I have made, it makes me very happy.
I do everything myself and I have really resisted the temptation to grow larger, despite lots of opportunity, because I don't think I could give things the attention to detail that I really want to.
-- Mandy Aftel
Ahh, Ms. Aftel, how you continue to inspire. Absolutely everyone interested in natural perfumery (and really, for that matter, perfumery in general) ought to read this interview with Mandy Aftel, the visionary behind Aftelier. (So many quotable paragraphs!) While I have not personally had the chance yet to smell any of her wonderful sounding juices, it's one of my goals this year to do so. And it should say something that she is my biggest inspiration in perfumery, even without having smelled anything by her as of yet. I can vouch that Essence & Alchemy is completely indispensable!
Enjoy! There are other things to report, but it's late, or early, or something. More upon my return from Detroit! Happy New Year's all!
I added a new item on the FAQ about when all you lovely sniffers can expect your order to be shipped. For reference, the times currently are:
- Placed on or before 11/25: Shipped by 12/6.
- Placed on 11/26 as a reservation: Shipped by 12/10.
- Placed on 11/26 as an order: Shipped within 3-4 weeks from payment receipt, depending on stock. Cannot guarantee Christmas delivery.
- Placed on 11/28 or after: Shipped within 4-6 weeks from payment receipt, depending on stock. Cannot guarantee Christmas delivery.
Other updates on shipping and turnaround times will be posted as stock is expanded.
I have turned the shopping cart back on just to save us all any headache of downtime. You can order as usual, just please know that you will not receive perfume solid freebies on these orders (apologies, but I am completely out!) and that you should expect a shipping date of 3-4 weeks from receipt of payment. I will do my best to get anything out as soon as I can.
Please let me know if you have any questions, comments, or concerns. Happy hoildays, everybody!
Hey folks, this is short notice but I'm going to take the catalog down during Thanksgiving week to work on filling the slew of pre-Holiday orders that are piling up. Absolutely everything is completely sold out, but if you would like to reserve your place in line for the next round of collection packs, you can do so by purchasing this item on Etsy. (I decided to just create one final listing for the 2nd round to alleviate the back and forth between myself and my customers.) These reservations are for collections that will ship by December 11, likely no earlier than, to hopefully reach folks in time for U.S. holidays. After these are gone, it'll be back to regular shipping on Tuesdays & Thursdays with a likely 2-3 week turnaround time in the coming months.
I want to say a major thank you to Design*Sponge for recommending my perfumes; it's been an exciting morning on my end and I will try to get everything out in the next couple of weeks (perfume solid freebies included).
Ordering will be back online sometime next week (after the elections - don't forget to come back and vote!). In the meantime, don't hesitate to contact me if you're interested in setting up a custom perfume session - I am always happy to discuss possibilities.
See you all Nov 30!
Perfume Solids, Thank You's, and Coming Soon
I've been trying to find a way to say thank you to everyone who has helped make this year possible. It's been a really long 8 months. Sure, Sweet Anthem has been online since mid-2007, but business has not been booming (read: I've not been as involved as I'd have liked to be) until May of this year. Things are picking up, though. I'm dreaming, and scheming, and creating all the time. And I'd like to share some new things with you.
Now through December 15, every order will receive one of my new perfume solids free. If you'd like to simply receive the companion solid to the perfume you ordered, you can leave the notes portion of your Paypal transaction blank. But if you're hankering to try new scents, please feel free to request anything you'd like.
This offer is no longer available. Please check back in December for the full catalog of perfume solids.
Continue reading Prove my love..And, we're back! I expect the site to continue to evolve, but this will definitely be the final scheme. Please let me know what you think. :)
So, it's no secret that I've been out of the loop as far as seasonal perfumery updates elsewhere goes. I'm trying to get back in the habit of supporting other fine fragrance makers, though, and I thought I'd abuse Paperwires' 52 Weeks of Creations to create perfume (and other smelly goods) round-ups based on the themes. Since this past month has been rife with autumnal offerings from my favorite companies, it came at the perfect time. At the moment, this is more of a wish-list than anything, as I have yet to wear these. Hopefully some of you will want to, too!
Mythos Mixtures
The duo at Mythox Mixtures have only been around a short time, but always produce intriguing oils. My favorite seasonal this time last year was Sleepy Hallowe'en (to the tune of two bottles), and I'm anxious to try these:
- Sinterklass - A scent based on the smells that make us think of Santa Claus and the holidays. Spruce trees, holly berries, juniper berries, sugar cookies and gingerbread.
- Fruit Cake - Rum soaked bread with raisins, candied cherries, and traditional spices.
- Yule Log - Smoky resins, torched yule logs, burnt tobacco, all within a peaceful comforting fireplace that is sure to calm the soul.
- Fir Tree - Warm inviting branches, candied apples, and lightly scented carnations.
When my college friend Megan, who now lives in New York City, contacted me about making a custom perfume for her, I was more than ecstatic. While Sweet Anthem has been live as a perfumery since early 2007, I haven't had the chance to take someone else's vision and turn it into a fragrance just yet.
So, taking on the task, I developed four initial fragrances for her. She requested a scent that smelled like "a slice of lemon in a cup of Earl grey", and I decided to take a few different turns.
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