It's officially been three years since we started selling fragrances on Etsy. (Happy Etsyversary to us!) It's been a wild and crazy ride. A recap, shall we?

• 2007: we launched four fragrances, in a "dust" theme, because I was obsessed with Laura Veirs' song "Dream Dust". We were launching fragrances in 5ml amber apothecary bottles at the time, because, and I never admitted this, but I was a BPALer with no knowledge beyond the indie fragrance realm then.
• Late 2007: I came down with pneumonia and the shop closed until June 2008. It was a bad way to end a good year. I spent most of those six months reading perfumery blogs and books (and watching copious amounts of TV - and eating way too many hot dogs - while cooped up in Texas).
• 2008: I don't even know how many fragrances we launched; that seems like so long ago. But on Black Friday 2008, we were featured on Design Sponge's holiday gift guide. That was a 0_0 moment if there ever was one; Phil and I spent a good three weeks packing tiny little samples vials - we were selling 1ml vials at an introductory price of $1.50. It was a mess. Never go to Pike Place Market on Black Friday. I will never do that again.
• Early 2009: I was working part time as a designer, and trying to make it all work and failing quite miserably at it. Postal errors abound. This was not a fun time to be in business, but we got the issues all ironed out eventually.
• June 2009: I was supposed to go to an IFRA conference in NYC that got moved because of the swine flu scare. (Um, hi, I actually got swine flu once that year at a different conference, but y'know, thanks for ruining my plans.) So I spent a week in NYC smelling everything in sight and seeing old college friends.
• Late June 2009: The week I got back from NYC, the day I started a full time design job, I was a featured seller on Etsy and my world was turned upside down...again. I have a lot to be thankful for from that post, but I will also get on my featured seller soapbox if you let me. Since this is a list, we'll just say...thanks for all the fish. :)
• Late 2009, part a: Lots of press. We launched Eos, the world's first fragrance made with carbon neutral materials, with Blue Marble Energy, were featured in Bust's Dec/Jan issue, and were generally all over the place.
• Late 2009, part b: Lots of shows. And do we mean LOTS. OF. SHOWS. We launched head first into the holiday craft show season and did basically every one we could get in to, which was six. Or maybe eight. I can't remember; it was such a blur of truly awesome people and perfumers and soapers.
• This year: We've focused on formats and updating our image. It's 2010, after all. We have gorgeous new lotions and eau de parfum sprays and maybe a few other things in store this year.
• The future: Only time can tell! But we have so many exciting things in store. Besides a show & smell in April, a media event in NYC in May, and getting married in June... there's a lot to look forward to!

I can't tell you how much our success has been built around having an Etsy shop in addition to our website; the site itself has finally picked up and is about neck and neck in sales, but for so long we've relied on Etsy. It's the bulk of our business, and we have such loyal customers there, and can't imagine life without it.

So there you have it. A mushy recap from a misty-eyed perfumer over here.

Some other noteworthy things:

1. Spring is live on Etsy. Will come to the website shortly.
   
2. We will be closing for the month of June due to our wedding and honeymoon on June 5. Please get any orders in by May 15th to ensure delivery before we are bogged down in details. I would hate for you to miss out on something!

Our good friend Sweet Petula is having a studio sale this Saturday and graciously invited us along for custom perfumes! Stop in for great deals on soap, glass candles, jewelry, bath salts, fizzies, and fragrances! This is perfect for a little last-minute Valentine's day shopping, so come on in and get your love on! (Or something like that.)

We will have our full custom perfumery set up, along with our Madeline cupcake fizzies (as seen on today's edition of Poppytalk Handmade) and our latest limited edition fragrance, Amelia (plus all of our usual ladies in waiting). Yes, portions from Saturday's sale of Amelia 1/2 ounce bottles will still go to Haiti.

Hope to see you there, lovelies! Stay tuned tomorrow for an interview from Jeanee Duval (seriously, for real this time) and our weekly blogged edition.

Stop in from 11-5 pm at 208 S. Jackson St. in Seattle, WA.

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.

If you've been wondering where I've been, it's because we've been busy busy busy getting ready for our holiday shows and trying to fill the recent demand from early bird holiday gift shoppers.

We've been inundated with custom work and private label requests lately and I'm doing my best to keep the retail side turnaround time under two weeks, but it's a very structured process that doesn't leave much room for error as it is (and don't you know I'd love for every perfume that goes out the door to sit on my shelf for three weeks for me to monitor). I'm doing certainly better at multitasking this holiday season than last year this time, so I'm thankful for that, but I'd rather our turnaround be two weeks than me turning around haphazardly slapped together perfumes (and I'm sure you would too).

In the meantime, mark you calendars because we've got THREE big events coming up:

• Nov. 21 & 22 - Etsy Rain, 11am - 5pm
  The Intiman Theatre - 201 Mercer Street - Seattle, WA


• Nov. 27 & 28 - Indie Banditas, 10am - 5pm
  Woodward Middle School - Bainbridge Island, WA


• Nov. 29 - I <3 Indie Holidays, 11am - 6pm
  Lake Street Grill - Kirkland, WA

Also, our D.I.Y. kits will be featured in Bust Magazine for the Dec/Jan issue, and we've been working on gearing up for that press launch. We've got about 20 kit boxes ready to go to good homes, though a few are definitely already spoken for, and are working on more every day. Bust hits the stands 11/24, so be sure to pick one up! A major thank you goes to Jenn of Indie Fixx for posting my perfumery tutorial; it's generated a LOT of buzz and I really appreciate it!!

That's about it. More coming soon as events draw closer, but since I finally had a free moment in time I thought I ought to take advantage of it. Our Yule perfumes will be launching sometime soon, so I'll be back for that. Stay tuned!

It's been awhile since I posted (and I was doing so good, too), but I've been tremendously busy lately with all the goings-on. This weekend, which is particularly exciting, is our first Show & Smell of the Fall season! Please stop by Sweet Petula's in Pioneer Square this Friday & Saturday for a too sweet handmade trunk show featuring yours truly along with other local crafters Sweet Petula, My Little Sunshine, Haute Goat, and Gabriel's Aunt.

I won't be there in person on Friday because I am finishing up my current design contract this week (by the by, need a designer?), but on Saturday I will have one of my traveling organs with me to make custom perfumes on the spot (as well as custom DIY Kits). Both days, you'll be able to find a wide selection of our scents in both 1/4 oz and 1/3 oz sizes as well as our muchly-touted and instantly-popular Do It Yourself Perfumery Kits.

As if you needed one more reason to go, the first 20 visitors will get fantabulous goodie bags with free samples and products from each designer.

You can get more deets on our Facebook event or check out this lovely write-up in Seattle Metropolitan Magazine's style blog.

By the way, if you want to show more of your crafty pride this weekend, Handmade Nation is making its Seattle premiere at NW Film Forum Saturday and Sunday. A slew of us Etsy Rain-ers will be there, and it'll be the perfect way to round out your weekend of handmade goodness.

We've had so much fun with Etsy over the years and have loved every second on that little gem of a handmade-focused site. I personally have been a longtime lover of all things handmade and anything in the DIY movement for a very long time, so when I discovered it in 2006, I fell head over heels.

So I am super excited that today, my wee little shop is the featured seller. Read the full interview here, or after the jump in this blog post. I'm in pretty darn good company, too. Everybody from The Black Apple to one of my own cohorts in smelly crimes, Sweet Petula.

I don't like being a whiney blogger OR an ungrateful person. I want to preface this post by saying I highly value bloggers who take the time to review my perfumes or someway otherwise help promote my little brand. So this is by no means a gripe against those wonderful folk.

That being said, I wanted to bring to light something that has only ever sort of been a disclaimer (the very fine print) on this site and the Etsy Shop, and to add an addendum to that rule. Samples are not for resale. Nor (and here is the addendum) are they to be used for contest prizes without our prior consent.

Ordinarily, honestly, we're fine with giveaways and contests (though admittedly our current ones are merely in the works). We love passionate bloggers that want to give back to their readers. And to that end, we'd like to reward you with BIGGER products than samples to give away. Not to mention, making samples is tedious business and we like to slip the "extra" ones in our direct customers' packages or hand them out at shows. They're our version of social calling cards, and we like to know where they go and whose hands they end up in.

And so here's the sketchy and bitchy part that makes me sick to my stomach to have to even say: if we don't link to a giveaway from this very blog or on one of our Twitter accounts, we have not authorized the giveaway. We cannot be responsible for those goods being offered nor can we account for the veracity of the perfumes. And frankly, we don't appreciate our graphics being used without our permission or out of our branding guidelines. I personally work very diligently every day on our branding and am constantly updating graphics across the board - to see them used very poorly and out of scope isn't fair to the amount of time I put in and frankly makes me want to pull my hair out. Or theirs. As a friend of mine said, I should have final say in how my work gets used.

There. I ranted. More later if the story develops further.