Some Midweek Thoughts and Review of Ambre Noir

A new issue of Sniffapalooza Magazine is out today, and I like this quote by Andy Tauer about what it means to be a niche perfumer:

“True niche is niche because of the quality of the fragrances, the creative energy that resides in it, the scents’ storylines and because of the love and passion of the folks that are behind the fragrances. Nichest niche is bottled passion and joy, soul and spirits.”

i think about this a lot because I make each bottle myself and know that there is a limit to how many bottles I can produce this way, but I’m not sure how much of that I’d want to change. I really like the nature of handing the ingredients myself, processing and filtering the naturals, and putting together packages for people that I hope they’ll enjoy. I don’t have to worry about that issue for now, though I’d love to have a helper before long for a few things like making samples, bottle labels, and shipping labels, things that could save me some time so I could do more blending, which keeps getting put aside to attend to orders. I think the goal would be to lighten my load a bit but do it in a way that still keeps me doing the perfumes themselves while reducing some of the related tasks.

I also agree with the distinction people have made between indie and niche because many brands considered to be niche are owned by large companies and not by indie artists. I value the idea of hand crafted items made by the artisans themselves because so much of the person goes into the work (in addition to fragrance, I love hand crafted jewelry, botanical drawings, photography, and quilts, though I’ve not collected much because my cottage isn’t big enough, lol). Indie perfumers have much more freedom to use the materials they choose and to create what they want rather than what the mass market wants. I’m very appreciative of this freedom.

There was a lovely review of Ambre Noir today on the blog Perfume da Rosa Negra. That was a nice surprise to see today!