Scheduling Part II, and update on Jour E and Gardenia

I’ve had several requests to wait until Monday/Tuesday to put the cart up because people will be away for the long holiday weekend and that may make more sense, especially since I won’t have the first batch of Jour Ensoleille done before Saturday. I also just realized that I won’t be able to begin shipping until Tuesday anyway because Monday is a mail holiday. The best idea might be to put the regular fragrance page back up on Friday with all the pricing and all the scents that will be available but with payment processing turned off for a few more days (so if you try to put an order through you’ll get an error message, which isn’t very polite but the only way I can get the price buttons back up to view). Then Monday afternoon I can turn the payment processing on and officially open. By putting the full scent list and pricing up on Friday, people could decide about potential orders. Fireside Intense and Femme Jolie will be back on the list, and Jour Ensoleille should be there too. I really want to finish this first batch of Jour before I open the cart, and it should be done by Saturday eve.

I hope that’s agreeable for all. Turn-around time will be a bit longer than usual for the first two weeks and then the initial influx should be through and things should get back to normal.

I’ve had quite a few inquiries about the shea cream too. I won’t add the shea cream back to the site until early October after I catch up from this initial busy time. I take the shea down during the hot summer shipping months and start offering it again in fall; shea can melt in summer heat and when it re-solidifies it can be grainy, which defeats the purpose of carefully making a smooth and creamy product, so I prefer not to ship in the hottest summer months.

I tested gardenia yesterday for the first time in two weeks and am very excited about it. It has plenty of oomph in the dry-down now and I just need to smooth out the start. The opening had been beautiful but the drydown lacked enough oomph; now that the dry-down is fixed the opening needs work again. It has a great long-lasting drydown though with jasmine and gardenia on a sandalwood and musk base. I can’t wait to have a chance to finish it. I may need to release it in the wrong season, but given how long this took I won’t wait until spring if it is ready soon.

Meanwhile, Jour Ensoleille looks like it is done and it’s actually in the correct season, lol. Jour is great for fall. It’s a gentle chypre with classic chypre ingredients of real oakmoss, patchouli, and labdanum absolute combined with florals and a touch of citrus, but it’s done in a gentler way than some of the stronger classic chypres of the past. I love the classics myself, Mitsouko parfum in particular, but Jour Ensoleille is meant to be a softer type of chypre. Although it is gentler, it doesn’t fit the latest modern chypre trends of using imitation moss, or sweet fruity notes, or the new style of clean patchouli. The main floral notes are neroli, orange blossom and jasmine, with soft tuberose in the blend too. The base is mostly sandalwood and moss notes with light labdanum and patch and with accents of green leaves, hay, and beeswax.