I just wanted to let you all know today is my last day for free shipping worldwide. For you lovely international clients, I do want to give you a heads up: customs restrictions are getting enforced a lot more on both sides of the pond, and because of that, I have been hearing reports of people who still had to pay a customs charge on items marked as “gift” To my knowledge this has not happened to anyone who has ordered from me recently, but it’s best to err on the side of caution.
For those interested in the Oh So Very Perfume spray, it may be a good idea to contact me privately before ordering. Because it contains denatured alcohol I have to ship it by UPS, which always starts at $10. While I can ship it internationally via UPS, it would likely be prohibitively expensive so I’m reserving the scent for US customers only.* Your best bet may be to set up a custom order with me and add other items to that shipment to get the best value considering the expense of shipping.
You may or may not see a lot of new stuff from me in 2010; I’m focusing on my writing career, and while I will keep my Etsy shop open and always give my clients the best service I can, there’s just stuff I gotta write. I’m also growing a lot of catnip, as it’s my goal to get cats hooked on drugs. My first batch sprouted today. You’ll see more in 3-5 months.
*I have some perfume solids coming that ship internationally very easily. Hopefully this will make up the unavailability of the perfume spray.
Happy New Year, and all the best in 2010!
Pride, Prejudice, Zombies…and Trademark
Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: The Classic Regency Romance – Now with Ultraviolent Zombie Mayhem!
I use this book as an example of what’s possible in a land free of trademarks, and where copyright has expired. Jane Austen is an odd phenomenon, wherein the 19th century and the Internet meet – and since Ms. Austen is long past such earthly concerns as royalties, others enjoy – and sometimes profit – from her legacy in the form of books like the above, or movies like Clueless and Bride and Prejudice. For fans of things more recent than Jane Austen, there are two legal roadblocks to issuing forth the products of our creative urges based on someone else’s creative urge: trademark, and the very distinct from trademark – copyright. There is also a third factor involved: intent. Whether or not you come from a pure place may not matter in the eyes of the law, but it may well matter to the thinking fellow fans that might also partake in your work.
Trademark is a tricky thing, especially when it runs into another tricky thing: fandom. For instance, I’m a Doctor Who fan. I’m an American Doctor Who fan. Funny thing about British nerds: because as a rule they’re better dressed than us US folks, they’re not too likely to have T-shirts. So what’s an all-American Doctor Who fan to do? DIY baby – that’s how we come up with stuff like T-shirts with oblique references to Weeping Angels and Bad Wolf perfume. Now BBC knows a cash cow when it has one, and if fans use the Doctor Who logo or affiliate these goodies without licensing, we are violating their international trademark. BBC gives us awesome, and they do deserve their cut. However, licensing agreements are prohibitively expensive and fans get a thrill off of passing encoded messages to each other – so instead of co-opting David Tenant’s face (or even his Converses) we instead go for turns and phrases that are recognizable to other fans as references to the show but do not adopt any image licensed and trademarked by the BBC. Thus “Weeping Angel” shirts (or even one that just says “Blink”) and Bad Wolf perfume – it is absolutely inspired by Doctor Who, but uses no image from the show in its marketing and sale.
Trademark is especially tricky in the land of perfume inspiration. Perfume names may be trademarked, but book titles may NOT be copyrighted. So if I wanted to write a book titled “Doctor Who” and used my own logo/image and it was NOT about a time traveling doctor, but about say a mystery OBGYN, BBC might try to do something but likely the lawsuit would be dismissed as frivolous. (And really, it would be a tragically stupid marketing idea so we’d all get what we deserved on that one.) Perfume recipes, like alll bath, body and food recipes can NOT be copyrighted – we have no protection for our formulas. I can make tomato sauce from a Betty Crocker cookbook and sell it as my own – the Crocker company would have no right to a cut unless I used the name Betty Crocker in the marketing. The same can happen with perfume – leaving trademark as our only, and very limited protection. It’s a delicate dance – drawing from the things we love that are also living. It’s one thing to make a perfume based on Edgar Allen Poe, but if you’re a fan of something more current – like Hello Kitty – it’s a very different situation. To refer to is fine, but to co-opt is definitely not.
Every so often you’ll see a flair-up on Etsy – there are sellers whose entire bread and butter comes from essentially trademark violation. Whether you choose to look the other way or not is up to you; I personally prefer to do a sidestep – or to look carefully at where the creation came from. If it’s “Oh, well I’ll make this because Hello Kitty is popular,” I tend to respect it far less than a place of “Because Daria is awesome.” There needs to be respect for the original creators, but also for the fans – especially in cases where fan goodies are not something readily provided by the original source.
Morning surprise
This appeared on my balcony just as I was going to give up on the flowers blooming at all. It was a beautiful, much needed surprise, and a reminder that some things just need a little more nurturing before blossoms burst forth.
Monday art-goofiness
More to it than S-E-X
Perfume in the west is conceived of mainly as sex juice. Spritz a perfume. Attract a man. Spritz a perfume. Be what every woman desires. There’s a new twist on this the past decade or so, too: spritz a perfume. Be a celebrity. A fascinating twist, since in this day and age there is nothing that so quite so simultaneously attracting and repellent as fame, with a whole lot of sexual fantasy tied up in that complicated bundle.
I suspect that a good chunk of perfume collectors are chasing a fantasy as much as they are a smell, and yes, a good chunk of that fantasy falls in the sex category.
And a lot of scents I just don’t use or don’t care to use fall under that sexual-association header: musk, which in natural form is illegal and nasty; florals which are in my opinion used to great effect and sometimes overused in many perfume houses both mainstream and niche; berry based fruits, which while not impossible to get naturally are also starting to verge on the trendy and overused.
I get frequent requests for sexy, sexy, sexy and while I understand the popularity, it’s not really what I do. Perhaps it’s due to a quirk of my personality: I actually can not be physically attracted to a person until I find him/her intellectually attractive. You can put a shirtless bohunk in front of me and I’ll be dead from the waist down until he starts talking to me about practical jokes he’s played using principles learned while getting his masters in physics.1 So, as a perfume artist, only a few of my fragrances explore the pure physical sexuality that mainstream houses constantly pursue.
What I do is more of an intellectual exercise, or maybe an emotional exercise. However you cut it, on some level it’s basically play of an almost childlike variety. This is in part because I started out not as a “magical perfumer” but as a “ritual oil” creator. My quick grasp of occult correspondences helped me product oils with specific purposes that were easily lined up and charged up. The advantage of ritual oil design is that you are under no obligation to make them smell good. I did find, however, things did tend to sell better if I at least tried to make the fragrance attractive, and pretty soon my clients from Medea’s Chariot were admitting to me that they were buying my purpose oils just to use as recreational perfume. Given that I sold to the goth and magical market, I was kind of floored. However, when I shut down for awhile I began to mix perfumes privately with aesthetics and intention in mind.
Sex and Politics is interesting in this discussion, because it is possibly the only perfume I currently sell created with mainstream perfume conventions in mind, and it was actually created as a bridge of aesthetics and magical purpose. I made it initially because of some very silly college-kid drama going on in a group I had been involved with; even though it captures the very essence of spice and intrigue, it’s actually about taking that crap and getting people to calm down. As the scent evaporates, so does the crazy (at least that’s what I intended.) I figured it would work best if the evaporation of the scent also happened to be a very pleasant experience. While I can’t say I cured the crazy – magic can never go against someone’s nature, just be incorporated into it – it did seem for a little while that the crazy relocated.
I bring this up because I feel like there’s so much more in the olfactory and aesthetic world than sex, and while sex does need more and different discussion from what is typical,2 in perfumeland it seems like it’s the only discussion. It’s not even really subtext, it’s just text, and any other aesthetic possibility gets almost unfairly consigned to aromatherapy. I’ve started a discussion on my Facebook fan page to encourage further discussion of this, and comments here are always also welcome.
References- I did ultimately marry a roboticist. [↩]
- I am actually writing my own manual to 21st century sex, hopefully along with a good friend [↩]
The Brick and Mortar question
It’s been asked before and will likely be asked again: “Do you have a brick and mortar?” “Do you do consignment?” “Will you be at x show?”
And the answer is a)no b)no and c)probably not.
All of these are followed with: “But why?”
Why no brick and mortar:
I especially get asked about this first one by people who also live in the Twin Cities. They shop on Etsy, but balk at shopping on Etsy for something local (though they frequently make noises to the contrary.) Instead of working out a delivery arrangement or what have you, they usually ask me for where my retail shop is. Retail shops are expensive and require debt. I’m on a shoestring, so I have zero business debt – and I’m not willing to go into debt for my business. I realize that this runs afoul of this weird psychological quibble, and I suspect it’s also about an attempt to get free samples, something which, because of the materials I use, just isn’t possible.
I realize there’s resistance to paying for shipping when you’re local – although, since I do first class USPS shipping, it would cost less than the gas for a delivery, and probably less than it would cost to drive out to a show to look at my goods. It’s just a point of frustration – I do a good chunk of my shopping online, including from local businesses, so to me, it’s no big deal.
This is not to say I don’t have plans for a retail space in the future. Just don’t get too fixated on it being a boutique where you can open product right and left – what I have in mind bears no resemblance whatsoever to the boutiques you see throughout the Twin Cities right now, and for that to happen, I need folks to buy from my Etsy store, first.
Why no Consignment:
As for consignment – I’ve found it’s jut not worthwhile. I have to put money forward on making up product that may or may not sell, and then I provide it to a shop for nothing beyond the honor of having my goods gracing their shelves. And sometimes those goods are put on bottom shelves and other places where small objects like perfume vials can’t be seen. So I’m giving something for nothing, and people are opening and playing with my product as they shop until the quality degrades, and then I’m forced to take home perfume product that never sold and is now unsaleable, leaving me out the money I had to spend to make it. Pass.
Why I probably won’t be at the next show
I would like to do more shows, but I have an additional problem beyond the whole shoestring and product investment issue: I’m a bit clueless as to what I need to present to actually get in to the juried shows. Also, booth fees for the good shows are expensive and sometimes cost more than the product I have on-hand. I’m still recovering from a big show that went badly back in 2007. This is partly because my product photography is weak, but also because jurors naturally assume that perfume comes with soap – and I don’t make soap. Any help someone has to offer on this would be quite welcome, as I continue to work out the kinks with my craft show presentation.
More on my inspirations
The Walker Sculpture garden is a little too popular, so I don’t always visit it when I need a hit of inspiration. But when I do, I always find it rewarding.
Retro decor – the Riverview theater
I know some of you all love retro, and the Riverview theater in Minneapolis hits every retro-awesome button I’ve got. Still true to its 60s roots, this great little place gives you cheap movies ($3 a ticket), great popcorn and some of the best cheap date nights I’ve ever had. I thought you might want to take a look – and enjoy!
Recipe fun: cream cheese custard
Way back in the dark ages, just after I finished college, I picked up this fabulous cookbook:
Not only are most of the recipes super easy and interesting, this book has been invaluable in preventing food waste around my home. The above was a clever way I found of using up some cream cheese that had been sitting in the fridge a bit…long. It wasn’t expired, but it was getting old. Four desserts over two days (with two of us.) Not too bad, and adding the cardamom and cinnamon sticks gave the entire mixture a subtle flavor rather than leaving it as a bland egg-and-vanilla dessert.
My resolutions for 2010
image by BleuhMeuh designs on flickr
I actually try to make resolutions around October 31st, but since most people recognize resolutions as a January thing – maybe because it keeps your mind off the dead month ahead – I thought I’d play along this time. Most of my resolutions revolve around catching up to promises made years ago: plant that tree (or acorn), finish that book, send that care package, etc. My Google Start page is littered with electronic stickies specifically for that purpose. Last year my big goal was to get organized, and that has been mainly successful. This year I need to advance a bit.
If I had to make a few specific business-related goals for the New Year, they would be as follows:
1. Use up what I have.
My home studio is bursting, but I’m not quite willing to do a destash. I want to become continuously better at what I do, and that means actually using the stuff onhand.
2. Keep it interesting.
In this case, I need to be totally interested in what I’m creating myself. This also may mean I need to block out some “study time” during my work day to keep up to date on new techniques and materials.
3. Keep it up.
For most of last year, I was, as we used to say on IRC chat, “afk.” My shop was usually open, but I was off doing other things – like cleaning out my office or overhauling my blogs.
So this year, I think it’s going to be all about the act of creation – whether its new perfume designs, decoupage vials or finding a ay to use up those tins that I keep inheriting from everywhere.
What are your business resolutions?