Cottage Industries have long been a lifeline for many stay at home mums, but the advent of the internet, and the ability to create a product from start to finish then sell it without ever leaving your home, seems to be the way forward for mums, dads, grandparents, teens and start again businessmen to launch a minimal cost business platform from which to purvey your wares.

We know all of the high street big brand names, but lately these seem to be churning out fragrance after fragrance, candles, soap or other home fragranced products, with no time factored in to nuture it, build the potential and construct the illicit dream. This gives the inpression of them not really caring about us, their end customer. It all seems to be a money game – which of course we knew anyway, but all pretence seems to have been stripped away.

This is where the local industries have built their niche. They have the time to build a story based on local heritage, long forgotten customs and trends, and we are all more than happy to spend a few extra pounds to buy into their dreams instead.

Thanks to the interweb, anyone can become an overnight guru and because of this, the big brand names now seem to be for people who dont know any better, who are happy to follow rather than lead or consumers who lack the confidence to go with their convictions. The more educated that consumers become, the more they tend to seek out bespoke fragrance, wanting only the best in the field.

 The trend towards Indie perfumed products push the boundaries of defining scent and our perception of it. Home crafted products should be a magical blend of familiarity with a dash of quirkiness, something unique that draws the eye or indeed the nose in our case.

Local Heritage societies have launched their own collections with themes of castles and medieval market gardens, or you could look out for Scottish Moors, Glens and Thistles making an appearance, or Manx 3 Legged soaps. We are proud to invite guests into our homes and let them see that we support our local traders -it makes us feel that we are somehow making a difference - that we care about all things traditional.

Canny manufacturers have cottoned on at last, powering on towards the future whilst drawing nostalgic inspiration from the past – using a blend of locally sourced flora and fauna and basing new products around ancient practices and formulations handed down through the generations.

We have many collections of fragrances based around local themes such as the above. We prefer to create new fragrances with a story to back them up. It makes things easier for us and certainly easier for you to sell them in your end product with a bit of marketing blurb behind them.

We feel that the new trend direction that will run alongside the natural garden flowers that we expect to see dominating the spring 2013 shelves, will have a spicy Brazilian Party theme.

This will encompass various aspects of Brazilian Culture, in fact we may end up with 3 or 4 collections in order to cover everything! We wanted to bring the carnival atmosphere into our fragrances, as these are such a massive part of Brazil’s unique heritage. The main Rio carnival is held over a 6 week period culminating around the Catholic period of Lent. This legendary gala draws crowds of almost 5 million spectators, all keen to join in the festivities and parades.

 Our fragrances in these collections will include notes of sweet pink peppercorns, hot jalapenos, fiery ginger root and fresh cilantro. Floral notes will include the Brazilian national emblem, the sunshine yellow Ipe amarelo, an arm of the Tecomo genus of which there are almost 400 sub species, alongside amarylis, camelia rosa, almanda and tobacco flower.

Rich woody notes will arise from the Brazilwood – a native tree that in all probability gave the country its name. Its sultry red bark was used for many years in the 1500′s as the main source of red dye for luxury fabrics used throughout European Courts. Although now a lot rarer, it is still used to produce prime quality bows for violins throughout the world.

We will also incorporate food and drink flavour notes  such as the delicious caipirinha cocktail, which is an intoxicting blend of sugar cane rum and tahitian lime poured over crushed ice, along with passionfruit, chimarrao and cashew fruits.

If you would like any further information or would like to pre-order a collection tin, please contact either myself or Helen and we will be only too happy to help.

We are always having a look at the latest fragrances on the market, whether that is a new washing powder, or a new shampoo or a new designer perfume launch. It helps us to know that we are keeping up to date with all the latest market trends. There is however, something that we have noticed over the past few months – there seems to be a merging of the sexes.

Many of the newer fragrances that are aimed at men seem to have become the new favourites of our female office staff, with many of us naming one of them as our spritz of choice at the minute, in particular Carolina Herrera’s 212 VIP for men and Viktor & Rolfs Spicebomb.

I decided to ask around family and friends and came up with the same results….it seems that spritzing a sneaky squirt of your boyfriend/husbands aftershave is as widespread as borrowing his razor!

Back in the early perfume heyday of the 18th century there was no dividing line between male and female fragrances – in fact the dividing line was one of class and social standing instead. The most powerful men drenched their lapels and handkerchiefs with fragrance – usually a heavy floral blend, whilst the downtrodden masses blended into the background with the unforgettable stench of ‘Eau de Filth’.

The notion of gender in perfumery only came around in the early 20th century, coinciding with the influences of modern advertising methods. Fragrance became intertwined with fashion and so the flapper girls of the 1920′s became the new target demographic. Ms Monroe heaped glamour onto fragrance by the bucket load in the 50′s with her now infamous quote of wearing only Chanel No.5 to bed - it would have had to have been a brave man to wear a floral scent after that revelation!

The first efforts to woo the male back onboard were heavily advertised as a shaving routine add-on. And so the humble aftershave was born and the whole world seemed to smell of either Old Spice, English Leather or Burma Shave.

Eventually more and more colognes (note – NOT perfumes!!) became available embracing notes that were considered to be a masculine domain – spicy, leathery, woodsy and musky.

Fresh and lighter citrus notes have been an attempt to close the gap – think CK1 – and even more recently the addition of woody and musk notes being added to many female targeted scents have closed it even further.

Ancient men and women knew the power of aromatics, smearing them all over their bodies without any regard for whether spikenard or myrrh were considered to be feminine or masculine. Its a matter of what works well on your skin – so the next time you are looking for a new bottle of perfume – why not check out some of the newly launched male intentions – i’m off to top up my spicebomb!!

We have a large range of fragrance submissions here at Carvansons that are designed to be the creme de la creme of the current trending scents – if you have any new products that need a fragrance then please contact either myself or Helen, and we will be more than happy to send some samples for you to have a look at – all of which comply with current IFRA regulations.

Did you know that smell was the first and only existing sense? In the oceans of way back when, sight and speech had not yet been developed. Multicelled organisms relied on the detection of odours and chemicals to eat, and to stay out of harms way.

In our modern times, the sense of smell has lost its predominance in most western cultures, and we tend to rely heavily on our vision - defining and describing our surroundings in a highly visual manner. There are, however, still pockets of olfactory reliance around the globe…..

For example, there is a tribe known as the Ongee from the Andaman Islands where their whole world is defined by smell.

 Their calendar is based around the odours of flowers that come into bloom at specific times of the year. Each season is named after a particular odour. Personal identity is also defined by smell. In order to refer to oneself, one touches the tip of one’s nose - a gesture interpreted as ‘me and my odour’.

When first meeting a member of the Ongee tribe, instead of asking ‘how are you?’ you would instead ask ‘konyune onorange-tanka?’ which means ‘how is your nose?’ This is followed by a strange etiquette. If the person responds that they feel heavy with odour, then the greeter must inhale deeply in order to remove some of the surplus, but if the greeter feels a little short on odour then the only polite redress would be to blow on them to bestow a little extra scent.

In India, an ancient text declares ‘I will smell thee on the head, that is the greatest sign of tender love’, and is considered the equivalent of a western hug or kiss.

In certain Arabian countries it is considered impolite to deny someone the smell of your breath whilst speaking as it conveys a shameful avoidance of involvement.

In cultures where the sense of smell is still highly valued, the mixing of odours is often very carefully regulated. In the Amazon, each tribe is believed to share a similar odour, and so marriage is only allowed between persons of different odours which prevents relationships between close family members from occuring.

The Malay Temiar people go one step further……they believe that everyone has an odour soul located at the base of the spine. If you pass too closely behind a person then this soul is disturbed and mingles with your body often causing disease. This is prevented by calling out ‘Odour Odour’ whenever you approach a person from behind, which then forewarns the odour soul of the impending intrusion.

Our western interpretations of which perfumes and aftershaves cause an attraction effect would be way off the mark if you wanted a night out in Ethiopia. Here there is no scent more beautiful, than the odour of cattle. Men wash their hands in the urine and smear their bodies with manure. The women get off a little more lightly, rubbing butter into their heads, shoulders and various other body parts in order to make themselves smell more attractive (or maybe just to mask the smell of the manure?!?)

If you are invited for a meal in certain Arab countries, a perfume box containing between 4 and 8 bottles of oils is passed around, and each guest anoints herself with different scents using a glass dropper. This signifies the end of your visit and guests must depart as soon as the perfume ritual is completed. The  ritual serves to promote a feeling of bonding and unity, and the social prestige of the hostess is enhanced by the pleasant smells she imparts to her guests.

So, the next time you are invited round to a dinner party and your host brings out the perfume – that’s your cue to order your taxi!

Do you have any smell or scent rituals that you’d like to share with us?

Chanel has just announced that Brad will be their latest new face  – no shocker that a male A-lister has been chosen to front a fragrance campaign you may think, but this is Chanel No.5!  It is probably the world’s best known perfume and at its original launch, Coco Chanel described it as ‘a woman’s perfume, with the scent of a woman.’  Marilyn Monroe boosted its sales after provocatively answering an impertinent reporter that the only thing she wore to bed was indeed Chanel No.5

We know that ladies love their perfume and fragranced toiletries, but todays modern man has been catching up in leaps and bounds. Just take note of the groaning supermarket shelves the next time you nip in to do the weekly shop…you’ll find many a man loitering with intent, eyeing up the plethora of products on offer.

So, have Chanel read the marketplace correctly? Are we ready to have a male selling us a female scent….to be honest, i’m not sure i’m with them on this….maybe the bandwaggon heading toward a Jolie/Pitt wedding might have tipped the balance for them. Its a bold, if somewhat strange path to tread, and it will be interesting to see what happens.

Chanel No.5 is a plush elegant juice including extremely feminine accords of jasmine, rose and ylang, and has stood the test of time since it was first introduced in 1921, but with well over 1000 fragrances being launched every single year, maybe this is needed to lifts its head above its rivals.

Whatever happens, we’ll soon find out, as its been reported that Brad and his family have already encamped in Richmond as shooting the ad campaign begins this week. Part of the 7 figure deal has, apparently, been 4 tickets to see the Stone Roses in Heaton Park, much to Helens delight as she has tickets for the same day!….Just make sure you are wearing Chanel No.5 Helen and you’ll soon be in the VIP area

I’d be delighted to hear any thoughts you may have on this…….

 Even with the very best intentions in the world I dont think there’ll be many people who can say they managed to stay away from calorie laden chocolate eggs et al this past weekend.  If you did then I send you the most heartfelt congratulations (and just how the heck did you manage it!!!).

So I thought we would dedicate this weeks blog to one of the worlds favourite indulgencies. First of all I’d like to run a few facts by you for good measure….

It is thought that Cocoa is a mis-spelling of the Mayan word Cacao meaning ‘God Food’ originating over 2500 years ago. It was held in such high regard that it was even used as currency.

17000 people in Belgium work in the chocolate industry.

It takes up to 270 cocoa beans to make up 1 pound of chocolate.

Almost half of the worlds chocolate is consumed in America.

More than twice as many women than men crave and eat chocolate and it has been observed that no other sweets or candies can satisfy the craving – just the chocolate itself.

Chocolate notes crop up in fragrances with quite some regularity, and apart from the obvious choices such as Thierry Muglers Angel series of perfumes, which are seen as the quintessential chocolate scents, there are quite a few others on the shelf that may surprise you.

Ralph Lauren launched Big Pony (for men) which has a winning combination of velvet musks and dark chocolate.  Armani Diamonds for men is another best seller, but this time the chocolate is hidden away in the base notes, and so leaves a subtle trail in your wake.  If  just a hint of indulgence is required, then Lacoste Elegance (another male fragrance) combines chocolate with spicy nutmeg and fresh top notes for a surprisingly light scent.

Womens scents include Gucci Flora Glamorous Magnolia which uses a subtle cocoa hint to anchor the citrus zest and green leaves that make up the main composition. Boutique desinger Annick Goutal used creamy chocolate notes to balance girlish playful blackcurrant buds and luscious vanilla pods in her Eau de Charlotte fragrance.

We have a good range of chocolate and candy fragrances to curb that craving without the calories – and you cant say fairer than that can you! How about a chocolate lime or a chocolate orange, or even good old fashioned sweets such as peardrops, lemon bonbons and strawberry laces.

If it all gets a tad too much, it has been noted that a splash of vanilla across the wrist does a sterling job of sating the appetite. Well thats all from me, I’m off for a penny chew or two

Of course the big story across all forms of media at the minute is the phone hacking scandal which (partly) led to the shut down of the News of the World sunday newspaper. I say partly, as readership numbers have been steadily falling for years now across the board on both daily and weekly rags. I’m quite sure that the Murdoch empire could afford to sacrifice the one newspaper in order to concentrate on other areas anyway, and of course to satisfy the baying hoards amongst the media and the paying customers as a whole.

It seems entirely possible that newspapers may not even exist in 5-10 years…..well at least not in their familiar paper form anyway. And it’s not just newspapers that are careering into the depths of obsoletion – but all forms of printed media including books and magazines.

Paper has had to fight its corner since the dawning of the computer age, but has really had to stand its ground with the rise of the internet, mobile phones, emails, ebooks and social media sites. Even online banking has had a massive effect – I mean when was the last time you remember writing out a cheque? I had to send a cheque off to the DVLA this week, and after a lengthy hunt around the house finally found an old tatty cheque book with the first 2 digits of the year being 19.. I knew it had been a long time since i last used it but 12 years!? That really has to take the biscuit!

Even libraries that are fighting tooth and nail to stay afloat are succumbing little by little to the digital onslaught , trading old school card catalogues for electonic data bases.

So it seems a done deal – the halycon paper days are most certainly numbered. Or are they………?

Every digital device that you purchase – even online purchases, all come with paper instruction booklets, even if they also include an instruction disc.

Paper is the most successful communication innovation of the last 2000 years – one that has lasted the longest and had the most profound effect on civilisation. Yet most of the time we dont even see paper as technology. It is such a simple medium requiring no circuits, chips, ports, screen or speakers. It just sits there passively waiting to perform. Our own paper eureka moment occurred over the past 2 weeks, when we had the misfortune to suffer multiple computer server breakdowns – and who was there to pick up the pieces? The humble Post-It note and the fax machine – half relying on technology half relying on paper. Without these, we would not have been able to keep samples and orders moving through the factory and offices (albeit a little slower than usual – apologies to all our customers).

For me, the ebook will never replace the whole experience of reading a book. The feel of the book, the print (different sizes actually put me off reading some books), and of course it could never replace the smell of an actual book. I know i’m not on my own as a schoolfriend (Ann-Marie Robinson, – i’m not afraid to name and shame ) gets great pleasure from book sniffing. There are even libraries and galleries that hold special book smelling sessions, but so far i have managed to keep my compulsion to myself, unlike Bibliophile Karl Lagerfeld, whose love of books has led him to create a new fragrance – Paper Passion. It is a joint venture between Lagerfeld and his publisher of choice, Steidl, who distribute most of the designer’s photography books, and will take its inspiration from printed and unprinted paper, with a touch of linoleum and a fatty olfactory note. It is already being worked on, and so it shouldnt be too long before it is on the shelves. The fragrance will be sold inside a hardcover book that will have the pages hollowed out in order to hold the flacon.

And for those of you that cant wait until the perfume comes out, there are plenty other paper inspired fragrances on the market such as Demeter’s Paperback, Zadig & Voltaire’s Tome1 or Hammam Bouquet by Penhaligons or indeed just ask us at Carvansons to recreate your very own ‘book’ scent so that you can tap into your digital media whilst spritzing the room with Eau de Musty Olde Book Shoppe…….

It seems that all you need these days to make a splash in the fragrance market, is a wacky idea and then its all systems go.

There have been quite a few new launches that are using scent to help promote brands, and I have picked out some of the unusual attempts to share with you today….

Our nation as a whole has a reputation of being heavy tea drinkers, and so Tetleys have taken this on board and designed ‘Le Brew’ – a limited edition tea scented perfume. In addition to the tea note (which in itself isn’t unusual, think Elizabeth Arden Green Tea amongst others), the perfume also has notes of clary sage and oak moss which are designed to give the fragrance a fresh spring like feel. The bottle is available on Tetleys eBay site for the princely sum of £15, and in my opinion it might be a worthwhile investment just for the novelty value.

Never seen as a company to be out of the limelight, even Microsoft have jumped on the fragrance bandwagon with the launch of 2 fragrances under the umbrella name of Liquid Money. These are broken down into a his and hers duo set, and have been underwritten by Vice President Patrick McCarthy. Designed to enhance self confidence, the bottles are said to contain the aroma of freshly minted dollar bills alongside notes such as pink grapefruit and Hawaiian wedding flowers. The bottle is packed with shredded US dollar bills –  a brilliant marketing concept in my opinion. And in another shrewd move, Mr McCarthy has trademarked the word ‘Money’ in relation to fragrance, obviously with a view to launch further perfumes along the line.

The next one I found spins quite a tail (pardon the pun!). It involves a Parisienne butcher by the name of John Fargginay in the 1920′s. Apparently the story goes that he could elevate his customers mood by a secret blend of 11 pure essential oils and the addition of – wait for it – a bacon aroma. After a massive fire on July 4th, 1924, the recipe was seemingly lost in the realms of legend. Well, that is until now! The magical elixier has been recreated by a certain John Leydon, and there are now 2 versions in the range – Bacon Classic and Bacon Gold. The fragrances were launched in April and already there have been well over 5,ooo orders at $36 each, a nice little earner if you ask me.

And finally on another strange note, an Italian fragrance brand, Blood Concept, have launched a range of fragrances  based on different blood types. The designers Giovanni Castelli and Antonio Zuddas  have spent years perfecting the range. At the moment there are 4 main types, A, B, AB and O. Each has a metallic base tang that supposedly denotes the element of iron found in blood. Each is sold in a recreation of an ancient medicine bottle complete with dropper to give an authentic final twist. When asked what the original concept was the designers replied with the following…’the odours trace the evolution of manhood through time, and its evolution of information, history and mutation, so well kept in the vital flushing of blood’ ……..??? nope – I didnt get it either, but if anyone does then please feel free to explain in laymans terms.

I could carry on, as the norm seems to be the more unusual and fantastical the better but I thought it would be nice if we could get some ideas for scent marketing going ourselves just to see what we could come up with, go on…..give it a try and leave me a reply, and on that note i’ll leave it up to yourselves to check out the route Lady GaGa is going down for her new perfume!! Bye for now…..

We have had quite a few enquiries over the past week or so regarding lavender essential oil. Although many people of a certain age (a-hem, myself included!) still associate the memory of grandmothers and overwashed slightly discoloured cotton handkerchiefs with this particular essential oil, it does seem to be enjoying a resurgance across Britain.
To be fair, the thought of musty old lavender is now a far flung memory as the new updated versions, sometimes blended with other fabulous oils such as orange blossom or sage leaf have well and truly rendered lavender, one of the star players in aromachology products.
Supermarket shelves now bulge with a plethora of products containing mood enhancing essential oils. These are all designed to make the daily chore of cleaning the home a more pleasant experience. The emotional attachment to desirable scents mean fragrance can become a key source of differentiation in the consumers choice of product – after all smell is an evocative sense that allows consumers to feel relaxed, self confident and more connected with nature.
Lavender has been documented throughout history for well over 2,500 years, making its debut with the Egyptians who used it in the mummification process, as perfume oil for the Romans, and is even mentioned in the bible as the oil of choice for the annointing of the feet of Jesus. During the Great Plague in London in the 17th century, grave robbers used to wear a band of entwined lavender stems on each wrist to resist infection, and to be fair they rarely contracted the disease.
Lavender is a unique fragrance which is produced by the combination of 180 different constituents and is widely used throughout the perfume industry to add a top middle or base note to commercial products.
And finally – just in case i still haven’t grabbed the attention of the male readers, Ruud van Nistelroy advocates the use of lavender oil and it has been said that he annoints his boots with it prior to sleep!
Please feel free to request any further information on essential oil usage in any type of end product.