Pheros discussion

[topgun885]

PHEROS was a great product! I am holding back and barely using

my last tiny remaining amount that I have left with an occasional finger dab on my sideburns. I would love to

see it made again, DR. SMELL THIS. So, if you're happen to read this. That is a great product, and I would

buy several bottles; OR I would happily jot down the formula from you if you decided to share it with me and make my

own. What say?

[DrSmellThis]

PHEROS was a great product! I am holding back and

barely using my last tiny remaining amount that I have left with an occasional finger dab on my sideburns. I

would love to see it made again, DR. SMELL THIS. So, if you're happen to read this. That is a great product,

and I would buy several bottles; OR I would happily jot down the formula from you if you decided to share it with me

and make my own. What say? First off, I'm happy you enjoyed the product.

Unfortunately, there will be no more Pheros made as it was a limited edition product.

Are you sure Bruce

is out of it?

If I could somehow come up with all the ingredients, I would do even better anyway, as that was my

first commercial perfume. The big problem is reliable supply of the world class ingredients, particularly if you are

making multiple batches from a recipe and want them to be vaguely consistent. It will be impossible to duplicate any

recipe if suitable supply sources are not found.

An alternative is to make limited one time batches of whatever

as supplies of this or that wonderful substance turn up. You work with whatever comes available at that time. That

is what I did with Pheros.

It is very difficult even for international perfume companies to find all the

good stuff, much less one independent guy with no real mainstream connections to make something to my standards and

ambitions, which are quite high. You may not (or may) like Pheros, but you have to admit I was trying very

hard to achieve something ambitious. With most any art, such as music, that is the tendency here. It makes better

artistic sense than business sense. But somebody needed to provide an alternative to the crap in the department

stores, even if there still needs to be way more alternatives to suit more people's tastes.

You see, the problem

is that the better the ingredients the harder they are to find. Sandalwood is the perfect example. My previous main

supply is gone because the trees are immature and over harvested, to where general supplies are just tapped. There

is no alternative to sandalwood in a fine perfume, and it is my favorite ingredient to work with for men. Pheros

had about five strains of fine sandalwood in it (both complex mysore and smooth tamil). If I solve that one

supply problem it means a lot. There are several other problems like it regarding fine ingredients. The fine

ingredients are what provides the wow factor and intense experience I like to give people. I don't want to make

something where people just say, "yeah nice" and never give it another thought. You know, something artsy craftsy

made with essential oils, like you see in health food stores.

I am planning a big relocation in the coming

months. After that I will come up with a plan for perfume, with all this in mind. The farmer I had been working

with to grow an ingredient, which would have solved one problem for me, went out of business and is now trying to

drink himself to oblivion.

[idesign]

Hey Doc, wishing you the best in

the big move, and encouraging you keep trying in solving your perfumery issues. Its kinda hard when a large

perfume house buys up the entire production year of the good producers of a certain product. The entire supply

channel suffers.

As to a new product, it would be nice to see you do something with a more floral aspect. I've

worn your Pheros with a light dab of jasmine and it comes alive in a very different way. I think you recommended

that, and its sultriness is beyond description.

Anyway, best wishes.

[DrSmellThis]

Yeah, floral is nice.

Carnation is one of the flowers I am thinking about, because it is pretty stunningly masculine and very erotic; but

you are probably interested in something more classical, like jasmine or rose.

The jasmine trick is indeed a nice

way to turn Pheros into two perfumes instead of one. I can tell you that this trick alone made me get

immediately lucky one night, wearing no other pheromones. But the lady turned out to be a bit crazy.

Yeah, it's

just a different world for small independents. There needs to be a support group for us, but there is too much

competition and cattiness among us for that. You are on your own, which is interesting in that you end up with your

private reality.

The local "Nose" (there are like 25 in the world of such perfume dignitaries) who critiqed

Pheros essentially told me that everything wrong with it came down to the fact I did not work for a

multinational perfume giant and did not have their access to supplies. At the time I stubbornly brushed him off,

which probably gave me the bad attitude I needed to bring Pheros to market. I am still refusing to believe

that SOB, even though he was probably right. Which reminds me ...

UPDATE ON PRODUCT QUALITY:

After all these

years of worry, I can now conclude that aging for Pheros was a good thing. At least, the old bottle I am

using smells better than ever. So if a bottle was well preserved and unopened, it should hold up well.

Why? Part

of the reason goes back to what was wrong with the perfume, according to the Nose. (If you really want to know who

the Nose guy was, Google Perfume House in Portland, which is where he is stationed.) From him I found out that the

multinational giants pre-age huge vats of every single ingredient used, in large climate controlloed

warehouses, so that all ingredients individually mature to their perfect age at the same time just before initial

mixing. The expense involved in this is absolutely mind blowing and I could never do this, and you even have to do

it for every bottling.

So what you ended up with is having some of the ingredients, maybe most of them, maturing

in the bottle. This is not a perfect approach, to say the least.

But the passage of time apparently solved one

of the biggest "weaknesses" of Pheros, which was that the smell changed every time you smelled it.

Now

when I smell it, it is very clearly a precious woods scent, with musk and spice notes; with sweet and interesting

suprises thrown in, as intended.

It is just much more clear than it was when it was first made, which for any

art is better. The Nose had criticised it for not hanging together, and identified all that as the reason. He was

right.

Unfortunately, most of those who bought it could not benefit from that process, unless you put some away

safely. At least it shouldn't have gone stale for anybody, which was my biggest fear at first.

[idesign]

I took the liberty

of moving these few posts to their own thread.

I agree that Pheros has aged well. I have bottles from the last 2

releases, and the older one is, like you say, woodier and more complex. The spice is still predominant I think, at

least from the beginning. But the dry down is more interesting and consistent perhaps because the aging has bonded

some molecules in a nicely synergistic way. Anyway, its doing very well in the bottle, and getting better to my

nose. You had something in your mind when you created this stuff, and I wonder if its becoming closer to what you

had envisioned.

In the matter of the "Nose" and his criticisms, sure he may have been right from a commercial

perspective, but I don't think its that important. You're not JP Guerlain and we're not bored housewives. As an

alternative to the mind-boggling array of chem-scents, you've created what I believe to be at the top of the

natural scent "game", and I've smelled quite a few, most of them "crafty", if that makes sense.

Still, its good

to have the opinion of the Nose, as a point of reference. Maybe his criticisms will subtly change some of your

ideas, maybe not. I'd be interested to hear what positive comments he may have had. Either way, the challenges

you face pretty much force you into a genre, and I don't see any problem with that considering your philosophical

approach and your proven ability to produce a viable, artistic scent.

Bring on the Carnation! I love jasmine and

rose for men who can wear it, but carnation has that little bit of dirt left on it.