*Pheros* shipped, get ready if you want concentrate

[DrSmellThis]

I am giving you all a heads up on the final, naughty shipment of Pheros. Thank you

for your patience.

It has been shipped to Tammy.

Tuesday is my best estimate for when it will arrive at

Love-Scent.

Most of the shipment is composed of the regular cologne version. But there is also a small number of

bottles of Pheros Concentrate.

Note on Pheros Concentrate: There were only a dozen bottles

of the concentrate shipped, which is the lower end of how much I thought I'd make.

So if you want a bottle,

you need to get ready to order it as soon as Bruce makes it available. I only made enough concentrate bottles to

match the number of indications of interest in the earlier Pheros Concentrate thread. I decided after all to

keep a few bottles of the concentrate and perfume for myself -- selfish, I know!

Perhaps Bruce will take early

indications of interest. You have to ask him.

It is not available quite yet, as of this post. Again, it is

set to arrive early next week.

Good luck to all in getting your bottle of Concentrate, if you want

one.

On the other hand, there should be plenty of the regular cologne for everyone, at least for a

while.

By the way, since this was the final batch of this scent for all time, I signed a leaflet enclosure

for everyone who gets either version. Hopefully, that will help communicate the personal nature of this creation;

and reflect that each bottle of Pheros has been in my hands many, many times. For example, just before I

shipped them I shook each bottle again, just to make sure everything is thoroughly blended.

I very much

appreciate all of you who have used the product, and am grateful many of you found it to be a pleasant experience.

Thanks and enjoy.

For anyone fairly new to the forum who wants to learn more about Pheros, just search

the forum. There are lots of informative threads on it.

[Diverdown]

My order is

placed and I am looking forward to trying the legendary Pheros

Many Thanks.

[DrSmellThis]

Uh oh! Sounds like Bruce

decided to start taking orders right away.

Again, I'd advise anyone interested in the special concentrate

version to inquire ASAP. (If you don't know what it is, you probably don't need that version.)

Does everyone

remember how to order it, using the comment section?

[idesign]

Good point Doc. Just to be

clear about it:

If you want the concentrate, you have to specify "Concentrate Version" in the

comments box when you get to checkout. The comments box is just below the shipping options section.

If you want

the regular version you don't need to specify anything.

Congrats once again Doc for a remarkable

product. Sad to see it end.

[DrSmellThis]

Thanks for providing that

information.

Thanks for your kind words, and especially all your insight as a lover of scent. That really made a

difference here.

And thanks to everyone who has tried Pheros.

[Rbt]

So Doc, when can we expect a new

creation from you? After all I figure I'll be running out of my Pheros supply about 2050 or so....


(I

actually wore some this past weekend! Super special occasion. GF got her latest college degree and I am of course

encouraging her to finish her CPA qualifications so she can support me... and all my other GF's...)

[DrSmellThis]

So Doc, when

can we expect a new creation from you? After all I figure I'll be running out of my Pheros supply about 2050 or

so....


(I actually wore some this past weekend! Super special occasion. GF got her latest college degree and

I am of course encouraging her to finish her CPA qualifications so she can support me... and all my other

GF's...)

Good question, and funny sig quote BTW. Bottom line, I have supply issues to resolve before turning

thoughts to a new perfume.

There is a reason the big corporations got out of natural perfuming. There is a reason

most of the independent folk practicing natural perfuming aren't producing great products too often (even great

companies with great oils like Oshadi produce sort of cheesy natural perfumes with a lame drydown). Having said

that, I would like to do more of it.

It's not like I've been totally dormant. In the last few years I was

working on four perfumes, which is a lot more work to have on your plate than it sounds.

Interestingly one was

inspired by Old Spice, which nowadays is all chemicals and smells cheap. But people love it, and it might be the top

selling cologne all time. "Why?", I asked. But I wanted to see if I could create the same kind of effect using top

of the line natural ingredients -- something simple that virtually anyone could wear, but that would still have some

natural beauty. There is still some possibility I could revive that project, because the pilot project was quite

wearable and pleasant. It requires a lot of one very expensive fine flower, however; a flower scent that most

perfumers (even natural ones) fake using a combination of a few cheaper natural ingredients (the actual company that

makes it doesn't even do that much, but does the whole thing with chemicals, which is why you can get it for five

bucks). I know exactly how to fake it either way, but screw that. It's the real thing or nothing. I bet most of you

didn't know that the original idea behind Old Spice involves a fine, precious flower, even though there might be

none of the real flower in the current formula you get at the supermarket. Just talking about it makes me want to do

it, but dammit, to do it right! You know, "the perfume Old Spice wishes it was". You have to think that one could

hit it big if done right.

Another perfume was inspired by a perfume made for Napoleon, and was to be a fresh

citrus cologne with lots of class -- I had Gegogi's taste in mind, since I know he's be the last one I'd

recommend Pheros to. Can't leave our bra Gegogi out in the cold (not that Hawaii is cold). There was also a

fine, precious flower involved in this one as the main ingredient other than the citrus. I tried more than several

varieties of the oil without finding an acceptable one (funky aftersmell I couldn't erase -- but maybe I was just

lacking some techique for working with that particular flower. Who was I gonna ask?).

Unfortunately supply issues

derailed both efforts.

I also worked on an amber, which I was just dissapointed with -- strange because I

considered ambers one of my strengths (Pheros has a nice amber note, for example.). That one I just did a

poor job on, though I still wear a drop of it occasionally. Sometimes they just mature into something not all that

great for whatever reasons. Maybe I'm just too perfectionistic. But come to think of it, there were compromises I

made due to supply issues on that one too.

Finally I worked on a bay rum, but didn't hit the magic combo yet.

It's hard to argue with a good bay rum, I have reasoned. It's a quintessential manly smell. But I wanted to do

something unique with the idea. That one still may happen. What would you all think about that one? I welcome any

feedback and ideas.

My standards are different than most natural perfumers', who seem quite content to have

something smell like a cute arts and crafts project. The funny thing is some of them make a lot of money doing it

that way. I suppose it's like pop music. If it sells it must be good somehow. The whole artistic integrity thing

can be difficult in any creative endeavor.

I cannot claim that Pheros is some great perfume. I'd

characterize it as sort of a student's Master's Thesis -- not quite "hard core pro", though you have to bust your

a$$ more than the pros do since you're learining. Some elements of it are amateurish, which is not suprising given

I am a psychologist by formal training. I am particularly annoyed with a certain funky quality of the immediate top

note, as idesign and I have discussed. I tried my best to disguise the most annoying flaw, with minimally adequate

success, I suppose.

What I can absolutely claim, however, is that it was definitely very ambitious (you are

really not supposed to be able to get 150 diverse ingredients to marry unless you are extremely skilled and

experienced, but I have a hard time thinking in simple terms with any creative project); and represents basic,

uncompromising artistic integrity; as well as an extreme amount of obsessive labor that there is no way most

perfumers would have put forth. You just keep tinkering with it until there is nothing more that can be done to

improve it according to your vision for it. But that process took over a year. Finally, I can claim that the

ingredients themselves are first rate.

What you end up with is something with some great qualities mixed in, at

least. I'm proud of the sophisticated musk note, in particular -- you probably won't find that effect in more than

a few out of the way places on the planet -- certainly in no other commercial perfume that I've ever heard of.

You'd have to go way back in history, I'd imagine. Add trace pheromones to round it all out, and it's never been

done.

[Rbt]

Sounds like Pheros: The Next

Generation, will be one future generations will be enjoying without me, as I will be long gone.


<sniff>

[DrSmellThis]

Don't jump!

Somehow I

think I'll find a way to make something else for you folks.

[Rbt]

Don't

jump!

Somehow I think I'll find a way to make something else for you folks.

NOW



you





tell



me........

!!!


!

[Gmoney]

Any info on which mones are

dominant in pheros?

[Gmoney]

Nevermind, did some research,

sounds like a great product!

[idesign]

Good

question, and funny sig quote BTW. Bottom line, I have supply issues to resolve before turning thoughts to a new

perfume.


It's not like I've been totally dormant. In the last few years I was working on four perfumes, which

is a lot more work to have on your plate than it sounds.

Yes, Rbt's sig line is a favorite. In a

hierarchy of needs they're very close for good health.

Thanks for your entire post Doc, I'll be processing

your ideas for a while. I have every confidence that should you again produce something for public release it'll

be on the same very high level as Pheros. I can only encourage you, like others here, to keep it up and give us

something great.

Having said that, I think you're too characteristically modest in describing your challenges,

and the extent of your accomplishment in producing Pheros.

Scarcity of good raw materials notwithstanding, the

challenges of producing an all-natural perfume are phenomenal. Each ingredient must be weighed not only on its own

properties, but as they'll behave in combination with every other ingredient. Some ingredients require large

amounts, others the minutest amounts, and the experience required to know how much of what takes vast amounts of

patience and experience.

Your comment that your master bottle ended up very large leads me to believe that you

mixed and diluted many times to balance ingredients.

The natural perfumer must have a working understanding of

the many constituents of each individual ingredient, which can number in the hundreds. Within each

ingredient there are chemical (thus scent) properties which must be taken into account. Does this base muffle or

accentuate that top note? Does this flower work with this herb or overwhelm it? How much vetiver works in just the

right way to achieve its best properties? Different roses have vastly different properties, and will make a huge

difference in the final product. This is only a scratch on the surface of the challenges of natural

materials.

It would be easier to work with isolated constituents, like commercial perfumers. But so much is lost

in terms of analogue pheromones, or what I understand to be the natural attractants known to us since the beginning

of scented history. The full spectrum of natural scent cannot be duplicated in a lab. And the full natural spectrum

is very difficult to harness in a perfume for reasons of complexity and unpredictability. Instead of working with

primary colors, you have innumerable hues with known and unknown properties, which react differently in constantly

changing light.

Blending scientific and aesthetic knowledge in itself is a challenge, and to balance the two

amounts to an art form equal to any great music you've ever listened to. A natural perfumer must work within

simultaneously unlimited and impossible parameters. The list of ingredients themselves offer challenges in

understanding how disparate parts can blend harmoniously into a whole.

Commercial perfumers report scores of

"failures" before they strike upon a viable perfume. I imagine that a natural perfumer has a lesser success rate.

Working within nature presents opportunities and challenges that are akin to understanding a woman. Fail and you

are dinner. Succeed and the result is beautiful.

I may be preaching to the choir for some, and I've not given

the topic the justice it deserves, but many of us don't truly know what you've accomplished.

Here's to your

success Doc, present and future.

[DrSmellThis]

Ego issues be damned, it sure

feels good when someone appreciates something you do. Hopefully all of you have had that experience many times. On

the other hand, most of us have had the experience where you bust your ass to do something worthwhile and fail to

detect any sign that it was worth a darn to anyone. While you don't want to need approval from others, it still

makes a difference somehow.

But aside from that, idesign, I have always found your posts on scent refreshing. You

obviously use your mind in a "rich, aesthetic manner". As an artist one spends a lot of time alone thinking in a way

that is different from the mainstream, so it is fun to feel you can relate to someone mentally. Not too many

appreciate scent like people appreciate music for some reason.

Incidentally, A lot of what the arts do, in my

opinion, is train people in their abilities to think holistically ("synaesthesia" or cognitive unity among the

senses, is an example. In perfuming you see evidence of that when people use, say, musical terms to describe scent.

This characteristic of great minds has actually been considered a symptom of mental illness historically); the lack

of this skill being one of the primary hidden problems we face on the planet (black and white thinking being a

particularly insidious example of the lack of holism, which leads to all the problems with religious and political

fundamentalism, judgementalism, and poor problem solving. And that is only an example. See how huge this planetary

psychological issue must be?). This is why we need to keep the arts in our schools; That type of training is

actually essential to normal brain development, as many studies have shown. But I digress, as usual.

[Gmoney]

On that note Dr, I love this

Pheros stuff. Makes me smile just wearing it I look forward to future creations from your lab!

[idesign]

On that

note Dr, I love this Pheros stuff. Makes me smile just wearing it I look forward to future creations from your

lab!

Exactly right Gm, its amazing. It took me a while to understand but the whole idea of "analogue

pheromones" makes a lot of sense. The science of attraction is not new, only more developed. Doc put a lot of good

stuff in this stuff.

[DrSmellThis]

It's funny, but personally, I

often decide to wear Pheros for stress, relaxation and mood reasons; as much as for the scent.

Much of the

fun of it is indeed due to all the natural analog pheromones (e.g., real mammalian pheromones; and phytopheromones,

or plant pheromones), which seem mildly psychoactive.

[idesign]

Incidentally, A lot of what the arts do, in my opinion, is train people in their

abilities to think holistically ("synaesthesia" or cognitive unity among the senses, is an example. In perfuming you

see evidence of that when people use, say, musical terms to describe scent. This characteristic of great minds has

actually been considered a symptom of mental illness historically); the lack of this skill being one of the primary

hidden problems we face on the planet (black and white thinking being a particularly insidious example of the lack

of holism, which leads to all the problems with religious and political fundamentalism, judgementalism, and poor

problem solving. And that is only an example. See how huge this planetary psychological issue must be?). This is why

we need to keep the arts in our schools; That type of training is actually essential to normal brain development, as

many studies have shown. But I digress, as usual.

"A human being should be able to change a diaper,

plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set

a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem,

pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for

insects." -Lazarus Long (thanks Jim for the inspiration to look him up)


I agree with you Doc. There

should be an outright requirement that we should learn a different language, play an instrument and learn to draw.



The intricacies of full human development and understanding of life require it. I agree too that ties to

emotional health and yes, even personal responsibility, can be traced to some kind of training in the

"abstractions".

In addition, one learns to know and appreciate beauty, both as an abstraction and as a source of

pleasure. Without it we cannot truly appreciate who we are capable of being, and thus incapable of striving for

that goal.

Your "cognitive unity of the senses" makes absolute sense in just the way you described, and language

itself becomes the artistic medium of categorizing our understanding and describing it. There is a larger

understanding of our complexity when we develop our less cognitive parts. You know much more about this than I do,

but the language requirements increase to be able to describe what we cannot "see".

How can a perfume have color

or rhythm? I don't know, but good ones do. In the same way how can a perfume inspire thoughts of memory,

behavior, sensuality, fondness, sadness or bright sunshine? In many ways perfume inspires deeper and more

substantial aspects of our being than other art forms, save for perhaps music, or if you're really versed, a good

literature, but that's not quite as spontaneous.

Interesting diversion, but what does that have to do with

pheromones? Well, what we're really trying to do here is manage a complex set of behaviors with an abstract set of

chemicals which, artfully combined and assiduously managed, can help us understand and steer not only our "targets",

but also ourselves. Its interesting that a great many of the posts on this forum relate to the user. I see a lot

of us trying to understand ourselves better.

Great post Doc,
Greg

Edit: re-reading that quote above reminds

me of a recent thread here concerning an alpha male, not to mention a renaissance man.

[DrSmellThis]

If I was to wrestle a point

out of all that for our purposes, it would be that developing your sense and passions of smell, and learning to

think and talk about it, almost has to be good for your brain, because it evokes synaesthesia, where a single

perception or thought spans multiple kinds of sensory information.

That prceptual ability seems to be a

fundamental building block for holistic thinking, which appears to be the cognitive key of wisdom, as i wrote often

back in the old days.

[Rbt]

If I was

to wrestle a point out of all that for our purposes, it would be that developing your sense and passions of smell,

and learning to think and talk about it, almost has to be good for your brain, because it evokes synaesthesia, where

a single perception or thought spans multiple kinds of sensory information.

That prceptual ability seems to be

a fundamental building block for holistic thinking, which appears to be the cognitive key of wisdom, as i wrote

often back in the old days.

No wonder that there are so many smart "holistic" people on this fourm....

[idesign]

That

prceptual ability seems to be a fundamental building block for holistic thinking, which appears to be the cognitive

key of wisdom, as i wrote often back in the old days.

Can a person even attain what we think of as

"wisdom" without those perceptive abilities? A genuine question.

[DrSmellThis]

At the risk of getting our

business thread banned from the main board... (maybe just the digressed part)

IMHO, these perceptual abilities

are critically important for wisdom, which historically is a word and concept originally applied to a "grasp of

wholes" in Greek philosophy (where the term arose as we know it). You also had to lead a certain kind of whole life

(integrity, etc) to attain wisdom. For Plato (Republic) you had to a certain extent be born with the capability for

it.

Synaesthesia is a kind of holism, where sensory input is perceived not as discrete kinds of information, but

is always and from the beginning integrated and united as a whole. I think this "talent" also manifests itself in

terms of integrated modes of thought and perception (e.g., thought + intuition + emotion), and even right-left brain

integration. Some people just find it easy to think holistically, in my opinion, whereas others find it as foreign

as ancient Greek (black and white thinking is a common thought malady to observe in this case); in part, due to

cultural conditioning stunting their growth in that way.

I think all these abilities tend to go together for some

people (artists tend to have a knack for all of it, IMO).

Our cultural history devalued holism, to a large

extent because religion and its authority placed itself in charge of that department (yes, this is true, from the

Middle Ages onward. If you think too holistically, you start to tread on territory religion "has all the answers

already for"; like how to live a certain kind of whole life; so wisdom in common society was threatening to the

power structures. Nowadays politics also tries to take control of all the "big thoughts", or corporate bosses

valuing mindless employees, , etc) , and culture thoroughly eliminated holism from philosophy (now about disjointed

logic problems rather than big questions, etc) and the schools.

The industrial revolution introduced

specialization, science taught us to think of independent and disjointed facts, ecomomics teaches us to think of

short term wealth and ignore the big picture, etc., etc., etc. It's almost a kind of "fall of man" to me, on the

level of thought and perception. Wisdom has been incredibly devalued (e.g., how we treat our elderly; the role of

fathers as teachers in the family has disappeared, the devaluation of "feminine" modes of thinking, forgetting that

we're citizens of a whole planet, rich "vs". poor, man "vs" nature; seeing ourselves as individuals and missing our

connectedness and interdependency, reliance on sound bytes, disjointed shreds of info, etc, etc.).

It is

unbelievable the portion of the world's problems that can be explained pretty comprehensively according to this

"father of concepts", regarding the lack of wisdom and holism. It's hard to even hint at the breadth and depth of

examples from every mode of living, because the lack of wisdom/holism is everywhere, so institutionalized, and so

"normal". That is why I feel comfortable with a grandiose term like a "fall of man".

I could go on

forever, as I've contemplated writing a book on this topic for years, and even filled a few notebooks up

with preliminary work. Maybe this gives you a taste of it. Probably the better the book would be, the more it would

be dissed and ignored, precisely because our culture has detested wisdom; but you never know. It represents in some

sense the culmination of my studies of philosophy and related fields over the years.

But most people are so

deprived of wisdom, culturally, they can't even begin to grasp the concept, even though it's quite natural to

humans. Something needs to wake us up, and that doesn't seem to be happening too soon. Mother nature ("who" might

"wish" we didn't see ourselves so unholistically as separate from her and at war with her) will take care of

that for us eventually, but it might be too late.

[Robby]

I'd like to have a bottle of

Pheros to use 7 years from now. Which version do you believe would be better for long term storage, the regular or

concentrate version? Thanks!

[tgparker]

Is Pheros concentrate still

available and how do you use it? What kinds of dilution ratios do you use?

Thanks

TG

[DrSmellThis]

Please try searching "Pheros

concentrate" for answers to both qustions. These issues have been covered multiple times here, and as I have been

saying, this is a product it helps to read about first.

I don't know if the concentrate is still available.

Bruce or Tammy would know.

[DrSmellThis]

nm.........

[Pendragon]

Just received Pheros this

afternoon. Haven't opened the bottle yet, but the paper that came wrapped around it smells awesome! Reminds me of

an incense I've smelt at places before, but never knew its name.

One question though. The paper says to mix w/

11ml of water. That would be 11ml relative to the whole contents of the bottle right? Wondered since I estimate

around 3ml in the bottle. So 11ml would be almost a 4x concentration.

[idesign]

Sounds right. I think Doc said

to use distilled water too.

[Pendragon]

Thanks. I'm not planning on

mixing the whole thing at once. I wanted to make sure I had the concentration correct for mixing it with other

things. Or just with water as a cover. Just need to find a store that carries distilled water.

[DrSmellThis]

Thanks for your

purchase.

To make the cologne, you add 11ml distilled H2O to the 7ml concentrate to make 18ml.

Otherwise, the

concentrate is appropriate for storage away from heat, light, and contaminants.

idesign will use the concentrate

straight on occasion, believing certain qualities are enhanced.

I prefer adding at least some distilled water,

(7ml minimum has been the strongest I've used) as I think it smells better and mellower. Not to mention, you get

more product.

If you mix it (with NPA or whatever) with something else besides water, in my opinion, the

water-alcohol balance will not be optimal. Mixing with oil-based products is not recommended, except on the skin.