In the beginning...

As I write this first posting of my first blog I can hear in the background the laser printers eating their way through thousands of letters to be sent out for our Mother’s Day mailing. It is made particularly significant by the fact that the accompanying letter is telling customers to look at the new blog that will be launched in February 2007!

I will put my cards on the table and confess I have a commercial interest in perfumery, and own my own small company – The Cotswold Perfumery in Bourton on the Water,England that employs just 6 people. I create perfume compounds, contract pack for customers, have a retail shop, operate a mail order service and teach perfumery both to members of the public and also to schools and universities. It is a fairly unique business.

People always ask how it began. It was started by my father. He considered himself to be a bit of an entrepreneur and had many businesses – everything from insurance broker and TV repairs to off-peak strawberries and African Violets. They all failed because he (a) he was never prepared to put any work into a project and (b) he was a compulsive gambler.

Eventually his debts caught up with him. The bailiffs came and took possession all our worldly goods – including the house – and we moved in with my grandparents. Whilst the court cases continued the grandfather on my mother’s side died and left her enough money to buy a small shop in Bourton on the Water where we resurrected the last business that failed – perfumery.

The court cases ended and my father was imprisoned for fraud. I was at university at the time and my mother had never worked before, but now needed an income. I made some extremely crude shop fittings and somehow the shop generated just enough income for my mother to live on until she died in 1975 and I took over. There was much to be done – the products needed upgrading, the shop fittings had to be renewed and the business had to be put onto a sound financial basis. There are some fundamental problems in creative perfumery that have to be addressed and I will be covering some of these here – obtaining raw materials, MOQ’s, finding your first customers and so on.

So the blog has started. Please feel free to make any comments you wish. I will be covering a number of other topics too including the Classification of perfumes, the structure of the industry, problems that face small companies, how the nose works, myths and so on.

Comments

[Brian - North Carolina, USA]

John -

I'm enjoying the blog very much--thanks for the insight into your profession and art.

I am a particular fan of No.88, and my understanding is that you played a part in its creation. Is the formula yours, or Shirley Brody's, or a collaboration between you two?

Thanks--Brian

[John Stephen]

Hi Brian, and apologies for the delay in replying but we have been heavily involved with flood repairs over the past few weeks.

To answer your question, yes I created No 88. Shirley Brody started the aromatics division of Czech & Speake and wanted a perfumer to work on new perfume briefs - No 88 was one of them.