Welcome to my natty world...

This website called How's your Web? is actually my second blog hosted by Google's Blogger.com. My first one is called Perfume, Money and Sex. It's, shall we say, a tad 'edgier' ?? I picked a totally innocuous title this time. But back to the first one: Who could really complain about that triumvirate of earthly delights? Google received a complaint before I even had my first post finished and slammed up a warning STOP page faster than a gnat stating ARE YOU SURE YOU WANT TO PROCEED? ADULT-ORIENTED CONTENT That was because of a very tasteful and darkly lit black and white nude, prone with back to the camera I used as a background on my black page. (Well, there now there are more). But I'll be damned how some dried-up old school marm even managed to report that so lightening-fast before my page setup was done. I detest the foolishness of prudery. As if there weren't any issues worthwhile enough to call any one of a number of local politicians on instead. Or the governor's office. This is where I simply have to bemoan that many gawd-awful souls on this planet are as stupid as I am about where they direct their wrath.

I'm not sure where that blog is going. It has sat fallow for a few weeks while I ponder where to take it since it's such a misch-mash of my odd head-wiring and could easily get me thrown off if I let my inner Schweinehund roam free. Interesting to me, a least. Well, back to that later I guess...

I'm a practicing trained perfumer when my butt's not planted at my mac. I retired and left the madding Corporate World of fashion where everything is about the bottom dollar when it comes to what ingredients one is allowed to create with. Everything is totally 100% done by Big Committee; these people are no artistes, believe me. Perfumers are forever given the odious task of matching whatever the popular "big-money-maker" of the month is and then to tweak it just ever so minimally so it's "original" again. Perhaps you've wondered why all the major colognes and perfumes coming out of late all smell like clones. They are. We all have those boring gray suits on penny-pinchers to thank for that – old farts who'd rather knee-slap with their golf cronies in the 19th Hole and suck on their gin.

So, leaving the Corporate World, I started my own line of what have come to be called niche fragrances. In plain English this means "cottage industry" fragrances of any strength from body splash to cologne to eau de parfum to full blown perfume. I hand-nurture my luxurious fragrances at eau de parfum strength. Some of my scents are very (classically speaking) "feminine," and the rest of them are cunningly ambiguous. Thankfully, the gender lines in fragrance preference are breaking down so that more and more men are wearing jasmine and other traditionally women's ingredients, while women are experimenting with literally everything... (but then again, they always did but hid it with some shame).

The movement to artisan cottage industry fragrances currently has the old staid business all in a fluff. Master perfumers in Grasse, Alex, a student in the French perfume capital tells me – as well a famous industry rag, "Perfumer & Flavorist" that Big Biz is actually concerned about the loss of revenue by the likes of Procter & Gamble and Dior. The answer is written on the wall. Sooner than later there'll be a fragrance line unveiled by P&G itself rustically packaged and labeled La Ligne Niche. Mark these words. Sadly the public will fall right into that toilet. That's advertising dollars at work...

Being independent over a year now, I have no financial backing and do my work out of love of inventing novel and magical potions. Marketing is a damned hard struggle and really nasty word for me not having the capital to afford a $60,000+ page ad in a single issue of GQ or Vogue. As a result, I've turned to the internet for sales and am on a helluva steep learning curve considering I was never a "business type" but rather an artiste who tinkered with droppers and smelling strips in a lab coat. I'm currently on a wild ostrich ride with the internet... well, I'm glued to it actually... dreaming up ways to find co-marketers and in the meantime delving into the silicon bowels of the e-marketing inferno where I'm clearly a tiny pink babe in arms.

Sitting for hours tinkering at the computer, it dawned on me I'd overturned a huge, wet, slimy stone and found a fecundity of muddy bugs and worms in this e-world underbelly that may as well be the infamous intergalactic cantina in Star Wars. It's a lawless virtual Wild West full of every kind of slithering creature pushing every kind of money-making scheme alongside a handful of incredibly enticing flowers of scent and color never before seen.

I must confess – clear it right off my chest – that I quickly became the worst kind of gullible hillbilly gambler in Vegas. Let's just say that a stubborn ass old fool and his money are forthwith parted.

I wonder if anyone relates to the temptation of a 2 million dollar win with a stake of only $36. OK, $36 about ten times by the time I figured out apparently not a soul on earth was as gullible to buying in like I was. I fell for this sort of ruse more than once.. yup. All them pretty-glittery web pages with Lamborghinis and mountains of G notes like Fort Knox pictured on 'em. I was a moth to flame. A pig to mud. Oh yes, the pig-thing: I can be a pig in manifold ways. Like that jag I had with coke, which thankfully walked out on me in the 70's. I have a wee bit of an inclination towards not-knowing-when-to-stop. Can anyone relate?