Why Complain?

All being well, fingers crossed, with a bit of luck, as long as the wind’s blowing the right way and if everything goes according to plan, by the time I upload my next post, the bathroom at Maison Persolaise should be open for business. I never thought I’d get so excited by the prospect of having a flushing toilet and a functioning shower…

As life slowly returns to normal, I hope to find a few moments to acquaint myself with some raw materials Madame Persolaise gave me as a Valentine’s gift, which brings me to today’s main subject: buying essential oils, absolutes and aromachemicals.

Some of you may be aware that one of the small-scale perfumer’s main problems is finding suppliers who a) stock materials of high quality and b) are willing to sell it in quantities that the rest of the industry would consider minute. The situation has recently been made even more difficult by the rapidly increasing cost of raw materials, which has, unsurprisingly, had a detrimental effect on retailers’ abilities to continue selling to clients who can’t – or don’t need to – buy in bulk. Thankfully, there are still a few people out there who seem to realise that there is money to be made by serving the needs of perfumers who aren’t yet ready to splash out on a kilo of a top-notch Bulgarian rose otto. However, there also seem to be far too many online shops which claim to be willing to deal in smaller quantities but then turn out not to be interested in doing business when someone actually tries to place an order. I suppose I could name the ones who’ve wasted my time with unanswered emails and vague, half-promises of quotations for international shipping rates, but what would be the point of doing that? Instead, I’ll turn a negative into a positive by providing you with a list of the sites which, over the course of the last few months, have thoroughly impressed me with their customer service and their willingness to engage with any enquiries, no matter how insignificant or trivial:

I recommend them all to you.

Persolaise.