Keeping the "Family" in "Family Business"

I posted a request on Twitter for ideas on what to write about today.  Clare wants to know how our family influences our fragrance choices.

Our main determination for continuing certain fragrances of course comes from our customers.  What people love and buy, we make more of.  If something just isn't selling well, then we obviously either make less of it or stop offering it all together.

But when it comes to choosing new scents for our products, family members are our first review panel.

We get little bottles of sample scents and I'm not sure that I can accurately convey the excitement these new little bottles bring.  My mom and I huddle together and take turns opening and sniffing.  Then we separate them into two sections - the ones we love and the ones we don't.  Occasionally though, we'll have two similar ones that we just cannot chose between.  This is where family comes in.  They get to vote and help us choose the right one.

But the most useful way we employ their help is by naming.  A lot of times the fragrance name suppliers use just don't really say what it actually smells like.  Or they're too boring.  Or weird.  Or corny.  So most of our scents are renamed to better fit Blissology.

Our naming sessions are generally brainstorming around the dining room table.  They might go something like this:

"Peppercorn?  It doesn't smell like pepper."

"No, it smells... like spice.  Manly."

"Is that cinnamon?  Oh, and clove.  And something woody.  Forest something?"

"It reminds me of fall.  Fall Spice?"

"Hmm... Autumn... something."

"Like a crisp fall breeze.  A... whisper." 

"How about 'Autumn Whispers'?"

My sister, Ashley, gets most the credit for that one.  It fits perfectly and is so much more accurate than "Peppercorn."  It's also something my mom and I never would have come up with ourselves.  We've found that family is the best way to think out problems and find solutions like this.  By the way, this is also how we decided on the name "Blissology" for our company.

The other way family members influence which fragrances end up in products is simply by bugging us to "hurry up and make that soap with that one smell."  We recently purchased an oil for our new "Colorado" inspired line.  My dad loves it.  Even more than his old favorite, Dragon's Blood.  My mom finally made him a special batch of shea butter with it since soap takes so much more time and he was just so impatient to have it.  I'm sure he won't let up on the soap issue for long though, so look for "Rocky Mountain High" soon!

Thanks for the writing suggestion, Clare!  If anyone else has anything they'd care to hear more about, just let us know - I'd love to share!