We are starting 2015 with a new look. OLO began in my apartment with hand written labels back in 2009 and has evolved into a small company with many loyal customers. We had a lot of help along the way. Jason Kinney created the original mark and design for OLO. Keegan Meegan did all the letterpress and continues making our sample boxes. The newest packaging is thanks to Brown Printing. The new look and website is a collaborative effort by Dave Williams, Peter Baston and Yuji Tomita. Thanks to everyone who has helped me through the years for all your hard work. I look forward to all the new projects we have planned for 2015!
Help us celebrate the sun we will miss so much. Stop by Milk Milk Lemonade Sunday the 21st to spend money and eat cake. If you don't live in Portland, buy your own cake and use this handy discount code, BYEBYESUN to receive 25% off online purchases. The discount is good for one day only so order up!
We made up a small batch of incense for tonight's Happy Hour at Nationale. Please join us from 6 to 8pm for drinks, conversation and shopping. Calcine incense are notes of cedar, vetiver and frankincense. These incense were made for a limited run so get them while you can!
Please join us this Friday, December 19th from 6 to 8pm! There will be snacks and chatting and cool things to buy.
Man, 2014 has not been kind to Victory Wolf. Late winter offered up the loss of my favorite tobacco absolute, which opened up the possibility of discontinuing the fragrance. Drama ensued. Customers panicked. I panicked. Fortunately, I was able to rework the formula and all was well. Or, so I thought.
I have recently discovered that someone else has started to use the name Victory Wolf. Judging from the information I have, they are well aware of my use of the name. They've trademarked it and are very aggressive with the promotion of it thus far. It's disheartening to see someone so blatantly rip off such a random yet specific to me name. Victory Wolf is a loose translation of my husband's last name, Sielaff: sigi 'victory' + wolf 'wolf'. I made this fragrance for him. We had the release party for Victory Wolf at Nationale on September 25, 2009. It's been a popular fragrance sold in many stores in the US, Canada and Europe. I never saw the name used before 2009 and it's been nothing more than some guy in Turkey's Myspace handle since then. I'm bummed that some other business has dropped in on it.
This brings me back to when I was in 8th grade at Randolph Junior High. I grew up solidly middle class. I was never hungry, had a nice home, never really wanted for anything. But, I only got one or two name brand articles of clothing a year. I had to beg for them. It was 1989 and that's just how you did it then, name brand everything. I had this Guess stonewashed denim jacket. I got it for Christmas and I wore it everyday. I loved it. I somehow ripped the shoulder open. A HUGE rip. My mom didn't sew, I didn't have a patch anyway. I needed to wear my Guess stonewashed denim jacket to school that day or I would be lame and never have friends and my world would be over, etc. So, I used a shoe lace from my purple Converse high tops and laced that shit up. It's the best solution my 13 yr old self could come up with. I was embarrassed but I figured my back pack would cover it most of the time anyway. When I got to school, a few people complimented my Guess stonewashed denim jacket with the shoelace going up the side. It was a hit. They thought it looked cool. I was pretty pleased with myself, mostly because something I made wasn't laughed out of homeroom. I thought outside the box, made due with what I had and it worked out. Within a week a few girls had ripped their jackets and laced them back up with shoelaces. I remember being annoyed not so much because they copied me but because they had multiple intact Guess jackets and didn't need to do it! Before long, kids at school just thought Guess made stonewashed denim jackets with a shoelace going up the side. I got no credit for my innovation and we moved on to other trends the next year anyway. Victory Wolf will probably end up being my Guess stonewashed denim jacket.
This is basically just an emo blog post to OLO customers and friends. I've been incredibly lucky with this business so far. This was a hobby that turned into a career that is so fulfilling. I get so many kind words and support on the daily. I appreciate it all. This is now a profitable business that supports both me and my husband. Jonathan is now a partner in OLO and we are excited about upcoming projects planned for 2015. I have just rolled with what came at me for the last five years but it's been made clear to me that I have to be more assertive with this as a business. I apologize for all the hashtags and promotions and images that are about to hit the internet all hard in the name of OLO Fragrance.
In order to keep Victory Wold associated with OLO for as long as possible we will be doing a giveaway. Post any image of Victory Wolf on Instagram and tag it #victorywolf #victorywolf2009. It can be a picture of your personal bottle of Victory Wolf, an inspiration shot or the store you bought it in. We will giveaway one bottle a day from today Saturday, November 22nd thru Saturday, November 29th.
Anna Korte has been working on a beautiful string painting to show at Milk Milk Lemonade, the storefront of OLO Fragrance. We are so excited to welcome you all into our space to see Anna's newest piece along with the Temple Collection from the AK Vintage line. We had the chance to stop by her studio and see a bit of her process. So amazing!
Stop by and see art, objects, jewelry. Smell things. Eat delicious treats. Talk to people. Have fun.
I'm excited to announce the release of the new fragrance OLO created for TENOVERSIX. It is notes of sage, incense and amber and I've been wearing it exclusively all month. This is my new favorite OLO blend.
One of my first "adult" flirtations with wearing fragrance that didn't involve a drug store and the color pink was when I found myself in a head shop for the first time. I believe it was called Infinity's End. I was fifteen and my friend had her driver's license so we could go anywhere we wanted. Without our parents. The forbidden head shop was our first outing. I remember feeling so giddy walking into a store like that. So much MAGIK! I bought a ying yang symbol ring, a tie dyed t shirt, Nag Champa incense and some Egyptian musk perfume. It was all so exotic to me.
Naturally, my tastes have evolved since then. I still love amber, frankincense and myrrh but I'm pretty particular about the quality these days. When Kristen and I were throwing around ideas for the TENOVERSIX custom fragrance I originally was going for a more lavender and sage, coastal bonfire vibe. Something kept pulling me back to resinous incense, a more glowing ember ritualistic feel. I wanted this fragrance to be a reflection of that youthful quest for more meaning and connection to the mind, body and spirit. I feel like TENOVERSIX brings together the playfulness of youth and the sophistication that comes when you know who you are as a person and have the confidence to present yourself with honesty. An elevation of self and spirit was what I kept seeing in the images Kristen sent me for inspiration so I just went for it and gave myself up to my intuition when making this blend. I had worked on it for months and just couldn't get it right. I kept resisting the urge to put in nag champa, just a hint. I eventually had one of my uninhibited moments in blending where I just stopped thinking so hard and put in everything I wanted whether I thought they would work or not. That ended up being my favorite version and luckily it was Kristen's as well!
TENOVERSIX fragrance blend is bottled magic. It captures the ritual of lighting incense, the glowing ember and finally, the smoke rising along with it the elevation of spirit and self.
Notes of sage, incense and amber
We will be at TENOVERSIX Thursday, October 23rd to celebrate the release of this new collaborative fragrance. Details about the event coming soon!
XO
Heather
Back in February, I was walking to the post office (like I do) and came across a storefront for rent. I was casually looking for a new workspace so I called the number, left a message and went on my merry way. I received a call back from the building owner a few days later. It took me a moment to remember that I had called inquiring about a commercial space but it came back to me! I happened to be in the neighborhood so I stopped in to check it out. The space was affordable and in a great location so I pretty much took it on the spot. I had zero plans of opening a store but it seemed like such a good idea at that moment! The next step involved going home and telling my husband what I had done along with serious discussions about Jonathan leaving a very secure, well paying job to come work with me at OLO. I plan was formed, notice given and we set about planning Milk Milk Lemonade.
So, why did we name the OLO Fragrance studio Milk Milk Lemonade? What does it mean? I was under the impression that everyone knew the dirty playground song "milk, milk, lemonade...around the corner fudge is made". This little ditty was chanted while pointing to newly budding parts of the human body. It was one of the ultimate acts of rebellion when I was 8 years old. I have discovered a lot of people weren't as foul mouthed as I was as a child! Most people just think Milk Milk Lemonade is some random twee name, they've never heard the song. The folks that do remember the song give a sly grin and at least one person has busted out with the last line of the song, the one that only the sixth graders knew back in the day. I will not write it here but I will tell you if you ever visit the shop. Anyway, this little song has been stuck in my head for years. Along with classics like the Smurf theme song and Private Dancer by Tina Turner. One day I was singing it again and joked that we should just name the store Milk Milk Lemonade. We did.
Milk Milk Lemonade is located at 1407 SE Belmont St, Portland 97214. The focus of MML will be OLO Fragrance. It is primarily our work space. We will be introducing new OLO products to be sold in house only. The store is almost ready to open, we are just waiting on a few pieces to be delivered. We will keep irregular hours that meet our needs for now. Our strange hours will be posted daily on Twitter. However, if you are walking by and see us in there please feel free to come in! We will have set hours during the holidays. The website will be up soon but our Instagram and Twitter accounts are up and running.
The items offered in the MML store along with OLO Fragrances will be an assortment of some of our favorite items, lines like Dream Collective, Better Late Than Never, Hazel Cox, Erica Weiner, No. Studio, Morihata and others.
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