…for walks. As soon as the snow was melted but the soil still frozen, we took a walk into the forest where we heard the first larks chirp; we did this always. With expectation we looked forward to father's birthday on April 22. To prepare for this, far ahead of time, we gathered moss, ivy, forest violets, crowfoot and anemones; the day before we wreathed everything in the house. And so, the beautiful spring began for all of us.  - Emma Blocki, 1872

We always think of For Walks when March arrives. The perfume mimics the weather pattern of early spring in Colorado. It opens with a touch of fresh cool mint and leafy violet that eventually melts to warm sandalwood. To us, For Walks as a violet soliflore; starting with violet leaf absolute on top, followed by violet flower headspace (viola odorata) and boronia flower in the heart, and finishing with French orris, which shares molecules with the violet flower and leaf. Our olfactive goal was to combine the best of a golden-age violet perfume with the fresh green effervescence of a modern floral.

The inspiration for the fragrance comes from a memoir passage written by our founding perfumer’s (John Blocki) mother, describing her childhood family’s spring rituals in Pomerania. While we adore John, the Blocki perfumery was and is about more than John’s skill as a chemist. In reviving the Blocki perfumery, we discovered so many amazing people that touched the business – family, friends, employees, and business associates. This month we are focusing on the dedicated and talented women that got us here. The brief century-by-century snapshots below show the amplifying effects of these women on the Blocki family and perfumery.

1700s – A young girl’s friendship with a widow starts a family legacy of education that will give her daughter the courage to immigrate to the United States.

Mrs. von der Osten was sublime, beautiful, and very intelligent. She was a widow and widely respected for managing her vast family estate in Pomerania by herself. Her thick curly hair, turned grey from grief, framed her young face. Though just a young child, Henriette Thiele sensed her loneliness and kept her company. In gratitude, Mrs. von der Osten took it upon herself to provide Henriette with a scientific education in the best schools, something that was not common for ladies of the day. Henriette never forgot this kindness and made sure her daughter received a scientific education. This focus on education would become a family value passed down through generations.

1800s – A mother moves her family to the United States and writes a memoir about her birthplace that will later inspire the revival of a family perfumery. 

Cover of Blocki family scrapbook.

Henriette Thiele Doehling died at twenty-six, but not before securing an education for her five-year-old daughter, Emma, at a boarding school opened by Queen Louise of Prussia. Emma was born prematurely, requiring a supplement of mare’s milk to survive. Under the tutelage of Mrs. Von Klatt, the once-fragile child grew into a strong and intelligent young woman. Emma married Friedrich Blocki and had eight children (one of which was John). In 1850, the Blocki family immigrated to the United States, and Emma insisted on bringing her piano. It was the first piano in the state and people from all over came to hear her play on Sundays. Many years later, her children, wanting to know more about her birthplace, requested she write a memoir which she did in 1872.

1900s – A daughter sustains a family perfumery with help from a team of dedicated and talented women.

Postcard from Franco-American Hygenic Company (one of many Blocki ventures)

The Blocki perfumery has been a family affair since its inception in 1865, starting with John and his brother Eugene. Once John’s children, Jeanette and Fred, were old enough they worked for the perfumery. The custom at the time was to name firms after father and son, but Jeanette was as involved as her brother. The packing and labeling departments as well as the general office employed women under her supervision. When her brother passed away prematurely in the 1918 flu pandemic, Jeanette took on an even greater role at the perfumery and eventually ran the business entirely when her father passed away. 

Newspaper write-up of incident involving Mrs. Van Arsdale after defending herself with a hat pin.

Jeanette had help from the very capable business manager, Miss Van Arsdale, who had been with Blocki since the early 1900s and was responsible for managing the independent retail partners and distributors that carried the Blocki Flower-in-the-Bottle perfumes and Esprit d’Amour cosmetics. One of the top partners was a woman in Indiana named Mrs. Abel who owned a Flower-in-the-Bottle Perfume Shop and was also a distributor in the state. Thanks to Mrs. Abel’s well-written and descriptive advertisements, we were able to uncover and verify a large portion of the Blocki product history.

Advertisement for a Donna Lee product

Donna Lee operated a Flower-in-the-Bottle Perfume Shop on State Street in Chicago, but her partnership with Blocki also included a new product line – home and car fragrances. Donna Lee was a ceramicist who created porous vessels known as disseminators that were filled with perfume oil and used for scenting indoor environments. They would hang on the wall and be refilled with fragrance every ten days. Blocki created the fragrance oils for her disseminators. The most famous of her products looked like a vase holding flowers and was hung in Model T Fords to scent the car with the fresh, clean odor of lavender.

(L) Louise Blocki, 1915, (R) Newspaper write-up of Louise's conservation efforts. 

Jeanette’s sister-in-law, Louise Blocki,  is a story unto herself. A conservationist and suffragette, she volunteered with causes like Jane Addam’s art program, Henry Cowles’ dune preservation efforts, and Jens Jensen’s native plant conservation exhibits at the Art Institute of Chicago. Her community engagement made the Blocki family and perfumery well known in Chicago and beyond.

2000s – A woman’s plea written on a memento box leads to a memoir being discovered, which then ignites a passion in the next generation of women that will work to bring back a historic family perfumery.

Inscription with signature and current Blocki cap.

It can take time and emotional distance for a family’s story to arrive at the doorstep of the person who will serve as archivist. When I began researching the Blocki perfume history, I was given a box of family mementos. The first thing I saw inside was a piece of cardboard, on which was written “Please someone care!” In that instant I knew that I was the archivist. The woman who wrote the note, Ruth Blocki, had passed away long before I married her grandson, and though I never knew her, the plea reduced me to tears (and still does). The next thing I found in the box was Emma Blocki’s beautiful and haunting memoir. Tyler and I were in the process of reviving the perfumery, and decided this memoir was the perfect place to begin our fragrance inspiration.

A casual conversation between myself and my mother-in-law, Dorothy Kraemer, is what led us to the Blocki perfumery in the first place. I asked her if Tyler had an active nose as a child, as I had fallen in love watching him smell books and pencils in our law school classes. She said yes and mentioned there was a perfumer in the family. She gave us a book published in 1904 that contained a biography of John Blocki. That was our “aha” moment.

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Just like in the early 1900s, we have kept the revived Blocki perfumery going with the help of a team of dedicated and talented women. A few I would like to highlight are: 

Michelle Bruckmann, perfumer and creator of our best-selling fragrances, Press Club and Brazilian Lily. Her formulations have brought us closer to the modern side of modern-vintage fragrances starting with her reformulation of In Every Season, turning it into an easy to wear fresh white floral.