Brent Kallmer sells perfume to Elizabeth Thomas so she can stuff a stocking for a female relative. Photo by Eden Brown.
It was small business Saturday in Arlington, and nowhere was the urge to create a business — and have it thrive — more apparent than at the Arlington Farmer’s and Flea Markets. The vendors outside in the flea market were cold, but determined. Brent Kallmer said he would not have lasted the three hours without the help of his neighboring stand owner, Mary Howard, another new, small business-owner, who lent him a fur-lined jacket.
Kallmer was excited though, to see a few repeat customers. He started marketing his perfume at the Arlington market a few Saturdays ago. It is a small, easy-to-fit-in-a-purse perfume which he calls a “minimalist aquatic-floral.” He invented the perfume himself.
Elizabeth Thomas stopped by and bought a bottle for the person whose stocking she will be stuffing. “I really like it because it smells like the sea and doesn’t have an overpowering scent,” she said. Kallmer says his perfume was designed to be unisex.
Kallmer says he had long dreamed about making a scent that captured one of the most beautiful songs ever created, Antônio Carlos Jobim's "Águas de Março,” but kept telling himself it would be too hard. A managing editor by trade, he thought he didn’t know enough about making perfume to do a good job. He finally based his decision to go ahead and invent a perfume on a quote by Ralph Waldo Emerson: “Do the thing, and you will have the power.” He challenged himself to make 20 bottles of a scent on a budget of $500. He embraced an aesthetic of radical simplicity. Using only his nose, intuition, and trial by error, he attempted to translate music into scent.
He tested his experiments on people at work. He asked a lot of questions from a lot of experts. He loitered around shops that would help him understand what women — and men — want in a perfume. And now, he has his perfume for sale, and it is selling. Kallmer’s website is www.eusouperfume.com and www.etsy.com/shop/eusouperfume.com but he is also at the market near Courthouse Metro every Saturday during market hours.
The Cowbell Kitchen is a new small business at the Farmer’s Market. Founded in 2013, they describe themselves as a farm & local producer-driven food business. They have built strong relationships with like minded small food related businesses ranging from a seventh generation farmer and a beekeeper schooled by her grandmother. They do a brisk business selling grilled/pressed sandwiches, especially on cold days. Their pastries are unlike any around town, especially the small apple tarts.
While it may be hard to buy a pastry in advance of the holidays, as a gift, Cowbell Kitchen said they would issue an IOU for a pastry or sandwich to be given to a friend and then redeemed at the market. And they take orders: CowbellKitchen@gmail.com.