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Showing posts from October, 2006

A Timely Hiatus To Work Locally Helping Neighbors

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Today is the one year anniversary of Hurrican Wilma hitting us here in South Florida. My house was without power for fifteen days. I was lucky that there was no damage to my house. Others, however, a year later, still have blue tarps on their roofs, no repairmen or supplies in sight, and are living in substandard conditions. We're all also suffering from post-traumatic stress syndrome; children cry during rainstorms, and adults get tight-lipped and worried with each gust of wind. It's estimated that 15,000 homes in Dade and Broward are without solid, safe roofs, subject to flooding in the next storm. Every rain storm brings news reports of more people made homeless as the blue tarps fly off, exposing their homes and apartments to the rain. My business and personal life is very busy, so I had to find something(s) to eliminate right now. I'm going to take some time off from this blog to help with the efforts to rebuild South Florida, and also to aid in the struggle for affor

Recognizing Redefining Perfume: Letter to Natural Health Magazine on Natural Botanical Perfumery

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On July 27, 2006 I was chatting on a thread on the natural perfumery group I host on Yahoo (link on the right) about an article on natural perfumers in the then-current Natural Health magazine. There were several "regular" perfumers included in the article, and the mention of phthalates made it seem like we use them. With Mandy Aftel's help, I drafted a letter to the magazine. They just published the letter, edited of course, in the November issue! It's so wonderful to see the name of the Guild and natural perfumery presented in a positive light in the media ;-) Here's the original letter I sent. Dear Editor: I am the President of the Artisan Natural Perfumers Guild, founded by Mandy Aftel, and I'm the host of a 900+ member Yahoo group for natural perfumers. Natural perfumers define themselves as artists who use only aromatics from nature, such as absolutes, concretes and essential oils from plants. They may also use natural source beeswax, and perhaps ambergr