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Showing posts from May, 2007

Happy Birthday to the Natural Perfumers Guild!

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June 1, 2007: The Artisan Natural Perfumers Guild is now the Natural Perfumers Guild. We're celebrating the one year anniversary of the reopening of the Guild with a new name and a new logo, seen above. In the past year 88 wonderful people joined the Guild, supportive and enthusiastic about the art of natural perfumery, helping spread the word, networking amongst themselves and just being supportive. We're also adopting the phrase "Slow Scent" as our slogan. Mandy Aftel, the Founder of the Guild, coined the term for her new book, and is graciously sharing it with us. Here's a great example of how we're all connecting and helping each other and spreading the news about what we do, and who we are: with hours of reading the June Guild newsletter, Blunda Los Angeles store owner Persephenie called Andrea Budje of Aromahead because she wanted her to come to LA from Florida to give a class at her store - all because of a small feature I put in the newsletter withou

Full Moon Jasmine

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The very-talented Helen of ZenSoaps created this image from a photo of the Grasse variety of Jasmine grandiflorum I have growing in my garden. I find it alluring and mysterious, sensual and spiritual, much like the flower itself. Today is the Full Moon in Sagittarius. White fragrant flowers bloom wildly and profusely during a full moon, and here in Florida, our major flushes of blooms are from April - June, with intermittant blooms throughout the year. I have been harvesting Jasmines - grandi (sparse, it may bloom more in July, for some reason), sambacs - Belle of India, Maid of Orleans, Grand Duke of Tuscany and several lesser-known varieties, like long-petaled Belle of India. Also into the alcohol goes the auriculatum and azoricum, and night-blooming Jasmine, Cestrum nocturnum, and Orange Jasmine, Murraya paniculata. Quite heavenly tinctures they are, too. More like the fresh flower on the vine than the concretes and absolutes we buy from suppliers. I use them to supplement and enhan

Anya's Garden Sale - Thank You + Anniversary

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It is my pleasure to announce the first-ever sale on the perfumes of Anya's Garden. The sale is in celebration of three happy events: the six-month anniversary of the launch of Anya's Garden, and the wonderful success of the perfumes, which are lovingly reviewed on forums such as Perfume of Life, MakeUpAlley and others, and the appreciative notes from customers, who write to say how the perfumes create a mood, bring back a memory of a warm summery place, or as in the case of Fairchild, take them to an intoxicating salty, flowery shore in the tropics. This is what a perfumer aims for, at least I do. Not just to create a pretty or exotic fragrance, but to create one that evokes a soulful response, or in the case of Pan, as it has been reported, a real pheromonal response from men. Pan is a hit with the ladies who do not mind a slightly masculine scent, and among gay men, where it is a cult favorite. The ladies say the men flock around them, or give them appreciative stares in p