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Showing posts from July, 2011

Ask the Perfumer - Sunday, July 31, 2011 - until 10 PM EST

July is over! Here at Ask the Perfumer headquarters we all wonder if there is a place of endless summer, without the severe heatwaves and droughts, where the jasmines bloom all year. Oh, wait, we're living here. It's like summer here 11 months of the year, so we're going to stop and smell the frangipani today. And the Chinese perfume tree, and the Costa Rican mint, etc. Hope your gardens are doing well and that you are harvesting some of the fragrant beauty for scent extraction, potpourri or some other alchemic delight.

Ask the Perfumer - Sunday, July 24, 2011 - until 10 PM EST

It was 100F at 9 a.m. here in Miami today. Most of the USA is in the midst of a terrible, long scorching heat wave. I hope everyone's gardens are surviving. Luckily, we started to get rain, after a drought of two months, starting July 1st. The flowers in my garden are blooming in overdrive! I feel very fortunate. If you need to vent about your toasted garden, or loss of flowers, leave a message. Of course, perfumery-related posts are much appreciated, too ;-) I'm just offering a sympathetic ear to readers who are having their summer hijacked by this heat wave.

Ask the Perfumer - Sunday, July 17, 2011 - until 10 PM EST

A question that frequently comes up is: how long do I have to age my compound before mixing with alcohol to create the juice, and then how long do I have to age the juice? Or, do I mix the compound with the alcohol and then age? Let's discuss.

Ask the Perfumer - Sunday, July 10, 2011 - until 10 PM EST

It's over 90F this morning in Miami, and my flowers are blooming wildly, with total abandon. The Jasmine auriculatum vine, which I posed with by my front door, is threatening to take over the entry area - and I'm not complaining! The Aglaia odorata - Chinese perfume tree - is on my front path, fragrancing the entire end of the street. What's blooming where you are? Are you being an alchemist and harvesting the fragrance and transforming it into a usable form for your perfume making, such as tincture or enfleurage? In the past week, the Clereodendron lutea and Tahitian jasmine were blooming, so I captured their rare and gorgeous beauty in a tincture. Life is good.

The Natural Perfumers Guild is pleased to announce new and renewing members for June, 2011

It's been a very busy summer, between celebrating the fifth anniversary of the Natural Perfumers Guild on June 1st with a group blogging event, and now welcoming all the new members! We're also very happy at all of the renewing members, the professional perfumers, the associates, the suppliers and the friends. With a strong history of defending our business rights in the face of restrictive legislation, promoting the Guild members on various media, and moving forward as the only trade association devoted to real natural aromatics, the Guild is now a magnet for both established companies and non-commercial devotees of pure and natural fragrance products. In the true spirit of the Medieval Guilds, the enhancement of professional products by peer evaluation and the protection of our rights to have standards for our businesses and to defend them, the Natural Perfumers Guild is staying the true course of the Guild concept. In the past, we had an apprentice program, and we m

Perfumers, Bath and Body Makers - On July 4, 2011 - the USA government released the Safe Cosmetics Act, which will greatly hinder your small cosmetics business

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The Natural Perfumers Guild is in opposition to the Safe Cosmetics Act in the form released on July 4, 2011   image from Essential Wholesale blog Kayla Fioravanti of Essential Wholesale has been at the forefront of a group of small-business advocates, including Donna Marie Johnson of Indie Beauty and others who have visited Washington, lobbied for appropriate legislation for microbusinesses, and generally, looked out for the rights of owners of small businesses that create soaps, perfumes and body card products.  Early on, I was involved also, and had to drop out of the effort due to burn out, plain and simple.  Thank God for the women who carried on the good cause. Please read about the Opposition to the Small Cosmetics Act here on Kayla's blog and dig deeper, into her well-annotated comments on the bill.

The multi-faceted raspberry - a brief look at the flavor and fragrance revealed

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I was pleasantly surprised to find how enjoyable and educational Flavor Creation by John Wright was.  I didn't know what to expect when I received the book for review from Allured Books , members of the Natural Perfumers Guild .  This blog post isn't the review, because I really want to do the book justice - as a resource for natural perfumers!  It has amazing information that I find valuable, from organoleptic insights to the individual flavor isolate (also a scent isolate). This post is just a jump-off to send you to Elise Pearlstine's blog about raspberry jam.  As I ate (sometimes sipped right out of the jar) the jam I got from Elise, I was astonished by the various flavors/scents that I was picking up on.  I realized that most commercial raspberry jams I've tasted have been "doctored" with natural essences, such as boronia, but I really loved the pure, un-doctored raspberry jam.  I picked up cedar, greens, florals and much more.  It reminded me of when I

Anya's Garden Perfumes featured to kick-off the American Perfumery series on Cafleurebon

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I'm honored to be chosen as the perfumer featured in the kick-off of a series on American Perfumery on Cafleurebon (click on Cafleurebon to read).  Leave a comment before July 5th and you'll be in the running to receive a 3.5ml mini extrait of my RiverCali perfume.

Ask the Perfumer - Sunday, July 3, 2011 - until 10 PM EST

Happy Fourth of July to my USA readers!  Any perfumery questions on this lazy, fun weekend? Someone wrote me during the week they want to continue the labdanum discussion.  Short answer:  you can't call your perfume a botanical perfume if it has animal essence in it, including labdanum.  Natural perfume is a recognized, true representation of what you should call your perfume.