Ask the Perfumer - Sunday, August 19, - until 10 PM EST

You can ask your perfumery questions until 10PM EST today, and I'll be happy to help you.  In the meantime, I want to share my renewed interest in natural botanical architecture.  I first saw photos in the magazine Co-Evolution Quarterly in the 70s.  As I recall, the photos showed specially-manipulated trees growing in pools of sun, rising up from an underground cave type setting.  The photos I'm showing here are from a website that documents the botanical architecture of   Axel Erlandson on this website.  Erlandson was a visionary who created what became known as the 'tree circus'. Very inspiring, quirky and now, sadly the trees no longer exist.  If you search botanical architecture on google, and scan the images section, you'll see some modern examples.  If you ever come across the original images from Co-Evolution Quarterly, please let me know.  I'd love to view them again.

UPDATE:  I did a google search, and the results indicate that Mark Primack, the architect who has the website that I got the images from is the author of the Co-Evo article.  So, I must be remembering another article in Co-Evo that featured the underground trees in pools of light.

Primack's article is the first place I ever saw the term pleaching, which is the word for the manipulation of the tree form by humans.  Wondrously beautiful works of art.

Ask the Perfumer - Sunday, August 12, 2012 until 10 PM EST

August in Miami is a pleasure to a perfumer's nose. Some of the blooming treasures in my front garden this morning are jasmine grandiflorums climbing by my front door, Vietnamese gardenias, ylang ylangs, jasmine sambac longipetalum, angel's trumpets and four o'clocks. Everything but the angel's trumpets and four o'clocks are fragrant now. The angel's trumpets will start pumping out their sweet, spicy perfume around dusk, and the four o'clocks will start smelling of grape soda around, well, four o'clock in the afternoon. Such inspiration! Do you have any perfumery questions, or scented plant questions? I'll be here to answer them unti 10 PM EST.

Grape-soda scented four o'clock.  I know the natural chemical constituent that makes it smell like the commercial grape soda, but I prefer the common, less technical common name for the flower.

Angel trumpets touching the sky, heralding down their fragrance from above.

A solo jasmine grandiflorum putting itself right by my nose!

The richness of two dozen jasmine grandiflorum flowers blooming by my front door can't be ignored.  Beautiful!

A rare jasmine sambac, the 'long-petaled' variety longipetalum.

Dramatic and big, the Vietnamese gardenia is a glorious flower.

The ylang ylangs unfold over the course of a week or so, each successive wave of ripeness glorious in its on manner.

Room Candy - the ultimate recyclable 100% natural room fragrance

I love, love, love my soon-to-be-launched Room Candy ambient fragrance line for some many reasons!  First, it's 100% natural, with just beeswax and essential oils or absolutes for fragrance. Second, it's the ultimate recyclable product.

I put together this quick little photo montage to illustrate that 1. You melt the little flower wax tarts, getting the fragrance into your home  2. After it's given upmost of its scent, you can put it into a cloth or pouch and use it to scent your drawers or closets, or, 3., Use it to recondition wood chopping boards, furniture or even to bind together the ends of frayed rope (an ancient use for it).

Can you think of any other uses?  Please share.   PS the packaging is recyclable, too!

Ask the Perfumer - Sunday, August 5, 2012 - until 10 PM EST

I'll be around all day to answer your perfumery questions, just popping in and out as I have a meeting or two. Here's some photos of the vintage candy molds I'm using for my Room Candy wax melts. The wax melts smell soooo good!  Read my previous posts to find out more about them.

Custom tissue paper for Anya's Garden Perfumes - beauty to wrap every shipment in, tropical style

The paper captures the deep teal of the tropical waters that surround Miami and the lush botanicals that go into the Anya's Garden perfumes

The new custom tissue paper for Anya's Garden Perfume has arrived.  It will look gorgeous with my boxes and satin bags.