Anya's Garden Perfumes + The Natural Perfumery Institute

 Originally published Sept. 22, 2013 There’s a saying in the natural lifestyle world: “Can you eat….so and so” meaning is the lotion or body care product made with pure and natural ingredients? I was reminded of this recently when someone interested in buying my perfume wrote me several times, asking specific questions about the ingredients. I answered each email, also telling her to check out my Ingredients page. She then sent another email asking if I used undenatured alcohol. Of course, I do, and I wondered why she wasn’t finding the answers on my website. I discovered the Ingredients page was listed last on the menu, so I moved it up to the #4 position. I want customers to know that the ingredients in my perfumes are so pure, they could eat them. Rose, citrus, jasmine – all are good enough to eat – or drink. I’m not saying you should ‘eat’ my perfumes, although I do remember Maria Browning of Bitter Grace Notes blog and Elena Vosnaki of Perfume Shrine blog musing online about using

 Originally published Aug. 19, 2013 (Note: the book was published as Homemade Perfume by Page Street Publishers in July 2018, available on Amazon and other online booksellers) When Elise and I sat down to discuss the options for the illustrations for our upcoming book Perfume From Your Garden, color photos were considered, but the ability to get similar lighting and composition for them ruled them out.  Maybe in the future, but our timeline for a publication date of late Fall (Nov 8 is the target date) means we can’t get them together by then.  I told Elise of some drawings that I had traced out of an herb book in 1983 or so. The doctor’s wife loved the illustrations in the book and asked I used them for this drawing, as it was going to be hung on the wall in the office. So, I used them for a private, not-for-publication illustration for a doctor’s office.  At the time I was in grad school for landscape architecture, but had a landscape and interiorscape business on the side (a cateri

 Originally published Aug. 1, 2013 My student Claire Lautier – who is already an accomplished perfumer, and a member of the Natural Perfumers Guild –  surprised me with a poem about the production of aromatics. who would have thought to find poetry in the growth, harvesting, distillation, enfleurage and other aspects of extracting the essences?  Well, actually, there is a lot of poetry in the process, but it takes an artist to ‘extract’ the words and turn them into art. Exhale A seed, a blueprint for a life Spiraling roots down into the dark damp Holds the earth and is held, still blind The volcanic flutter A gossamer moth’s wing within That yet Moves tides Sends planets hurtling through space Forces to the light A tender tendril This one not crushed underfoot With mighty swoops through the telescoped eye of time shudders toward the Sun Through the fat drops of rain It has a destiny A good thing it’s fearless Now all in flower Swaying with its sisters in the sacred hills Where generati

 Originally published March 26, 2013 It’s such a delight to have some of the new-to-market expressed rind oil of the Meyer Lemon, I wanted to share my organoleptic evaluation of it with you and give some away to a reader who leaves a comment.  I also want to encourage you to subscribe to the blog, and/or the comments for the blog, and if you leave a comment, don’t forget to check the box that will allow you to receive posts on the Meyer lemon blog, so you’ll know if you’re a winner.  I filled a 15ml bottle with the 10.9g of meyer lemon oil in a 15ml bottle, a good example of specific gravity and your need to know it. Meyer lemon oil for you, and to show you how much specific gravity matters, know that it’s only  10.9g or oil!  I haven’t had time to weigh the oil and determine the S.G., but know that I will, since I determine the S.G. on all my oils, and teach it to my advanced students. So – Meyer lemon!  People have craved the oil of this prolific-bearing small tree for years, and we’