Anya's Garden Perfumes + The Natural Perfumery Institute

  Make Hydrosol the Simplers Herbalist Way by  Anya McCoy  |  Jan 17, 2016  |  Anya's Garden Perfumes ,  Ask the Perfumer ,  Herbalism ,  Hydrosols ,  natural aromatics  |  4 comments Simplers Distillation to Create a Quick and Easy Hydrosol There are times I just want to spray a delectable floral, spice, herb, or other botanical water on my face or body. The well-known botanical waters rose or orange blossom, are also known as hydrolats, distillate waters, or hydrosols. I’ll call them hydrosols for this article because that is perhaps the best-known name for them. What’s the difference between Hydrosols and Simply Boiling the Botanical? When you boil a botanical, whether it’s a rose or oolong tea, you are making an infusion. All of the properties of the botanical are being drawn out into the hot water, and you can drink it ‘as is’. When you make a hydrosol, many of the chemical properties of the botanical are left in the water in the bottom of the pot, as in making tea. It’s the v

  Distilling Cornutia grandifolia for perfume and health by  Anya McCoy  |  Oct 29, 2015  |  Anya McCoy ,  Anya's Garden Perfumes ,  Healthy perfume ,  Herbalism ,  Hydrosols ,  natural aromatics ,  raw materials of perfumery  |  2 comments I’ve long been obsessed with a tropical member of the Mint family Labiatae and focused on obtaining some plants of it to grow in my fragrant garden. They were harder to find than I imagined, but I got two in small pots about a year and a half ago. You can read more about them  here. These plants are as aggressive in their growth habit as mints; instead of growing horizontally via runners, they grow vertically, leaping skyward at an astonishing rate. I don’t fertilize them, and they don’t have any pests or diseases. On a sunny Sunday in Miami, Angie and Julia showed up to harvest them and we worked together on the distillation of the big, soft, velvety, fragrant leaves. The leaves smell like a combination of balsam, tobacco, mint, and sweetness.

  Making Perfume Tip About Using Abbreviations for Descriptors by  Anya McCoy  |  Oct 13, 2015  |  natural aromatics ,  natural perfumery course ,  Natural Perfumery Institute ,  raw materials of perfumery ,  study perfumery  |  0 comments Learn how to dilute aromatics, use a scale, and work with professional evaluation forms to record your impressions. Making Perfume: Perfume Shorthand Key to Comprehensive Descriptors for Organoleptic Evaluation Perfumers need a jolt, or a boost to the thinking process, to help them come up with a descriptive word for various aspects of a fragrance. When making modifications (aka mods) to choose the perfect perfume, it helps to have both the Aromatic Lexicon that I supply my students with, and the next step, a shorthand way to jot down those descriptive terms. The following shorthand key included in the textbook for  The Natural Perfumery Institute , (NPI) is valuable for this, and I’m sharing it here to pay it forward to those who need some help with