Anya's Garden Perfumes + The Natural Perfumery Institute

Katlyn Breene of Mermade Magickal Arts is a lovely artist in two realms: graphic arts and fragrant arts.  I have written about her before, praising an incense warmer she sells which allowed me to experience incense again, since an allergy had not allowed me to "burn" incense.  Then I blogged about another gadget of hers, a vaporizer.  This little vaporizer allows the incense maker to quickly evaluate a new resin, wood or other material to determine if it has a nice fragrance for a blend. She is known for sourcing the most beautiful and rarest fragrance ingredients.  She was on a quest to obtain some Hojari recently, to replenish her supply, which goes into her incense and is also for sale on her website as raw material for incense makers. Here are some wonderful photos she shared with me of her recent acquisitions.  Oh, so wonderful!

Omumbiri resin The Yahoo Natural Perfumery Group I host is a diverse, huge collection of lovers of natural aromatics from around the world. Recently, a member from South Africa wrote about a resin that is collected by the women of the Himba tribe of Namibia that shows promise in perfumery. The Himba collect the resin of Commiphora wildii - common name Omumbibi - to make body perfumes for themselves from this lovely fragrance material. It's related to myrrh, but has a lighter, fresher scent. The Himba mix the resin with fat, a process we can equate with an unguent, much like those known in ancient Egypt. Estee Lauder, Robertet and other large corporations have been investigating use of Omumbibi resin for a few years. Thankfully, Sophia, our NP Yahoo group member, was able to connect with the organization that is set up to protect the Himba and their aromatic resin and obtain some for experimentation by natural perfumers. This is the same organization that the corporations have b

Natural Perfumers Guild member Katlyn Breene of Mermade Magickal Arts is the Supplier of this wonderful gadget that allows me to enjoy incense once again. I'm very allergic to smoke. I used to smoke two packs a day and quit many years ago. I guess it was just overexposure to smoke that brought the allergy on. The first bad episode I remember was in the aftermath of Hurricane Andrew. They burned tons of debris for weeks on end, and started coughing, having respiratory problems and headaches. No - wait. I remember an earlier incident. In 1987 I was visiting my family up north and we went to a restaurant and there was smoking and I was "stuffed up" for a week. But the Andrew aftermath really got me good, and by that I mean bad. During the mid-90's, I did some freelance PR work for music artists here in Miami, but by 98 or so I had to stop because they still allowed smoking in clubs and I just couldn't attend events I had planned and was hosting. I still used st