Anya's Garden Perfumes + The Natural Perfumery Institute

I created this graphic collage for Fairchild Perfume when it was released. When I remember back to 2005 and the resistance among perfumistas to natural perfumes, I can only smile at how we're being accepted now by mainstream perfume reviewers. As many on the forums say "I don't care now if a perfume is natural or contains synthetics, I only want a perfume to smell beautiful." Mark Behnke, who writes for Cafleurebon and Basenotes, and who has reviewed 500 perfumes in his career, is definitely someone who keeps an open mind about natural perfumes. I am truly awed by the power my first release, Fairchild, had over him. I'm so happy it brought back memories of walks with his father in Fairchild Gardens, which was the real world place I based this perfume upon. The other review on Cafleurebon today is by Rodney Hughes, a Professional Perfumer in the Natural Perfumers Guild. Rodney creates gorgeous perfumes himself, and imagine my surprise when he declared my...

The New Year - Two Thousand and Zen - and a Starry-Moon Full Swoon I've had my nose to the grindstone. There are so many projects, all with varied needs and timelines, I haven't had time to "keep up" with much that's going on. I do have my google alerts set to let me know when "Anya's Garden" pops up in the Internet, and I had to stop and pay attention in the past few days when one after another, alerts came in. I had no idea there was a "Best of the Best 2009" plan among perfume bloggers, but my goodness, am I the beneficiary of some lovely mentions by them! One after another they flowed: From the lovely Elena at Perfume Shrine blog: Best of Niche: Anya's Garden Starflower A gourmand with guts! Unusual combination, great lasting power for an all-naturals. Anya's Note: I was one of a number of niche perfumeries mentioned, but surely the tiniest microbusiness of all, so this knocked me out. From a devoted lover of Anya's Garden P...

Elena at Perfume Shrine reviewed MoonDance and StarFlower from Anya's Garden Perfumes, and if you leave a comment, you will be entered in a drawing to win samples - click here to read and enter

Natural Perfumers Guild President Anya McCoy is featured on The Scented Salamander website series: North American Originals:Perfumers on Fall & Winter. Anya's Garden Perfume's two new colder season scents, MoonDance and StarFlower are explained in Part Two From the Scented Salamander: American perfumery is as varied as its landscape. One of its most notable traits is the fact that in spite of the presence of giant corporations like Coty or Estée Lauder, there exists a strong breed, I am tempted to say, of independent perfumers who appear by contrast even more like the necessary missing pieces of a vast puzzle. And without them, one could argue, American perfumery would be forgetting the flip side of anonymous efficiency, large-scale organization and big business, that is, originality, primitivism, naïveté, a sense of community, intimacy, individualism and let us not forget, the can-do attitude. If we only had the big labels, we would still have rivers of perfume, but...

MoonDance - an Evolutionary Style Perfume StarFlower - a Morphing Style Perfume I recently-launched StarFlower and MoonDance, two fragrances that were designed in two very different ways. There is a historic perfume style that is classic: evolution. Most traditional perfumery schools and textbooks teach that a perfume should evolve smoothly, transiting from top to base notes, with a heart that melds them together. My MoonDance perfume is blended in that manner, and as one reviewer wrote me privately "is very subtle in the changes." That is the exact effect I was looking for. The lovely, fragrant MoonFlower (not to be confused with MoonDance!) slowly unfolds in an evolution that is subtle and beautiful. The tiny bud slowly opens to reveal a larger version of itself, color intact, form barely changed over time. The pointed petal tips, arranged in a rounded, clock-like fashion, softly blend into the overall form of the fully-emerged flower. There is an innate, sophisticated b...

MoonDance Perfume Launched October 5, 2009 to celebrate Anya McCoy's birthday and the next "perfume as art reflecting life" phase of Anya's Garden Perfumes Cool, sophisticated romantic love, as you slowly dance under the full moon, and a sweet and long-forgotten memory of eternity emerges from MoonDance . Sweet violet flowers, a touch of mint, sulty tuberose and sambac and the iconic accord of rose and apple-scented chamomile softly radiate over a woody, sultry base. Top notes: American Violet Flower Isolate, Indian Water Mint Middle notes: French Tuberose, Chinese Jasmine Sambac, French Rose de Mai, American Chamomile Base notes: Carolina Ambergris, Haitian Sandalwood, Sustainable White Sandalwood, South African Hyrax MoonDance is now my signature scent. I originally conceived this perfume at the end of 2007, and thought I'd release it in 2008, along with StarFlower. They're both homages to tuberose, that heady, swoon-inducing and sensual flower from Mexi...

The dreamy, sensual image above is the chosen graphic for one of my two new perfumes, MoonDance . It's one of the few images I've used that aren't either a collage piece of art that I created or a photograph I took. I just fell in love with it when I saw it, and it snapped me right out of the mindset I was in, with rather literal images of people dancing under a full moon. I also believe that the image helps a person imagine the gossamer beauty of a perfume, wafting and swirling up off their skin, an item of delight - and don't we all need a little delight right now? As my friend Chris said "I refuse to participate in this recession." You might not be able to buy a new car, or you're worried about your job, but a recent article - or two or three - have pointed out that perfume and lipstick are two luxuries women refuse to give up when the economy tanks. I've decided to push back the launch of MoonDance, and it's accompanying launch partner, StarFlo...