Anya's Garden Perfumes + The Natural Perfumery Institute

The perfumers in the Natural Perfumers Guild worked very hard this year to create perfumes to fit themes that are close to our hearts - botanical and cruelty-free musks, and declaring our independence from nonsensical IFRA constraints. Ca Fleure Bon recognized our efforts in their Best of Scent 2010 awards. December 29, 2010 The Fragrant Year In Review: 2010… From Top to Bottom Notes One of my favorite trends of 2010 was the emergence of Natural Perfumery. Under the auspices of The Natural Perfumers Guild I was honored to participate in two projects they held this year; The Mystery of Musk and Outlaw Perfume . These projects exposed me to some very talented perfumers who I think are the rising stars of not just Natural Perfumery but Perfumery. Those names you should be looking for are Charna Ethier, JoAnne Bassett, Alfredo Dupetit , and Jane Cate . This is not to mention the “old hands” like Anya McCoy, Dawn Spencer Hurwitz and Alexandra Balah

Well, you know how some (me!) natural perfumers love to grow and tincture/infuse/extract the scent from plants in our gardens.  I can't grow lilac here in Miami, but this new plant looks to be a winner for those in more northern climates.  Syringa Bloomerang!    What a name ;-) NPers tincture lilac blooms, but have to devote several years to getting a well-scented alcohol, because of the short blooming season.  Several changes of blooms are needed to reach that well-scented goal, and perhaps Bloomerang can solve that.

Bulgarian Aromatics Supplier Ecomaat Joins the Natural Perfumers Guild Certified Organic products that include those used in perfumery, aromatherapy, medicine, and the flavorings industries. In early summer, 2009, I contacted a Bulgarian aromatics supplier , asking for samples of some of their very exotic raw materials.  I was particularly interested in the lilac CO2, and some SCO2 extracts of rose alba, linden blossom and others.  I blogged about the lilac here .  I gave them feedback, and started a correspondence with them, as they were astounded they had gotten feedback - they say people either buy or they never hear from them again.  I felt they were innovative and taking chances, and I support any supplier in the industry who does that.  I do believe the lilac CO2 has a place in aromatherapy - the fleeting nature of the top note wouldn't matter too much if the psychological effect for a jolt of scent memory was all that was needed. During the evaluation session noted

  Soon after I started blogging in 2006, I began to write of the incredibly restrictive and unreasonable "guidelines" of the International Fragrance Association, and the resultant laws from the European Union that effectively killed perfumery.  True, they also ranked some synthetics as "dangerous" (brain disruptions), but the list of naturals, which had been used for centuries without major problems, was overwhelming.  I rarely bother to blog about these issues anymore.  I discovered I was the ONLY perfumer doing so at the time, and it cast a bit of a bitter pall over my blog.  I'd rather be blogging about the beauty and luxury of naturals, so here I am. I passed the ball on to other bloggers! Nine bloggers will be participating this week, and you can find their links at the end of this post. They're all insightful, intelligent and passionate about perfumery.  Their readership far outstrips mine, and the Outlaw Perfume project is a great way for them to

The Natural Perfumers Guild is having a membership drive. There are vintage and contemporary perfumery books and article included in the membership, plus many prizes to be awarded in a random drawing of the names of the new members. Fees are marked 20% off the usual rate, and can be found at here . The dozens of books and articles that new members can download are listed here. Deadline to join at the reduced membership rate and be in the drawing is Nov. 30th. Winners may state their choice of prize from the following list: *Five one-year Basenotes Supporters memberships A $59 value* Thinking of starting a perfume business? Take part in the chat on the most active perfume site on the Internet. The Basenotes Plus ( née Basenotes Supporters) is a great way to connect to the community. *One Basic Natural Perfumery textbook A $500 value* This is the textbook for Guild President Anya McCoy's Basic Natural Perfumery course. 349 full-color pages. Winner will be emailed a

The Natural Perfumers Guild is onboard to help fund the effort to defeat the Safe Cosmetics Act of 2010. We've registered a recurring monthly donation to the lobbying fund, and I urge you all to do the same because the future of your business is in jeopardy due to the SCA2010. The Handcrafted Soap Makers Guild has started an advocacy fund so that they may hire a lobbyist to go and fight this Act. See the page at the link below.At the bottom of that page there is a link that connects you to a place where one can make a donation, the smallest increment being $5.00. The donations can be one time, monthly, etc.  http://www.soapguild.org/industry/leg-advocacy.php

This bill, as written, will effectively destroy all small businesses that produce natural care products, such as natural perfumers, aromatherapists, soapers, etc. The Natural Perfumers Guild is opposed to the passage of this bill, and urges everyone to sign the petition against it at http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/oppose-hr-5786-safe-cosmetics-act-of-2010/ Due to an ongoing family crisis, I have been unable to blog for some months now, since I have to focus my energies on the healing process for my mother.  On July 27, 2010, I posted a link, via the private forum for the members of the Natural Perfumers Guild, to the petition against the Safe Cosmetics Act of 2010.  Shortly after that, I started a blog on the subject, wanting to state the Guild's position and to link with others opposed to this egregious Act that will put us out of business, but I was pulled off the post by my family obligations - I just didn't have the time, nor could I focus to write a good, informative b

I posted this letter today to several Yahoo groups I host: the huge natural perfumery group I started in 2002, the Natural Perfumers Guild group, and a subgroup of that, the professional perfumers group I started where we can discuss special projects, such as the current one, the Mystery of Musk. ------------------------------------- Hello Everyone: Here's what I wrote on Cafleurebon today to accompany the review of Nick Jennings' perfume: "It makes my heart happy to see the first line "It seems inconceivable that there can exist so many gifted natural perfumers, of whom one has never heard." Nick really is a wonderful perfumer. In 2005 I created naturalperfumery.com to try to get the perfumers on my yahoo group "out into the world" and it did help to a certain extent. However, it was the birth of such great perfume blog sites such as this that are the real messengers to the world. Thanks so much to the Cafleurebon crew! " I can add here th

The Role of Risk Aversion in the Decline of the Perfumery Art Tony Burfield, Cropwatch www.cropwatch.org Click here to download the pdf of this post World Perfumery Congress, Cannes 2nd June 2010. (Anya's note: I've muddled thru the pdf and powerpoint of this speech Tony gave at the WPC and have to the best of my abilities, made a decent facsimile of the original so that the content may be archived on the internet. To read the original, please download the pdf, linked. PS We're very proud to have Tony as a member of the Natural Perfumers Guild, and I have collaborated with him previously in attempts to expose the bad science and bad politics of the EU, IFRA, et al.) Cropwatch’s actions. Cropwatch is a 6-7 year old non-financed independent watchdog for the aroma & natural products trades. It has waged campaigns against (amongst others): • Over-exploitation of rare & threatened aromatic species (see Cropwatch website for A-Z data-base). • Impending citr