Anya's Garden Perfumes + The Natural Perfumery Institute

The Natural Perfumers Guild, the world’s largest organization for natural perfumery, is defining the scope of natural aromatics in accord with the vision of our art. Natural isolates are aromatics consisting of odor molecules from natural materials. Members voted on what constitutes a natural isolate to meet challenges to the "naturalness" of isolates. The Guild position serves to guide members and to assure the public of the Guild’s commitment to high standards of the art of natural perfumery. The Guild's standard exceeds ISO 9235, the International Organization of Standardization publication on standards for aromatic raw materials. Miami, FL, May 15, 2012 --( PR.com )-- The Natural Perfumers Guild, the largest organization of natural perfumers in the world, is defining the scope of natural aromatic isolates in order to assist its professional natural perfumers as they move forward with their desire to use these scent materials. Natural isolates ar

A busy Sunday is in store: tying up a zillion loose ends for the Love the Guild project, still thanking all the respondants on Facebook who replied with love and loyalty to the statement below, planting veggies, visiting mother and giving up on my mimosa enfleurage project, going for the tincture instead.  My blooming mimosa tree Acaci farnesiana I'll be here until 10 PM tonight EST to answer your perfumery questions.  Hope you have a great Sunday! ----------- Here's my FB post: May I ask a favor of you, and I rarely ask favors, so please bear with me. Would it be possible that you "share" and "like" when I post about the course I teach or the Guild? Why? Last year on this date, someone decided to try to harm my businesses, and a lot of behind the scenes maneuvers were done for months to try to make my businesses less competitive. I decided to wait it out, not take any action, and to take the high road. It took a lot for me to open

Sharing Their Story - an occasional series hosted by Anya McCoy.  Featuring the accomplished and  creative members of the Natural Perfumers Guild, the series is debuting with one of the lights of aromatherapy, and a pioneer in natural perfumery, Victoria Edwards of California and France.  Alongside Chrissie Wildwood and Mindy Green, two other accomplished aromatherapists, the three are, to my knowledge, the only aromatherapists who wrote about natural perfumery, and called it natural perfumery, in the 1990s. Visionary and prolific in the art of aromatherapy, please enjoy Victoria Edwards, in her own words:  I love this photo of Victoria, taken in France.  Doesn't she look like a good friend, animated and in high spirits, relating a story?  Well, this is her story. Biography of Victoria Edwards I was born in Chicago, grew up in Louisiana, my mothers family is from New Orleans. My Father is Swiss and I lived in Germany and Switzerland from 4 to 10 years old. My family

 Joy in January - a three-day blogging event to help you deal with your SAD-ness this month. If you're reading this on the second day of the three-day blog event, you can read my initial post about SAD and scents here . When I moved to Syracuse, New York in 1980 for grad school, it was a very impulsive move on th part of my (ex) husband and myself.  He was offered a great job, and we welcomed a move from a very remote small Florida town where the biggest thrill was guessing how many alligators were in the lake across the road. I knew Syracuse was super-cold and super-snowy, but I didn't know it held the rather dismal record as having the least amount of days with sunshine in the USA -- only 55 days of sun per year! That's the number I remember reading in the paper there, but some latest data I looked up doesn't support that .  Still, it's up there in terms of cloudy, rainy, snowy days.  I know that it snowed so much, every day in the winter, that many of us

 Joy in January - a three-day blogging event to help you deal with your SAD-ness this month. The Natural Perfumers Guild is an association of perfumers, suppliers and associates dedicated to the use of 100% natural aromatics.  Whether it be a perfume, body spray, soap, candle, lotion or other fragrance product, we concoct them with one goal in mind - to exalt the beauty of the product by adding a gorgeous scent. The Joy in January project is fourteen of the Guild members blogging about how naturally-scented products may help alleviate the depression and lethargy that often overcomes folks who live in dark, cold northern climates. The lack of sunlight during the short days of autumn and winter is a real problem, and those afflicted with this problem are said to suffer from SAD - Seasonal Affective Disorder. Please read what we share with you about our reaction to the SAD phenemona, and leave comments on our blogs to be entered to win some SAD-alleviating naturally fragrance p

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE MIAMI, Florida /January 5, 2012 Noted French Natural Perfume Company Honoré des Prés Joins the Natural Perfumers Guild Honoré des Prés’s perfumer Olivia Giacobetti’s is recognized as attaining Professional Perfumer status in the Guild. The Natural Perfumers Guild is an international Association dedicated to perfumes and fragrance products made only with natural aromatics. The Guild is pleased to announce that Honoré des Prés, a leading French fine fragrance company, has joined the Guild. Honoré des Prés was established by Christian David in 2008 with a goal to create 100% natural and artistic perfumes with an urban flair.  All Honore des Prés scents are eco-certified and don’t contain any synthetic aromachemicals, colorants or phthalates. The fragrances are composed by renowned perfumer Olivia Giacobetti. Honore des Prés has been widely lauded for its commitment to the global environment and is a favorite among celebrities such as Jessica Alba and Ra

I was going to write a year-end roundup, but time constraints and the general holiday duties got in the way - maybe tomorrow or early next week. I am so happy to share with you that the Natural Perfumers Guild is pleased to announce that noted aromatherapist and author Victoria Edwards has joined us as an Associate.  After returning to the USA from seven years in France, Victoria will be relaunching her website VictoriaLeydet.com in the upcoming months.  An aromatherapist since the 1970s, Victoria wrote a chapter in her book The Aromatherapy Companion on natural perfumery ( available on amazon ) waaaay back in the last century :-)  Her essential oils and absolutes are stellar, and I have used several of them in my perfumes, so I welcome her reopening her store.  She also makes all-natural body creams and balms, and other aromatherapy products.  Welcome back, Victoria. PS: Next week, the Guild website will have a new look, mid-month, the Guild members will have a very joyful b

Flora, our Guild muse, is surrounded by stars as she holds the fragrance that represents the 13th astrological sign, Ophiucus.  Flora last held the modernistic scents of the 21st Century perfumes of the Guild's Brave New Scents Project, and now finds herself sent back to prehistoric, primordial times.  Flora is cool, she is unflappable to the Mystery of Musk, the Outlaw Perfumers didn't faze her, and we love that she moves through time and scent with us. It was into the stars, and the night sky, when the constellations are visible that we ventured, and here is my take on the inspiration of Ophiucus. 13th Sign Project – Ophiucus – Natural Perfumers Guild Nov. 28, 2011 White Smoke – The First Perfume of Anya’s Garden’s Prima Aroma Line When Michelyn Camen, the Editor-in-Chief of the Ca Fleure Bon blog approached the Natural Perfumers Guild with the idea of blogging about the almost-forgotten 13th astrological sign, Ophiuchus, (Pronounced as OFF-ee-YOO-kuss) I immediately s

(ETA:  Since this was published a few hours ago, a great discussion has started on the two private Yahoo groups maintained for Natural Perfumers Guild members.) This message was sent to the members of the Natural Perfumers Guild via our private discussion group, and I am posting it here for others to read: I *know* I opened up a can of worms when I blogged that I was going to teach a course in natural isolates.  I'm the first USA-based natural perfumer to use them, and I thought I could share what I knew with everyone.  Some of you may remember back to April 2010, when I announced that I, along with some colleagues, would be teaching a natural isolates course as part of my Anya's Garden Natural Perfumery Institute.  Someone I don't know started teaching a course shortly after that, and many perfumers struck out on their own with the excitement of incorporating these "new" elements into their perfumes. I had

We have a lovely list of renewing and new Natural Perfumers Guild members. Please welcome our new members: New Clemence Barbier – Dame Clemence - Associate Claire Lautier – Friend Heather Tobin – Friend Rose Tellier - Friend Viveca Göcke – Friend Pat White - Friend And warm thanks to our renewing members: Roger Howell – Alpha Aromatics - Supplier Claire Martin-Garrigue Iriodes - Associate Christine Ziegler – A Little Olfactory - Supplier Nancy Brooks – New England Natural Soaps - Associate Christi Meshell – House of Matriarch - Perfumer Leyla Bringas – LunaAroma- Perfumer Liz Cook – One Seed – Perfumer Alexandra Balahoutis – Strange Invisible Perfumes – Perfumer Dr. Benita Aufinger – Friend MJ Simon - Friend Elise Pearlstine - Belly Flowers Perfumes - Perfumer

  The Outlaw Perfumers are honoring the aromatics of the 21st Century Nothing says innovation like using materials that are cutting edge. We realized that many new aromatics had been brought to market since the year 2000 - things like lilac CO2, gardenia absolute, aglaia flower and many more.  Also appearing were previously-unknown to the artisan niche community of perfumers fragrant beauties like linden flower CO2, wild rose absolute and yuzu essential oil.   Many of the perfumers in the Guild, myself included, were making fragrant tinctures of rare and stunning aromatic materials, from freeze-dried strawberries to obscure jasmines. So, what's an Outlaw Perfumer to do? Gather those lovelies, and include materials like lotus absolutes, which weren't used by traditional perfumers, but were in use in India for many years, and create some Brave New Scents, unfettered by IFRA. My muse was ancient India, brought into the present, once again (remember Kewdra from the Mystery of

Project Boxgasm Announcement: If you are an artisan who makes perfume, bath & body products, aromatherapy products, candles - you can now make your own custom boxes! The Natural Perfumers Guild wishes to share this discovery with everyone, so please share the link to this blog with other groups, forums and chat places you may frequent.  The more the merrier - let's upgrade our products to the next level, with lovely, custom boxes!  I am the President of the Guild, and I like to roam social media sites and check out, and "like" the various projects and announcements of the Guild members.  Little did I dream when I visited a Facebook page of one of our members, a page that only had 21 followers, since it's new, that I'd discover something that can help all artisan small business owners. But there it was, an iconic image out of South Africa - custom perfume boxes! When I called some members of the Natural Perfumers Guild and told them about the discovery th