Anya's Garden Perfumes + The Natural Perfumery Institute

Until Nov. 10th - take 10% off http://perfumeclasses.com/enroll/signup.php Use coupon code E17502DE9B when enrolling. Anya McCoy's Natural Perfumer Institute students enjoy lifetime enrollment in a student discussion forum, lifetime access to updates to the course, experienced adjunct faculty to assist in answering questions. The course includes a 350-page comprehensive textbook that includes numerous charts, forms, color illustrations, an extensive glossary and links to suppliers of alcohol, supplies and raw materials worldwide.

Hi Everyone: Taking a vacation for a few weeks, keep those perfume-related questions on hold, and I'll answer them when I get back.

Shall we continue the discussion on isolates?  A few posts came in last week after the forum was closed, and I received some private emails, also.  Of course, feel free to ask anything you wish, I'm just inviting the other folks to post here.

Twenty Guild members are joining me in pulling out the stopper, uncorking the stories of our natural perfumery paths. Like effervescent top notes, our stories are released, ticking our memories and sharing them as they waft out over the Internet.  I hope you love reading all of the fragrant bios as much as I do.  Links to their blogs are at the bottom of this post.  Enjoy! I grew up thinking all fragrances were natural: flowers, gasoline, floor cleaner, deodorant, lightening bugs, hairspray, dirt, and particularly, perfumes. As a child I sniffed everything, and I dabbed myself with perfumes with wild abandon. I was lucky that I grew up two blocks away from the biggest public park in the world, Fairmont Park in Philadelphia.  It gave a bucolic respite from the row houses and tiny yards of the tightly-packed streets where I lived.  The street where I grew up in Philadelphia, two blocks from Fairmont Park. Memories of roses, boxwood, iris flowers flood me as I look at this photo. I

We're going to have a fun inter-Guild blogging event tomorrow, June 1st, to celebrate the 5th Anniversary of the Guild. 21 Guild members are participating, and we're going to share our stories of our path to natural aromatics and natural perfumery. It should be a run read, clicking from member blog to member blog and taking in the bios of the members. I'm really looking forward to it! The Guild has many benefits associated with membership, from networking with others in the community to discounts on raw materials, educational programs, group buys and much more. Next week we're having an Online Marketing chat with the perfumers, and it will be archived and made available to all Guild members. I'll cover public relations, press releases, blogs and branding, and Larry Marsala will speak on google rankings, meta tags, search engine optimization and techie stuff. A 25% discount on the yearly membership fee will be given to new members who join between May 31 and J

I wish some folks would ask me about natural isolates.  What I have to say, with my limited, but growing knowledge, might surprise you.  I'll be here, on and off, throughout the day.

21 Guild members are set to blog on June 1st, the fifth anniversary of the Natural Perfumers Guild. It's going to be a fun, intimate event to let us get to know each other better, and you're all invited in for a peek. The theme is fun and the logo is bubbly, like a fizzy, diffusive top note!

Sometimes students say the darnedest things, and sometimes those gems turn your head around when you think about the process of making thick, pasty aromatics pourable. Michael Singels, a student from California, and a longtime member of the Yahoo Natural Perfumery group I host, posted about a new, simple process in the student chat group for my perfumery course that literally made my mouth drop open.  I have read every post on the NP group for almost nine years, and I've been on many other forums, and I've never seen this. Ready for this?  What to do instead of using a bain marie process to warm up thick aromatics so they can become liquid and mobile for use, or transfer from one bottle to another? First, for those who don't know what a bain marie is, it's a water bath. It can be as simple as heating some water in a cup and placing the bottle with the thick stuff in it, or as complex as a true "double boiler" type of set up for a large bottle or containe

Late start today due to gardening duties.  I'll be here until 10 PM my time to answer any questions you may have about perfumery.

Half way through May, and oh my, so much to do!  Still, I love to make time to answer your questions about perfumery.  I'll be here until 10 PM tonight, so ask away.

Distance Learning also available beginning February 2010 in addition to the two online study options at Anya's Garden Natural Perfumery Institute. Registration applications and tuition payments for the Basic Natural Perfumery Course that will launch the end of February, 2010 are now being accepted.. The website is being rebuilt with more features than before, and it will be faster and more interactive for the online student. The front pages of the course site have been posted with the new Syllabus, a Registration page, an informative Home Page, and Testimonials from former students. Started in 2007, Anya's Garden course is the first of its kind for natural perfumers. The online interactive aspect allows all the students to take part in the classes from their home base anywhere in the world. This feature allows the students to save money that might have been spent in traveling, while still enjoying the camaraderie of the other students and one-on-one contact with the instructor

The next basic perfumery course offered by Anya's Garden Natural Perfumery Institute will commence in late February, 2010. The exact date will be announced at a later date. The revised syllabus and details on the course schedule will be available November 20, 2010. The homepage for Perfume Classes.com has been updated and the latest information for the newly-revised curriculum can be found there. There are now three options for study: Web-based: 1. An interactive, fast-paced course that is six-months long and 2. A self-paced option for those who wish to study on their own. Distance learning non-web-based: 3. Textbook and kit supplied, no website access Since the opening of the school in 2007, about one hundred students have enrolled, and dozens have received their certificate of completion. Since some students fell behind in their studies due to family, work or other issues, it was decided to open the self-paced option. Students can enroll at any time for that option, but the inte

The third of six article in English by famed perfumer Edmond Roudnitska has been uploaded to Anya's Garden Perfumes website. Titled "The Novice and His Perfume Palette", it was published by Dragoco in 1982. In it you will find a methodology that I believe is still used in perfume classes at Givaudan, pioneered by Jean Carles and Roudnitska. If any perfume historian can corroborate this, I would be happy to publish the information. Both self-taught perfumers, Carles and Roudnitska pioneered a strict methodology to teach novice perfumers how to learn the scent/memory association. In the Dragodo article, Roudnitska strives to share his take on how the context of fragrance families helps the beginner learn both context and association. I have used a method like this since the beginning of my classes in natural perfumery. I devised forms to record the information gleaned from the study, and progressed on to the methodology I formulated to take the beginner step-by-step into th