Anya's Garden Perfumes + The Natural Perfumery Institute

This delicate and lovely bottle arrived in the mail yesterday, and yes, there is some scent in it and some grains and residue. The grains and residue coat the inside about 1.5 inches up the sides, roughly the same height as the label. The overall bottle is 6.25 inches tall. I have never seen a Fritzsche bottle with this design. The label reads: FRITZSCHE BROTHERS, Inc . Essences and Essential Oils ~ Fine Drugs and Chemical Preparations ~ Tonquin in Grains. Moisture More Than 15% . The next part really caught my attention: The bottle is clear at the top with heavy dark brown residue on the bottom. There is a little brown string around the top. Imagine my surprise when I saw this on Ebay, and further surprise I won it with a rather low bid, and there were only two other bidders. I got it for $11 and change and with shipping, it was under $20. Musk is now illegal because the collection of the pods required the killing of the musk deer. These small lovely animals were slaughtered b...

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...

Second Edmond Routnitska article available for download at Anya's Garden - "Perfumery and Marketing" Written in 1970, "Perfumery and Marketing" is the second in a series of six articles by Edmond Roudnitska that are being made available for the first time on the Internet. Michel Roudnitska, Edmond's son and a renowned perfumer in his own right , was kind enough to share them with me when I inquired about the availability of English language writings by his father. The articles are available in PDF format, which requires Adobe Reader. Please feel free to spread the word about these treasures, because for so long those of us who only speak English, or have English as a second language, but not French as a first, have been unable to take in his wisdom. I have scanned the articles to the best of my ability while still attempting to minimize their size for those with slow downloads. I have found that with the two articles so far that even though they are a big...

Here's a quick, fun giveaway - sign up for the Anya's Garden Perfumes newsletter between now and Sunday October 25, 2009 9PM EST USA and you'll be in the random drawing to receive a 3.5ml pure perfume from my line. If you are already a newsletter subscriber, I'll have a random giveaway next week for you folks, and I think a full set of perfume samples with my new labeling will be perfect! Just go to http://anyasgarden.com/signup.htm to subscribe. Please know I don't send many newsletters out, so you will have no worry there, and I often have newsletter-only offers and giveaways, so it's a great deal for you ;-)

Edmond Roudnitska image courtesy Art et Parfum site Many English-only-speaking perfumers have commented on various internet forums that they are frustrated by the fact that they cannot read the written works of famed French perfumer Edmond Roudnitska. His books, L'Intimit du Parfum and L'Esthtique en Question and L'Esthtique du Parfum, when they are available, are only in French. An essay in English was published in the 1974 book Perfume by William I. Kaufman, and that is where I first became acquainted with his writing, and I have reread that essay many, many times over the years. A chapter from Perfumes: Art, Science and Technology edited by Lamparsky and Muller is available via Google books but I was very frustrated at only able to see a portion of a page at a time, so I gave up trying to read it. Reading off a screen really strains my eyes. So I wrote to Edmond's son, Michel, a renowned perfumer in his own right, asking if he knew of any English language articles b...

This is the image I have used for Temple Perfume since its release I haven't released new perfumes for over a year now. I believe each perfume should be a work of art, not just an exercise in fragrance creation. I create fragrances all the time, accords both vertical and horizontal, and I've not a notion to release them. Every perfume I release must have a definite purpose of expression and intent. When I recently sent out my two latest perfumes, MoonDance and StarFlower, to media reviewers, I also sent samples of m previous creations to reviewers who were not familiar with my line. Elena Knezhevich of Fragrantica fell in love with Temple and reviewed it today . Temple is the first, and so far, the only aromatherapy perfume I created. At the time, with hurricanes, wildfires, illnesses, wars, earthquakes and so many other shocks upon the human race seemingly coming at us at record speed, I wanted to draw upon my knowledge of specific scents that could calm and center a person, a...

All gardenias are not the same. Modern natural perfumery has a growing selection of raw materials from different species and varieties of gardenia to choose from, and we're all the better because of it. This image typifies the gardenia perfume fragrance we all want: lush, sensual, wanton, spicy, buttery, floral, intoxicating, over-the-top and proud of it. The creamy, green, almost-obnoxious scent of the full-blown gardenia that is common in gardens, the cultivated Gardenia jasminoides aka Gardenia augusta: Gardenia jasminoides aka Gardenia augusta In the early-to-mid part of the 20th century, there were a few who produced gardenia absolute form the G. jasminoides/augusta. Story has it that the advent of World War II and the discovery of synthetic aromachemicals that mimicked the scent of gardenia put an end to the natural gardenia absolute. In the early 21st century, with the rise of natural perfumery, the demand for a gardenia absolute arose again. I am enfleuraging gardenias, and...

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...

Anya's Garden Perfume Sampling Suggestion List I created a new card that I include when mailing out samples of my perfume. Realizing that a whiff of Fairchild could overwhelm the nose if the next whiff was a delicate perfume like Pan, I decided to create the card to guide my customers through a 'vertical flight' of scent intensity. Not saying Pan perfume is weak - it's not at all. It's cozy and musky and a cult favorite. It's longlasting and extremely wearable, too. It's just that on a scent intensity scale of 1 to 5, it's a 3 and Fairchild is a 4. Definitely a 4, bordering on a 5, which I reserve for Kaffir and StarFlower. The perfumistas on the Perfume of Life forum are chatting in a thread that was started today that touches upon this, comparing wine descriptives to perfume terms, so I joined in with the intensity factor, which I feel is very important. It's good to keep this in mind if you're visiting a perfume counter and have an array of p...

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...

StarFlower Perfume and EdP Fragrances Launched by Anya's Garden Perfumes: An Homage to Mexican aromatics The tuberose flower has always captivated me. When nighttime comes, and the fragrance billows out into the night air, few can remain stoic in its presence. The alluring beauty of the strong, spicy scent can draw people to it like moths to a flame. A native of Mexico, the tuberose has spread across the world, thriving in many climates, from the tropics to the coldest termperate zones, so many know its beauty. In Mexico, they also know its flavor, because they have used it in sweet treats for recorded history. I first became aware of its use in ice cream from an 18th Century book Encarnación's Kitchen: Mexican Recipes from Nineteenth-Century California, and further research showed its use in other sweet desserts. My perfume musings got me to thinking, well, let's see how it would pair with vanilla and chocolate, two other tasty and fragrant offerings from Mexico. All I can...

Allured Business Media offering 20% discount until Dec. 31, 2009 If you are a perfumer, flavorist, perfumista, spa owner, formulator of body care products, in the fragrance field or any related industry, you'll be happy to know that Natural Perfumers Guild member Allured Business Media, a leading source of publications, monographs, CDs and other educational and industrial materials for the industry is once again offering a great discount to readers of this blog. However, please feel free to spread the word about the discounts to other websites, as this great deal is also meant to reach the bigger internet audience. Now through December 31, 2009, you can get 20% off any book by using the code Anya20 at checkout. Your discount won't show up until you click through the checkout process. Just click here to see the wealth of reading materials offered in this special deal. Hope you have some great publications in your hands soon, thanks to them!

Trademark squatters over common words are so out of control. A few years ago, I was threatened by Bond No. 9 owner Laurice Rahme's attorneys because I named one of my perfumes Riverside, and she claimed control over the name Riverside in fragrance due to her Riverside Drive. I simply changed the name to RiverCali. Then another perfumer got heat from the same attorneys over the use of the word "Peace" in a perfume, because again, Rahme claimed the word was hers alone to use. If you google Anya's Garden, Rahme, trademark, you'll find many bloggers covered this issue. I didn't have the money or inclination to fight Rahme, but now the squatters fight is getting lots of press and money thrown at it. Two folks with lots of money are going to battle , and the squatter lost the first round. Who in the heck thinks its reasonable to squat on the word "nude"? I have termed the word "squatter" for the omnivorous trademarker who, like those who squat ...

New Lilac Flower CO2 too faint and too short-lived - but let's keep hoping! I was very excited to be offered a sample of an ambitious extraction that could have rocked the natural perfumery world - a CO2 form of lilac flowers. The only lilac flower scent in perfumery is synthetic, and many of us long for the ethereal, green sweet tangy floral note on our perfume organ. The CO2 is a pale yellow wax, and at first sniff out of the bottle, I was pleasantly surprised - true lilac scent! No indolic undernotes, either, showing that the flowers had been harvested and quickly extracted before the musky, rank indoles could develop. I invited a student over for the formal organoleptic evaluation. We used the sheets I designed for my online perfumery course, and we sat down with high hopes. She wasn't very familiar with lilacs, coming from a part of the country where they don't grow, so I knew this would be interesting! First we smeared a little bit of the wax on the broad end of the s...