Anya's Garden Perfumes + The Natural Perfumery Institute

Ask the Perfumer is open this stormy Halloween day - don't ask anything spooky of me! I will be blogging later today or tomorrow about the new textbooks arriving for my online basic natural perfumery course - with pictures! After looking at it on a screen, and only printing out sections at a time, I am impressed by the book in its glory. 349 pages, many with color illustrations and photos, the most helpful charts I could design, great evaluation and recording forms, including Excel-based ones that can hold all your info - wow. Sorry for the excitement, but I really am pleased with the book, and four get mailed out tomorrow to new offline option students. Happy, happy.

I'll be here on and off all day to answer your perfumery questions. Hope y'all are enjoying the weather and having fun!

Ask the Perfumer is open for questions. I almost forgot to post today, as I was out early and running most of the day. Sorry about my tardiness, but I'm here now, so ask away.

I'm blending new perfumes today - what are you doing? Ask the Perfumer is open for this cool Sunday in Miami.

I'll be here on and off all day to answer your perfumery questions. Hope y'all are enjoying the weather and having fun!

I have been reseraching on the Internet for years, and I stumbled across an article, in French, on the early Grasse perfumery industry.  I laboriously translated it into English, and copied and pasted the twenty or so illustrations into the English version. What a lot of work, but worth it for my students! This image is just so lovely. It's of the pomade room at Robertet in the 1800's. Here's another image: This image is of the Roure Bertrand plant, and those are orange blossoms on the ground, and people with shovels, scooping them up into the distillation units you see around the wall. Neroli! If you click on the image, you will see it in a larger version.

I have a !signed! first edition (1945) of Edward Sagarin's The Science and Art of Perfumery, and I love the fact that I got a lagniappe when I purchased it. Tucked inside was the business card of a Givaudan employee.  I had high hopes that when I scanned the card, the perfume alchemist image would be clear, but age, and the texture of the card worked against my wishes. However, it is still fun to look at, so I'm sharing it with you.

I hope every perfumer who has ever struggled with a perfume that went "muddy" or was overwhelmed by one or two of the aromatics learns some tricks with this podcast.  The trick is learning to evaluate an aromatic and seeing if it might be an "accessory" note.  Accessory notes can be very wonderful in a perfume due to their uniqueness and ability to add a distinctive scent, but because they are also very intense in nature, they can ruin a blend. I'm posting these podcasts on my perfumery education website , and I'm posting them here until I learn how to create RSS feeds there.  Heck, I hope the RSS feed I'm trying to create here works.  If it doesn't just visit the podcast page on the website. UPDATE:  I have the RSS feed working on the AGNPI website, so you can grab it there.

I posted this on the Anya's Garden Natural Perfumery Institute's blog after I realized the recent list of articles on the Institute's website had never been listed before:   Director and Head Instructor Anya McCoy, natural perfumer of Anya's Garden, just published a list of articles she has authored on the subjects of natural perfumery, perfumery and book reviews since 2004. They are available for download from http://perfumeclasses.com/faculty.htm McCoy, A. - Natural Perfumery:  A Fragrant Evolution (pub. Aromatic Sage.com) McCoy, A. - Steve Earl - Position Paper: Defining Natural Perfumery (pub. self) McCoy, A. - Robert Tisserand, Tony Burfield - IFRA/EU Boycott Primer (pub. self) McCoy, A. - The Beauty of Botanicals Made Liquid: The Passion of Natural Perfumers (pub. Basenotes.net) McCoy, A. - The Stages of Public Acceptance of Natural Perfumery (pub. Basenotes.net) McCoy, A. - Book Review: What the Nose Knows (pub. Basenotes.net) McCoy, A. - Book Review:...

I got a late start today after an early visit to my mother, but I'm back in the studio now, so if you have any perfumery questions, ask away.

I rarely check the stats on my website, but I did the other day, and found someone had clicked through to my educational website Anya's Garden Natural Perfumery Institute from Chinese Vogue . What the heck?! LOL.  There's a picture of 190 proof Everclear alcohol, and my name stands out in the chinese words, for sure, so I just had to run the copy through Google translator software. I like that 100% of the respondants wanted to make their own perfume! Here's the translation: Even if you are not an alcoholic, there is a wine you should know, not whiskey is not vodka, but Everclear, has recently been widely used home-made perfume. Everclear (pictured) are specifically fermented wine produced in cereal brands, only alcohol 75.5% (151proof) and 95% (190proof) two kinds of wine. Wow, even more than Erguotou "Lie" is much more alcoholic drink should be and it is no different. DIY for the natural fragrance of Modern Alchemy The modern trend in terms of the pu...

I'll be available to answer your perfumery questions until 10 PM EST.  I'm happy to help!

Ask the Perfumer is open for today, so ask all your natural-perfume-related questions.  I can also answer questions that apply to mainstream perfumery, if you keep it in the technical area, like weighing, specific gravity, etc. PS:  In case you missed it, I posted two podcasts on http://perfumeclasses.com/podcasts.htm - more to come. PPS:  I also started a Facebook page for my online perfumery course http://www.facebook.com/pages/Study-Perfumery/280777102473 - join it to receive timely updates.

Are you laboring over perfumery issues this long, hot Labor Day weekend?  Let's see if I can help you solve them. Ask the Perfumer is open for questions.