Anya's Garden Perfumes + The Natural Perfumery Institute

Autumn is my favorite time of year.  It's almost as if it's a new year, with new beginnings and a fresh start on projects.  Do you feel the same?  I just launched one perfume, and I have one in the works for a late-November project, and yesterday I began to muse about another.  Have you found your perfume-making spirit stirring?  If you have any questions, I'll be here to answer them for you until 10 PM EST.

It's going to be a "cool" day in Miami now that the cold front has moved through - high only up to 85F!  That means I'll be in the garden a lot, starting seeds for the veggie garden.  Most of my aromatics are in bloom, so it's going to be a fragrant day, too.  Feel free to ask any of your perfume-creation related questions until 10 PM. If you'd like a chance to win a 15ml spray bottle of my latest release, Royal Lotus, please visit Cafleurebon before Oct. 4th and leave a comment to be in the draw.  There are nine other Guild perfumers in the Brave New Scent project that are reviewed on Cafleurebon and other websites, and you'll have a lot of chances to win one of these beautiful perfumes. Good luck!

The Natural Perfumers Guild Fleur Awards 2011  We are keeping the final design for the Fleurs under wraps until next year, and the following recipients will receive their physical awards at that time, and receive printed certificates at this time. Several Guild members and myself kept this surprise announcement of the Fleur Awards under our hats for several months, and it was hard to do!  We will have a much-expanded awards ceremony next year, but the logical tie-in with our Brave New Scents project demanded that we select two of the most innovative, ground-breaking members and present them with the first Fleurs.  The two members have devoted much of their careers to distilling aromatics, a big step forward for perfumers in modern times, when most perfumers rely on suppliers for their raw materials.  The October 1, 2011 Guild Brave New Scents project highlights natural aromatics of the 21st Century, and both recipients of the award are pioneers that have steppe...

  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 ...

Yesterday I was on the phone with a Guild member in Ohio, talking gardening.  I gave him a tip about compost tea - to spray on the plants, not drink!  You never know where a question may take you, and the answer might surprise you.  The compost tea was the result of him asking if I use Miracle Gro to spray on my tomato plants.  You may want to ask about tinctures and we'll segue into ultrasonics. 

"Of course they visited the parfumeries and indulged in all manner of mingled fragrances, cunning fards, and rare oils. Some of the scents were made from real flowers, others from mysterious unnatural blossoms, whose odours were full of th e intoxications of desire. There was Jasmine, full of intangible charm, refined and delicate as a Schubert melody; Geranium, curiously reminiscent of withered loves; unblended Ambergris, that had the power to excite the most anaemic virgins; Civet; Saffron; Benzoin; Stephanotis; Kiss-me-quick; Frangipanni; Cul-me-to-you; Bouquet des Amours; Peau d'Espagne; Fleur d'Amour; Jicky; Bouquet Largillerie; Jardin de mon Curé; and Bosom-Caresser." from Count Fanny's Nuptials by Simon Arrow, 1907

It's been a fragrant week in my garden, with Miami's hot and humid summer providing a richness of blooms that are almost - almost - overwhelming.  The dozen or more blooming trees and shrubs have provided a lot of materials for tinctures and enfleurages.  It's very satisfying being an alchemist perfumer, transforming the botanical fragrance into a liquid, usable fragrance.  Then there's the next step in alchemy, the synergy of artfully blending those liquids into a beautiful perfume.  If you have any questions about any of these steps, leave a comment.

   Click to view larger image I love perfume, and I love design and I love fierce, and they all come together in this fan.  It was created by artist Sylvain le Guen for the Anniversary crystal edition of perfumer Francis Kurkdjian's perfume.  The fan was, of course, scented with the perfume.  It may be viewed at the The Fan Museum in London. 12 Crooms Hill, Greenwich, London SE10 8ER. Of course Lond has a fan museum!  Wouldn't you love one of these?  Do you think it's inspiring you to make a similar one, of your own design?

Ask the Perfumer will return next week.  Today is a day spent remembering 9/11.

I hope everyone is enjoying the long Labor Day holiday weekend in the USA.  I'm relaxing and working in my garden, which isn't really work at all, especially when I'm harvesting a variety of fragrant flowers.  Enfleurage and tincturing are my methods to capture the scent, and nothing could be easier. I'll be checking in to see your questions throughout the day, so drop me a line and let me know what's going on in your fragrant garden, or whatever is on your mind.

The Internet is very quiet this morning. Hurricane Irene is impacting tens of millions of people in the mid-Atlantic to NE USA.  I'm watching the minute-by-minute coverage on TV and feeling the stress of those in the path of the hurricane.  Here in Florida, we have PTSD two ways: pre-traumatic stress disorder (the wait for the storm to hit) and post-traumatic stress disorder, which is the emotional hangover. My thoughts and prayers go out to the folks up north.  If we can find some fragrant levity today to alleviate the mood, let's go for it.

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...

Slept late, but I'm here now to answer your perfumery questions.  Today my cohort in the most exciting project I've ever worked on is coming by later to, well, work on the project.  We may be able to blog about it, with photos and links, in a few days.  I predict that within one month or so we will see aromatherapists, perfumers, soapers, bath and body manufacturers and allied arts using this "thing", this great discovery.  I'm soooo excited, and you will be, too!  Can't let a word of this slip out yet, but just subscribe, or check me on Facebook, or in the natural perfumery yahoo group, and you, too, will be in on the ground floor.  Oh, did I mention, I have no financial interest in this, and I won't make a dime from anybody on this?  But if you have a business mentioned above, you will be able to upgrade your business to the next level, with something you dreamed about but could never find. Stay tuned.

I discovered this by accident, just because of my natural curiosity, on August 6th.  Historic day.  My jaw dropped, I was totally stunned by the simplicity and availability of a "thing" that will take all of our small businesses to the next level.  Everyone I've shared this secret with either yells or moans with excitement. When I teased one of the recipients of this good news that everyone sounds like they're either a screamer or moaner orgasmic type (she was a moaner), she said well, yes, it's "-------gasmic".  And it certainly is. So a few of the Natural Perfumers Guild members are in R&D right now, myself included.  We're holding off a little blogging event until we've got some good stuff to present to everyone.  I already have semi-good stuff, but there's tweaking that needs to be done.  I'll provide links, tips and more to get you on your way.  I have no financial interest in this, and I know it'll be affordable to most fo...