Anya's Garden Perfumes + The Natural Perfumery Institute

If you're reading this on the third day of the three-day blog event, you can read my initial post about SAD and natural aromatics on day one here and day two here .  There is still time to leave a comment on  day one and day two to increase your chances of getting some joy this January with a naturally-fragranced win ;-) Here's the second story of a move I made to an overcast, cloudy town, and besides some joy, there's some gratitude mixed in with this, a story of small town manners. Corvallis Oregon was the northern locale my then-husband was relocating to for a post-doctoral position.  I knew very little about Oregon, less about Corvallis.  In November, 1978, we packed up Roxy the Rastapoodle and Bootsy the cat and drove nonstop to Corvallis.  The professor who had hired my husband had rented a townhouse for us and we moved in the night we arrived. Corvallis Oregon - courtesy of gardengrumblesandcrossstitchfumbles The next morning we awoke and I was...

 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 fr...

I'm very excited because tomorrow, Jan. 15, 2012, fourteen of the Guild associates, suppliers and perfumers will launch the Joy in January blog event!  Check back here and leave a comment when I post my first blog on Joy in January, and visit all of the other blogs, since we'll all be hosting giveaways of our naturally-scented products for three days.  Good luck! I'll be here through 10 o'clock tonight, EST USA, to answer your questions about perfumery.  It's heartwarming each Sunday to see the stats of the loyal 300 or so visitors.  Y'all might not be posting, but I'm sure you're enjoying the questions and answers.  I've always been about the educational forum in natural perfumery, and this is just another facet of it. Can I share a bit of fun as I move forward to Jan 28, a day that an "advisor" (read dictator) violated a written agreement?  Why a "bit of fun"? Because it feels so good to be out from under the thumb of an ogr...

Happy New Year everyone, and welcome to the first Ask the Perfumer forum of 2012.  I've been busy over the holiday.  Two huge containers full of lemon petitgrain leaves were harvested and dried, and will be distilled soon. Several new fragrant plants were introduced to the garden and are being coddled through the transplant phase. I got lots of writing done, and am mulling over an anniversary post for Jan. 28 regarding the Guild.  A number of new students enrolled in the past few weeks, so day-to-day details were addressed to get them settled into the basic perfumery course.  We're working behind the scenes for the next Guild Internet project, due to launch next week, and I'm creating a new perfume for the Prima Aroma line. I hope your holidays were a lot of fun and productive, too! I'll be here until 10 PM EST, so feel free to submit questions until then.

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 ...

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 wi...

Green bananas just two days ago - ripened into the lovely fruits, below I'd love to share a wonderful resource with you.  This is for all who live in warm climates and who love to grow their own.  I just harvested some rare small bananas from my garden today (unknown variety) and received an email query from a Guild member, asking for an ID on a sour orange someone had given her.  She intends to macerate the skin in some fixed oil.  I sent her the link with a joke - more info than you ever need to know! Yummy hand of organic small bananas harvested  today, Dec. 27, 2011 in Miami  - some missing because the cook had dibs. In 1977/78, as I was in my senior year at the University of California, Riverside, one of the world's great think tanks, I asked my major professor, Dr. Gene Anderson, if I could obtain a change of major from anthropology (ethnobotany), which I was working on under him, to economic botany, since I felt closely aligned with...

There won't be any Ask the Perfumer this week or next, Dec. 25, 2011 or Jan. 1, 2012.  Do subscribe to this blog, or check my links from various sites, because I will be blogging about natural isolates, frankincense and some other topics of interest to the perfumery community. Best Wishes for you and yours in celebrating the holidays this time of year, and the most wonderful wishes for a prosperous and healthy 2012.

!!!Debunking alert!!! - Joking with all the exclamation points, including those in the title of this blog, but c'mon, what an overwrought, slightly incorrect article we're talking about.  In case you haven't heard, the perfumery media is buzzing with alarm over the doom and gloom article cited below. Who doesn't love Scientific American?  Well, they posted an "EXTINCTION ALERT" (my caps, as a salute to the tabloid-type hype they incurred a few days before Christmas) on frankincense that has the perfume world alarmed.  Repeating some rather scary stats from the Journal of Applied Ecology, everyone is now on edge that frankincense, the Biblical, historical iconic resin tree that has survived for thousands of years in some of the worst growing conditions on the plant, may only last another 50 years. I say baloney. The headline "Bad News for Christmas: Frankincense Future Uncertain" only adds to the sensationalist nature of this article, in a suppo...

Guild Supplier Trygve Harris of Enfleurage with Frankincense Tree in Oman - read more about Frankincense on her blog EXCITING update!  Trygve has sent me about 20 photos of different-looking Boswellia sacra frankincense growing in different regions in Oman.  I'll be adding them as I post more about my little tree.  Here's the very informative email I got from Bob at Arid Lands: Most of our customers are used to dealing with bare root plants and general care of succulent or "special" plants, such as Boswellia, so thank you for reminding us to include care instructions. They are on our website, www.aridlands.com , and I will repeat some of them here. Boswellia sacra/carteri is considered to be the same species by taxonomists. This hemisucculent plant stores water in its trunk, thus producing the aromatic sap, but that also allows it to be shipped out of a pot. That species is a summer growing one and will go dormant in the winter (now); as well, it tends...

      Boswellia sacra - first day.  Click on image to enlarge A recent New York Times article on frankincense tree growers provided links, and I ordered one from Arid Lands in Arizona.  It was sent priority mail with a heat pack, since it is winter.  I paid $40 for a "one gallon" sapling plus $8 shipping and $2 for the heat pack. One gallon is a trade term, and it generally means a pot that meansures about 7" tall by 7" wide.  I was a bit surprised when the plant arrived bareroot.  It makes sense that it was bareroot, but that information was lacking on the website.  (I have received one-gallon potted plants) Also lacking were any repotting instructions.  I've ordered from many mail order nurseries in the past, and repotting information, also general care information, was always included, and perhaps duplicated on the website.  I've written the Arid Lands people, since there is no phone number contact for them.  I'll report...

What are your favorite holiday smells?  Christmas tree? Brisket? Mulled apples and spices?  Well, except for the brisket, the others are easily made from essential oils.  You can make a room spray to perfume your nest this time of year.  Any perfumery questions today? I'll be here until 10 PM.

Ask the Perfumer is open for questions this balmy Sunday in December. Feel free to ask perfumery questions until 10 PM tonight EST USA.