Anya's Garden Perfumes + The Natural Perfumery Institute

This is the first perfume bottle I ever purchased as a collectible.  I was living in Syracuse, New York and was a student.  I couldn't resist this Devilbiss black and chrome Art Deco beauty, and I have cherished it from the day I obtained it.  It's traveled from Syracuse to Tampa, to Philadelphia, to Naples (FL) and then Fort Lauderdale and eventually to Miami.  It now resides on the upper right shelf of my new perfume display cabinet.  It only cost $12, but it is priceless and irreplaceable to me.  From research, I believe it was made in 1927. A triptych view of my Devilbiss:

Dear Friends: I'm back hosting "Ask the Perfumer" every Sunday, after a few weeks off due to the death of my mother.  Life changes can be traumatic, but also a look towards a future that, if you're a  positive person like myself, holds many wonderful possibilities.  I didn't blend at all the past five or six months, because of my energies being channeled towards my mother, but I now feel renewed and will soon be back to making mods, challenging myself with the direction the perfume takes, and otherwise being engaged in all things related to natural perfumery, education, and the Guild. I'd love to again start receiving your perfume-making queries, so I'll be here until 10 PM EST (USA).

An industrial designer has come up with an interesting concept: jewelry as a perfume bottle.  I like that the little sprayer is in the necklace.  I don't care for the modern, stark design, but that's subjective.  http://www.industrialdesignserved.com/gallery/Perfume-flacon-as-a-jewellery/2402374  I can see one big flaw in this design.  The original concept is good, but as you use the perfume, the amount in the "jewel" piece goes down, as it would in a bottle.  Might not be so attractive then.  That's one reason I never added necklaces with glass pendants to hold perfume.  To me, it would just look strange to have a half-full pendant.  Do you agree?

Several natural perfumers and the owner of a natural perfume company joined me in writing "The State of Natural Perfumery 2012" for Basenotes. It's fascinating and enlightening to see everyone's individual take on our fragrant art. I hope you enjoy this unique, collaborative effort. http://www.basenotes.net/ content/ 1154-The-State-of-Natural-Perfu mery-2012

On December 19, 2011, I wrote about the arrival of my little frankincense tree.  Click here to read and see the photo.  Even for a dormant tree, Little Frankie looked pretty poorly.  The heat pack that he was shipped with torched his growing tip, and fried his few remaining leaves.  I potted him up in a cactus soil mix, put him on my kitchen windowsill and watered him with about a teaspoon of filtered water once or twice a week.  I'm sure my housekeeper thought I was overly optimistic, as he looked like a bare, dead twig. On March 18, Jeanne Rose wrote to me via my Anya's Garden Perfumes group on Facebook, asking how my tree was doing, as she believed hers, purchased at the same time, was dead.  Later that day I observed Little Frankie starting with the tiniest of leaves flushing out, and told Jeanne to have patience, perhaps her tree would come out of dormancy, too. I had been cautiously optimistic, because the dead tip, also the site of the apical me...

There won't be an Ask the Perfumer forum today due to a family medical emergency.

I believe I was the first perfumer in American to grow and harvest the Aglaia tree, aka the Chinese Perfume Tree, and I've been extracting the scent from the tiny flowers for about four years now. I've shown the flowers in other photos previously on this blog, but I don't believe I ever showed them with another object that would put them in scale.  Notice how tiny the panicle of flowers are, and how tiny each flower is.  The latest harvest is the first one where I've ever been able to clip a group of panicles, rather than just grab the individual panicles at the base and strip off the flowers.  This is because the tree has started to produce clumps of panicles, and I just snip off the clump, along with some leaves, as you can see.   The 3/4-full quart jar of aglaia flower tincture has been added to about three dozen times, the typical number for a traditional French enfleurage, even though, of course, this is not enfleurage.  It's just ...

I'm totally right-brained when it comes to collecting perfume bottles. If something catches my eye, I have to have it.  No logic involved.  I have some bottles with dings that lower their market value, but that doesn't matter to me, the beauty of the bottle is what pulls me in. This antique perfume bottle is worn, so some of the 18-karat gold wash is missing, but to me that only shows that the bottle was used, and loved, by someone many, many years ago.  It stands about 3/5" tall with the stopper, so it holds (held) a good amount of perfume.  There is no scent left in the bottle.  Here are several views of the bottle.  The third one shows the pontil mark. Click on the images to see closeup details of the scroll work.  I believe the gold band leaves represent acanthus leaves, which may indicate the Art Nouveau era.  If anyone has an ideas about the gold band images, or the finer detail work above and below the gold band, please leave a comment....

Louching illustrated from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Absinthe Pernod is a green liquor that turns milky white when water is added.  A lovely step-by-step illustration of louching. In Module 6 of my basic perfumery course's textbook, I introduce the student to the sometimes scary time when your dilution or blend louches. The textbook is almost encyclopedic in breadth and depth, because my beginner students are encouraged to hold themselves in the highest regard, and to that end, be able to converse with professional perfumers, even though they have not achieved that status yet.  Knowing the language and definitons of perfumery is paramount to a great education . Louching – a Blending Phenomenon Something that you need to know about before you begin any serious work on your blends is louching.   This is a phenomenon that you are likely to experience when you are finessing your perfume and you add water to it in order to increase diffusivity.   The wor...

I got a late start today, but I'll be here all day, until 10PM EST to answer your questions about perfumery.  Got one that you think will stump me?

When I opened my front door this morning, greeted by a rush of fragrance from my Chinese perfume tree, Aglaia odorata, I was pleasantly surprised when I looked to my left, and about 40 feet away, saw a large white crane sniffing the Confederate jasmine Trachleospermum jasminoides.  I rushed inside to get my camera, and when I quietly walked down the path to get a closer shot, the crane slowly moved away.  So, all I have is a photo of the solitary crane, and a shot of the jasmine, but put his beak into the flowers (in your mind) and you'll see what I saw :-)

The Chinese Perfume Tree is full of fragrant flowers, each the size of a matchhead, with a scent intensity that is HUGE.  This little tree can scent the entire garden. The peach-scented frangipanis are in full bloom, bursting out of dormancy. The big round shrub in the background is Jasmine azoridum, covered with flowers. A closeup of the end cluster of frangipanis on the tree pictured above.  We had a lot of rain this morning, and the flowers are loving it.  See the little spider web on the right?  I'll bet the spider is having fun in the rain.

I've been searching for over a year.  I hate to shop.  I scoured stores in Dade and Broward counties looking for the perfect display cabinet for my perfume bottle collection, my vintage vault bottle collection and perfume accessories.  Nada.  Dark wood is all the style here in South Florida, which confounds me.  It was just impossible to find anything in a light wood. My floors are red oak - stunning.  I love golden oak, and I found this cabinet on sale, online, and it's perfect.  I love the sliding doors, the halogen lights and it locks, too.  It'll take six weeks to get here, but I'm a very patient person, and I'm happy about the cabinet.  When you open my front door, it'll be on the opposite wall, the first thing you'll see upon entering my house.  What do you think of this beautiful cabinet?

It's a late start today, not just because of the time change in the USA, but I'm just feeling lazy - which is much better than feeling stressed!  Ask away until 10 PM EST, USA, I'll be here on and off throughout the day to answer your perfumery questions.