Anya's Garden Perfumes + The Natural Perfumery Institute

White champaca - Michelia alba Last week I showed you the beautiful golden champaca, this week I'm sharing a photo of the beautiful white champaca growing in my garden.  What a gorgeous, highly-scented tincture this makes!  It's so strong, I have to dilute it for standardization. Do you have any perfumery questions this week?  I'll be here until 10 PM ET to aid you in your perfumery work.

Good morning, dear friends!  I started drinking high-octane coffee again this week, and I'm wired and have already been very productive this not-very-hot-or-humid morning in Miami.  My front garden is a floral wonderland today, and I'm sharing my photos with you.  I hope they inspire you to grow your own fragrant botanicals, whether you harvest them to scent extraction or not.   I'll be here today, working on my hush-hush new fragrant product, so I'll be answering your natural perfumery questions. Gold Champaca Greeting me at my front door - a vigorous Jasmine grandiflorum plant Not scented in the morning - night-blooming jasmine A closeup of the pretty little nightblooming jasmine flowers Tahitian gardenia - yes, the one Monoi is made from My ylang ylang tree is loaded with blooms A harvest basket before 9 a.m. Wonderful work if you can get it!

Ask the Perfumer is taking the day off to care for the parched plants in the garden and to TCB.  See you next week!

July 1st!  Hope you're having summer fun in the Northern Hemisphere, and cool times in the Southern.  Any perfumery questions today?

SHARE with your perfumer and B&B friends - Allured Books is again offering a great discount to make your summer cool! Read below: SUMMER DISCOUNT: 30% through September 15, 2012 Coupon Code:anya30 All Alluredbooks including new ones below. A few sample pages on the title page (links below) will help youdecide if the book is right for you. Of course - Arctander Perfume and Flavor Materials of Natural Origin- still in stock! http://www.alluredbooks.com/Fragrance-Creation/Arctander-s-Perfume-and-Flavor-Materials-of-Natural-Origin.html New Books: Coloring the Cosmetic World http://www.alluredbooks.com/Coloring-the-Cosmetic-World-Using-Pigments-in-Decorative-Cosmetic-Formulations.html Practical Modern Hair Science http://www.alluredbooks.com/Practical-Modern-Hair-Science.html Essential Oils Volume 9 http://www.alluredbooks.com/Fragrance-Creation/Essential-Oils-Vol-9-2008-2011.html Preservatives for Cosmetics (regulatory and preservatives may be of special interest.)...

Take a break from your fun summer (or winter, if you're in the Southern Hemisphere) activities and Ask the Perfumer your questions about any aspect of perfumery.

  Horst P. Horst: Lisa Hands With Vase and Flowers, 1941 I just love it.

I was looking for vintage aromatics on eBay, and came across the ad, below. I didn't save the image, so I googled and found the one above.   It seems that the firm of Magnus Mabee and Reynard was sued for adulterating their oils in 1914, and they lost.  The history of the herb and spice trade, and then the essential oils/absolutes/attars trade have historically been rife with adulteration.  I learned about this when as an undergraduate, completing studies in economic botany I found out that the word "sophistication" had its roots in this price-gouging, false-advertising practice.  From Dictionary.com:  so·phis·ti·cat·ed [ s uh - fis -ti-key-tid ]   adjective (after what you would expect, i.e., worldly), comes: 3. deceptive; misleading. and sophisticate - verb (used with object) 3. to make less natural, simple, or ingenuous; make worldly-wise. 4. to alter; pervert: to sophisticate a meaning beyond recognition.   Here's t...

Tahitian Gardenia Vietnamese gardenia The photos are of the Vietnamese and Tahitian gardenias growing in my front garden in Miami Shores.  I've been making enfleurage pomade from them, and it is heavenly!  I just added two new tiny varieties of the Tahitian gardenia to my collection - Heaven Scent.  They're double flowered! My co-author and I are in the midst of writing all the extraction secrets up for my book, Perfume From Your Garden.  We're at opposite ends of the country, so we'll have most growing zones covered. Today is Ask the Perfumer Sunday, and I'll be here until 10PM ET to answer your perfumery questions.

PRESS RELEASE:  June 14, 2012 (Miami Shores, Florida, USA) On June 14, 2002, natural perfumer Anya McCoy founded the Natural Perfumery group on Yahoo!.  She had several goals in mind: promote the ideals of 100% natural perfume; establish files, links, databases, archives and other materials that would establish a strong educational foundation for members; and hold standards of friendly discussion and respect for other's ideas paramount to maintain a helpful, sharing group. The group now has over 2300 members, and those goals have been met and surpassed. The Natural Perfumery group on Yahoo was founded on June 14, 2002 by Natural Perfumery icon Anya McCoy and is the largest perfumery group of its type worldwide. The group website health.groups.yahoo.com/group/NaturalPerfumery/ has been the center of the growth of the natural perfumery world during its dynamic grow...

I never can get enough of these tiny, highly-fragrant Aglaia odorata flowers!  They're blooming right now in hot, hot, humid Miami, and will bloom just about once a month. The Ask the Perfumer forum is open for questions until 10 PM ET today.  Any question about perfumery, from raw materials to making tinctures, supplies, etc., is welcome.

Tahitian gardenia in Anya's Garden My Tahitian gardenia plant is flowering like crazy!  It's in its second year and really taking off.  I just got two tiny Tahitian gardenia *double* flowering plants that will be in the ground soon. I'll be here until 10 PM ET tonight for any perfuming questions you have.  Stay cool - it's going to be way over 90F here today (Tahitian gardenia weather).

Fan carved from sandalwood Santalum album  -  even the botanical name is beautiful and strong. If rose and jasmine are feminine, sandalwood is strongly, sexily, masculine.  All male. And I fell hard for “him” from the first sniff.  Here’s my decades-long love/lust story, and I’m sorry to say it might not have a happy ending. Sandalwood Mala bead necklace I didn’t get my first bottle of sandalwood oil until I was 18 or so.  I already had some patchouli, as it was the scent of choice for hippies, and if I had some oils from the racks in hippie stores, they’re long forgotten, and I now know they were probably synthetic.  One day I was helping someone unpack some imported goods in the back of the store, and some of the merchandise was from India.  There were lovely colorful glass beads strung into necklaces that were woven from brass wire. Then I found a packet of scented wooden beads made into jewelry.  I’ll always associate the glass gr...

Ruffled, delicate Summerscent blooms Do you love the fragrance of blooming michelia or ylang ylang flowers?  Then you'll love this pretty flowering plant, sometimes called Summerscent or dwarf tree jasmie.  Radermachera kunming is a rare plant, not often found in garden centers.  It starts blooming when only 1 - 2' tall, and mine little plant in a pot is full of blooms and buds.  The sweet scent, and at least now, with it's first big summer flush of flowers, doesn't smell like jasmine.  It's much more like the piercing sweet floral fruity scent of michelia or ylang ylang flowers. It has large cluster of buds ready to open when the current flowers fade.  I'm going to start picking the flowers for enfleurage today. Summerscent is loaded with juicy buds ready to follow in a fragrant succession of blooms Seeing that it's native to Thailand, it is a tropical plant, and you either need to live in a tropical or subtropical area to grow it outside, or have...