Anya's Garden Perfumes + The Natural Perfumery Institute

Ask the Perfumer anything about perfume creation - Sunday July 11, 2010. I'll answer your questions and give you tips on how to pursue your dream of perfumery

I posted this letter today to several Yahoo groups I host: the huge natural perfumery group I started in 2002, the Natural Perfumers Guild group, and a subgroup of that, the professional perfumers group I started where we can discuss special projects, such as the current one, the Mystery of Musk. ------------------------------------- Hello Everyone: Here's what I wrote on Cafleurebon today to accompany the review of Nick Jennings' perfume: "It makes my heart happy to see the first line "It seems inconceivable that there can exist so many gifted natural perfumers, of whom one has never heard." Nick really is a wonderful perfumer. In 2005 I created naturalperfumery.com to try to get the perfumers on my yahoo group "out into the world" and it did help to a certain extent. However, it was the birth of such great perfume blog sites such as this that are the real messengers to the world. Thanks so much to the Cafleurebon crew! " I can add here th

It's a lazy holiday weekend in the US - yay, Independence! - but I'll be around to check in if anyone has any questions about natural perfumery. Hope I can help. Take care and have fun!

The Natural Perfumers Guild Mystery of Musk Project is Launched! July 1, 2010 Kewdra Perfume 10ml giveaway on The Non-Blonde Blog I've created a "blog crawl" in the right column for all the participants in the Mystery of Musk project. Some are the official bloggers (see list below) and some are the blogs of the perfumers participating, and some are of the Natural Perfumery group members who are also reviewing the perfumes. The reviews will be posted July  1 -  7, 2010 for the most part: some bloggers and perfumers had time constraints, and so their reviews will show up later in the month. You can get Google Alerts by using the keywords "Mystery of Musk". On twitter, the hashtag is #momusk. This post is just to get the administrative stuff out of the way. I'll blog in a day or two about the creation of Kewdra, a perfume that went through many changes on her road to release! The entire time I was designing the perfumer was one of great personal and busin

Please visit here to read Mimi Gardenia's review

OK, ready for your questions starting at 10 a.m. Sunday.  I hope everyone is enjoying Father's Day, either with your Dad or reminiscing about fond memories of him.

OK, ready for your questions starting at 10 a.m. Sunday. One or two folks asked questions on off-days this past week, and if you'd be so kind to repost them in this thread, I'll be happy to answer them.

Photo of Andrine Olson from the New York Times article on Making Flowers into Perfume. Andrine is the editor for my Natural Perfumery textbook, soon to be published. T he New York Times carried an article on professionals and hobbyists who are extracting the scent of plants from their garden to make perfume. Andrine Olson and Maggie Mahboubian Diana Burrell-Shipton from the Natural Perfumery Yahoo group I host also got on board, along with a lady who is an urban gardener in Bedford-Stuyvesant in New York. Only two of us were lucky enough to get links to our websites included, and I can say I'm SWAMPED with orders. Funny thing is, I had closed my online store because June is so busy for me with students and special projects. I have an assistant coming in tomorrow to help with bottling and labeling. Plus, I created new juice today faster than I ever have - MoonDance flies out of here, and I was low on two other perfumes. Oh, plus I had to create Kudra for the Mystery of Musk projec

The Role of Risk Aversion in the Decline of the Perfumery Art Tony Burfield, Cropwatch www.cropwatch.org Click here to download the pdf of this post World Perfumery Congress, Cannes 2nd June 2010. (Anya's note: I've muddled thru the pdf and powerpoint of this speech Tony gave at the WPC and have to the best of my abilities, made a decent facsimile of the original so that the content may be archived on the internet. To read the original, please download the pdf, linked. PS We're very proud to have Tony as a member of the Natural Perfumers Guild, and I have collaborated with him previously in attempts to expose the bad science and bad politics of the EU, IFRA, et al.) Cropwatch’s actions. Cropwatch is a 6-7 year old non-financed independent watchdog for the aroma & natural products trades. It has waged campaigns against (amongst others): • Over-exploitation of rare & threatened aromatic species (see Cropwatch website for A-Z data-base). • Impending citr

Well, due to family emergencies, I totally forgot to have an "Ask the Perfumer" last Sunday! I think I remembered on Tuesday or Wednesday. Yes, it's been that hectic. So, I'm actually posting this on Saturday, the 5th, and I'll open the blog for questions now.

Ambrosia Jones' Perfume by Nature JoAnne Bassett Perfumes

I ignore IFRA. I'm an independent artisan perfumer who is not a member of an organization that is a member of IFRA, so I have no danger of being "publicly shamed" (their words) if I use an aromatic that exceeds their allowable levels, or is prohibited by IFRA. I know the dangers of phototoxicity, allergens, and other problems that may be caused by some aromatics, and I take care forumulating my perfumes to safeguard the safety of my customers as much as possible.  There is a backlash against IFRA, and this shows their weakening stance. Since their regs are built upon, IMO, bad science, I hope it all goes away soon and the mainstream perfumes of old can return.  Here's a link to their latest statement, where the effervescent Jean-Pierre Houri talks about how “This year’s Amendment will hardly affect the palettes of perfumers.” Well, they've destroyed the palettes of perfumers in the past few decades, and that's why many mainstream perfumes smell like

Not that I have any time to waste, since I'm up to my eyeballs in work, but I stumbled on this website and had to share.

A Natural Perfumers Guild Internet Project June – July 2010 Who: The Perfumers of the Natural Perfumers Guild and Internet Bloggers and Forum members. Only 10 perfumers will be selected in a random draw, conducted by a third party. This is to avoid an excessive number of participants, which can overwhelm the evaluators. This is a cooperative blogging event, and the bloggers should link to the other blogger’s websites. You will be provided with an image to post on your blog that will be the unifying visual for the co-op. Why: To celebrate the Fourth Anniversary of the Guild. We think it would be a great idea to get out there on the Internet blogs and forums with a creative, artistic expression of our beloved perfume base note, the musk. Where: Internet blogs, Basenotes and the Yahoo Natural Perfumery group . What: Musk, musk and more musk. Perfumistas are fascinated with musk, there is no doubt about that, so The Mystery of Musk is the theme. P

Thank you, Donna Hathaway, for the lovely reviews posted today on Perfume Smelling Things

I've rewritten some of the homepage for my online natural perfumery course at Anya's Garden Natural Perfumery Institute , and I've added some Q & A about how to choose an instructor. Not many potential students knew who I was, or my credentials before I began teaching online in 2007, but I had some independently-reviewed perfumes to my credit, and five years of helping aspiring perfumers for free in the Yahoo group I host . I also had about 15 years of experience with a perfume line - Anya's Tropical Essences - and both private label and custom perfume creation. I'll soon be admitting students year-round, due to the high demand for a place in the class. After I cut off the registration in February, more than a dozen students wrote in the week following that, and, at first I was going to begin a new semester in October 2010, but after speaking with other veteran online instructors, am going to allow the open admittance policy. Here are some of the benefits o

Just a reminder to everyone - post your questions to me in this thread.

I created this graphic collage for Fairchild Perfume when it was released. When I remember back to 2005 and the resistance among perfumistas to natural perfumes, I can only smile at how we're being accepted now by mainstream perfume reviewers. As many on the forums say "I don't care now if a perfume is natural or contains synthetics, I only want a perfume to smell beautiful." Mark Behnke, who writes for Cafleurebon and Basenotes, and who has reviewed 500 perfumes in his career, is definitely someone who keeps an open mind about natural perfumes. I am truly awed by the power my first release, Fairchild, had over him. I'm so happy it brought back memories of walks with his father in Fairchild Gardens, which was the real world place I based this perfume upon. The other review on Cafleurebon today is by Rodney Hughes, a Professional Perfumer in the Natural Perfumers Guild. Rodney creates gorgeous perfumes himself, and imagine my surprise when he declared my

Hi Everyone: I'll be here for questions about perfumery until 9PM EST USA tonight. I've had to put the blog on moderated comment status because of Chinese spam, so there may be a delay between your posting your question and me OKing it for the blog.

Karin of Savvy Thinker has reviewed two of my perfumes, RiverCali and Temple and she will be reviewing the rest over the next week. Thanks so much Karin. It sounds like Temple really reached you. It's my aromatherapy perfume, the only one in my line, created with the intent to calm, restore and bring peace to the wearer.

Hi Everyone: Hope you're all having a nice Mother's Day - and if you have an questions about perfumery, just post your question and I'll answer them.

Here's the solution for the perfume crossword of the other day. In the future, I'll try other ways to post the puzzle, maybe with the questions shown in a sidebar, or add the ability to print it out and work on it on paper.

Just a reminder to everyone - post your questions to me tomorrow, Sunday, May 2, 2010 in this thread.

...................when you have a head for perfume, it shows! My $5 score at an antique store today. She is officially Ms. PerfumeHead. Funny thing is I've been thinking about the phrase PerfumeHead a lot lately, probably due to the influence of Natural Perfumers Guild member Aromahead, and I just registered the domain. I guess I'll just build a fun little domain around her. Maybe stories of perfumeheads. Oh, I'm in a silly mood! FTR, she's 5" tall. Probably pewter. No labels on the base. Here she's vamping with some just-picked peach-scented frangipanis from the garden. I just had the background clipped out:

http://perfumeclasses.com/AnyaMod2puzzle.htm I created crossword puzzles for my students in the past, and I had a bunch of trouble with the program, so I stopped. I've just started them up again since I figured out the program, and this one, for Module 2, is a lot of fun! Perhaps the most ardent perfumista will get all the answers, but you may miss a few because they're specific to my course. Still, enjoy yourself, testing your knowledge of perfumery terms. http://perfumeclasses.com/AnyaMod2puzzle.htm as part of http://perfumeclasses.com

Click to enlarge and see the beauty of this morning's harvest from the front of the house at Casa Jasmin, where Anya's Garden Perfumes blooms under the tropical sun. I got this quick harvest this morning before the "big" storm hit, and I just beat it by minutes. The big mixing bowl holds about a gallon of liquid, but in other terms, there are 30 vietnamese gardenias in there (about 3" across for reference), several golden champaca flowers, and the tiny yellow darlings are Aglaia odorata flowers. Into the alcohol tincture for the champacas and aglaias, into the enfleurage tray for the gardenias. I'm so lucky! Oh, the bamboo skewer you see on the right was used to "pollinate" my vanilla orchid flower. Let's see if I get a bean. ;-) The vanilla orchid just started blooming, and I have to go out every day for the one flower a day on the vine to try to get a harvest by hand-pollination. It's fun!