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Ask the Perfumer - Oct. 28, 2012 - cancelled

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Ask the Perfumer for today is cancelled on account of gardening :-) There's lots to be done to prepare for the lunar-based planting days ahead. In Miami, our crops grow best between October and April, so I have lots and lots of veggies and pretty flowers to plant.  See you next week! Google translated this little Norwegian ditty as:  Tink leaves havens and tomatoes cucumbers and salads are solar comrades.  I have an email into a Norwegian friend to get an alternate.  The image is just so cute!  Yes, I do sing a little to my plants.  I have a riff on Figaro that is to the tuberose ;-) Add caption A little Anya's Garden Perfumes trivia: when I started Anya's Garden Perfumes in 2006, I originally used seed packets for my samples.  Here is the label I made for the sample/seed packets.

Why does tiger urine smell like basmati rice? Why does the drydown of ground coriander seed smell like bergamot?

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Someone asked me a question on one of my Facebook page, and since I often get asked similar questions, I thought I'd post my answer here and refer folks back to this blog post in the future. Question:     Hey you're probably the right person to ask! I ground some coriander by hand last night for a recipe. it went through several scenty stages, beginning with an almost minty/herbal scent and ending up smelling very much like bergamot. Are the two related? Answer: Coriander is in the Umbelliferae family, and bergamot (mint) is in the Labiatae. Unless you mean bergamot citrus, which smells like the bergamot mint - confused? I'm going to make you a little more confused, but I bet you learn something that'll stick with you, even though it doesn't answer your question directly: 1. All aromatics are made up of levels of scents, much like the top/middle/base notes we're familiar with with perfumes. 2. I'll admit I don't know the name of

Ask the Perfumer Sunday Oct 21, 2012

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Ask the Perfumer - and an Ambergris hypothesis Guild member Lisa Coburn posted a link on Facebook that took me to a video on how cephalopods--squid, cuttlefish and octopus, are masters of disguise.  As I watched it, I made a perfume connection, straight to the elusive, mysterious, rare and valued ambergris, a gorgeous material used in perfumery. Photo of the famed 'Yeti' chunk of ambergris. Ambergris is produced by the stomach/intestinal secretions of the sperm whale to protect its insides from the sharp beaks of the squid and cuttlefish, two main items in its diet.  The whale evacuates the chunk of ambergris when it becomes large enough to be an irritant on its own, albeit a softer, rounder irritant compared to the beak and cartilage of the squid or cuttlefish.  As a perfumer, I often have to gently remind excitable newbies ;-)  that the scent of the ambergris is secondary to its major contribution to a perfume, which is its ability to 'marry' and allo

Do you want to be a professional perfumer? Study with world renowned perfumer Anya McCoy at the Natural Perfumery Institute

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The Natural Perfumery Institute logo - click to visit the website Do you want to be a perfumer?  Do you want to be a perfumer who takes a basic course that covers dozens of topics in professional perfumery, in addition to learning professional techniques as taught by the French schools?  We all know the French schools are impossible to get in, because they only accept a few dozen students a year, plus they teach about artificial/synthetic perfume materials. The classic techniques of those schools are brought into the light by my course, except I teach only natural materials. The course launched in 2007, and is imitated, but never duplicated ;-) The Natural Perfumery Institute's course was the first natural perfumery course to offer: - Instructions on how to properly dilute materials for evaluation and making accords.  This method save money and allows the student to smell the aromatic "opened up". If you're blending with undiluted materials - stop!

Ask the Perfumer Sunday Oct 14, 2012

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Tincture a perfume material that's a purèe?!  Yes, that's the advice I saw someone give on Facebook.  Dear Readers, there are lots of people on the Internet putting themselves forth as an expert, and they're making it up as they go.  I teach my students, and I've been sharing with the general public for years, the proper way to make tinctures.  No, I won't advise you to tincture applesauce to get an apple-scented alcohol ;-) I'll be here until 10 PM ET today to answer all your perfumery questions, as I have been for several years.  This is a purèe-free zone. snark off/ An "artsy" photo I made of a deerstongue tincture I made in 2005, with the window screen forming the pattern in the background.  Isn't that color beautiful?  Deerstongue is a vanilla/coumarinic-scented herb and I love it.

From The Vintage Vault: Dragonfly and botanicals in pewter enwrap crystal perfume bottle

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I purchased this bottle from England.  The quality of the crystal is impeccable, and the pewter is fancifully beautiful, with dragonfly and botanical figures.  I believe the bottle would hold two ounces (60mls) of perfume. The bottle is clear crystal, but my camera's lighting makes it look grey here. Anyone have an idea how old it is? I admit I'm embarrassed but at the moment, I can't remember the industry term for a bottle such as this, purchased to be filled with perfume, unlike a perfume you purchase from me or a perfume house that of which is a commercial bottle. Here's a nice reference to differenty types of bottles.  I'll take some time and try to refresh my memory.  Can anyone assist with the name of this type of bottle?

Problem Solved! An Easy, Effective Room Fragrance Product for Natural Perfumers

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Do you make candles with essential oils and absolutes?  Do you wish they had more 'throw'?  (For those who don't know the term 'throw' - it's the amount of distance the candle scent is detected after the wick is lit.) This blog is a bit about me and what I believe is a great discovery in room fragrance products made by natural perfumers - but it's really more about You . And how to make a wonderful, highly-scented room fragrance product that may delegate your scented candles to a secondary place in your product line. I'll bet your #1 complaint is that there is little 'throw'.  I've heard this lament for decades, since the first aromatherapy candles appeared on the market.  Most aromatherapists instead turn to aromatherapy 'oil burners' to scent a room. My problem with using them is that despite how much water your put in the reservoir to 'float' the oils, they tended to scorch the oils if you didn't watch them ca

Delicious Living Magazine quotes Anya McCoy on Natural vs. Synthetic Fragrance Definitions

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Are synthetic fragrances harmful?      October 2012   Sep. 28, 2012 Jessica Rubino  |  Delicious Living http://newhope360.com/beauty-cosmetics-amp-skincare/are-synthetic-fragrances-harmful Are synthetic fragrances harmful? 4 tips for buying natural fragrances Are synthetic fragrances bad for my health? What's the difference between a natural and synthetic fragrance? How do I know if a fragrance is truly natural? Your top questions answered, plus shopping tips.  When made from plant-based ingredients such as herbs, flowers, spices, and essential oils , fragrances don’t just make you smell good—they can make you feel good, too. Unfortunately, most conventional sweet- smelling ingredients today are synthetic. After the invention of synthetic fragrances in the 1800s, perfumers quickly replaced natural, plant-based ingredients with artificial ones. Now, fragrances can contain any number of 3,100 natural or synthetic ingredients, many of which are derive

Beautiful scented flowers comfort and help us: Autumn is planting and renewal time in Miami

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This photo was taken the weekend my mother had major surgery.  Though sniffing the beauty of the peach-scented frangipani (plumeria) I can see the sorrow and worry I'm trying to hide. Flowers are a blessing and a comfort in times of pain, that is why we bring them to people who are ill. My entire garden is a comfort zone, full of scent and beauty. I have some huge cuttings of this particular frangipani and I'll give them free to anyone in Miami.  Just email me and we'll make arrangements. Part of the front garden next to the walkway was giving me a lot of problems with weeds.  Despite my new landscape guy insisting on weed killer spray, I persisted in using a scuffle hoe.  It took two months to finally get the persistant nutgrass to give up, but it has!  I have some fragrant plants and pretty annuals that will go in there soon. Fall is the time of renewal in Miami, when most of North America is harvesting and and putting their garden to sleep, we're awakening

Ask the Perfumer Sunday Sept. 30, 2012

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                                                    When the senior-year literary magazines for my high school were distributed, I was surprised that a botanical pen-and-ink drawing of mine was chosen for the table of contents artwork, and was on mirror pages.  I didn't realize it at the time, but I had an intuitive grasp of plants growing up from the soil.  No wonder I became a botanist and landscape architect, and given that my subject was the rose in this drawing, a natural perfumer. If you have any questions for my weekly forum, please post them before 10 PM ET, USA.

From the Vintage Vault - Antique East Indian Perfume Case with Bottles

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I snapped this wooden perfume case up, even though it looked a little rough, and one bottle was missing.  Sadly, another bottle broke during transit, and only four of the original six remain.  The bottles stoppers are fused into the bottle very strongly, and I'll think about trying to get them open.  Only a tiny scent, very oxidized, remains where the stoppers meet the bottles, nothing I can identify. Do you love antique perfumery items?  I sure do, and I like sharing them with you.  It's been a long, lazy summer, and now I am going to revive my Vintage Vault series.  I have LOTS to share with you! Spare, elegant gilt work on the top of the box The silver mirror is tarnished.  I wonder what faces gazed into it as the lady (ladies) who owned it dabbed on the perfumes? Lovely that the key survived all these years, along with four of the original bottles.

Ask the Perfumer Sunday September 23, 2012

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Good morning everyone, as we move into Autumn in the Northern Hemisphere, Spring in the Southern.  Here in Miami, I can both plant and harvest at this time of year, so maybe we're in the Middle Hemisphere? The Ask the Perfumer forum is open, so please ask any questions you have about perfumery, the emphasis on the natural aspect of our art. Here's a photo of some of the unmolded fragrant wax melts from my new line of ambient scents, Room Candy. I'll be blogging about them later this week.  If you're a blogger and would like a sample to review, write me via my website http://anyasgarden.com

The Natural Perfumery Institute Celebrates Its Fifth Anniversary with Discounts on Tuition and Textbook

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A message from Anya McCoy, Head Instructor and Director of the Natural Perfumery Institute:   In 2007, after five years of hosting the largest and oldest Yahoo  group for natural perfumers , and at the request of many members, I created a formal curriculum for online perfumery study. Since then, students from around the world have enjoyed a professional education in perfumery without having to leave the comforts of their home.   To celebrate the Fifth year of the perfumery education method and materials I developed, new home study students of the Natural Perfumery Institute who purchase the textbook will be able to deduct 10% off the cost of the book until Sept. 23, 2012 at midnight. For students outside the USA, this $50 savings off the $500 price, equals getting the Express mail shipping for free.   Online interactive students will receive $130 refunded, a 5% savings on their $2600 tuition (not applicable to payment plan students). There are no coupons because of the var

The Oozy-ness of oakmoss and a call to suppliers for sensible packaging

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Not the prettiest picture I've ever posted, but working with oakmoss isn't pretty! On the left you can see the slurry oozing out of the bottle neck a bit - and on the right, the primordial reception pool.  Plop, plop. Lisa asked a question in my weekly "Ask the Perfumer" forum yesterday, and it is timely.  She asked about the safety of oakmoss, a known sensitizer. I need some more for my Outlaw fragrance wax melts in my Room Candy line.  They contain oakmoss, bergamot and lime - yummy chypre!  I am also getting my assistant ready to pour a lot of kits for my students and customers, and bottle of 3% oakmoss dilution is included. Anyway, I'm sensitized to it, but I know people who could bathe in the stuff and not have a problem. Besides the sensitization, my problem with oakmoss and other thick aromatics, even those that don't cause a problem for me, and that is that suppliers still bottle them in narrow-necked bottles that require a lot of warming to sem

Ask the Perfumer - Sunday, September 16, 2012, - until 10 PM EST

If you have any natural perfume-related questions, I'll be here until 10PM tonight to answer them for you.  Tincturing? Sourcing? Packaging - oh, the dreaded packaging problems!  What's on your mind?

Ask the Perfumer - Sunday, September 9, 2012, - until 10 PM EST

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I'll be here until 10 PM ET to answer your questions about perfumery, and in the meantime read my update, below, including a giveaway of my latest launch, Patchouli Silk ! This has been my laziest summer ever!  Now it's time to get seriously back into the perfumery world.  I'll have Prima Rosa , a perfume, to release in October.  I may only release one perfume a year, because that pace, to me, seems "right".  I will be releasing Room Candy , my line of 100% organic and natural room fragrance wax tarts, later this month, as soon as the packaging is finalized.  The response from my newsletter readers who received samples of Room Candy has been very positive, with kudos for "long lasting", "the scent fills my big house" and "love the fragrance". Now, for a surprise - luxury bar soap!  The first soap launched will be Patchouli Silk .  100% natural, exceptionally creamy and yes, it feels silky and will leave your skin silky - and perf

Ask the Perfumer - Sunday, August 19, - until 10 PM EST

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You can ask your perfumery questions until 10PM EST today, and I'll be happy to help you.  In the meantime, I want to share my renewed interest in natural botanical architecture.  I first saw photos in the magazine Co-Evolution Quarterly in the 70s.  As I recall, the photos showed specially-manipulated trees growing in pools of sun, rising up from an underground cave type setting.  The photos I'm showing here are from a website that documents the botanical architecture of   Axel Erlandson on this website .  Erlandson was a visionary who created what became known as the 'tree circus'. Very inspiring, quirky and now, sadly the trees no longer exist.  If you search botanical architecture on google, and scan the images section, you'll see some modern examples.  If you ever come across the original images from Co-Evolution Quarterly, please let me know.  I'd love to view them again. UPDATE:  I did a google search, and the results indicate that Mark Primack, the a

Ask the Perfumer - Sunday, August 12, 2012 until 10 PM EST

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August in Miami is a pleasure to a perfumer's nose. Some of the blooming treasures in my front garden this morning are jasmine grandiflorums climbing by my front door, Vietnamese gardenias, ylang ylangs, jasmine sambac longipetalum, angel's trumpets and four o'clocks. Everything but the angel's trumpets and four o'clocks are fragrant now. The angel's trumpets will start pumping out their sweet, spicy perfume around dusk, and the four o'clocks will start smelling of grape soda around, well, four o'clock in the afternoon. Such inspiration! Do you have any perfumery questions, or scented plant questions? I'll be here to answer them unti 10 PM EST. Grape-soda scented four o'clock.  I know the natural chemical constituent that makes it smell like the commercial grape soda, but I prefer the common, less technical common name for the flower. Angel trumpets touching the sky, heralding down their fragrance from above. A solo jasmine gra