Anya's Garden Perfumes + The Natural Perfumery Institute

 Originally published July 28, 2013 I was digging up some old photos for a writing project, and this one of Jasmine sambac Grand Duke of Tuscany is from 2005.  I used a thumbnail of it on the original naturalperfumery.com website that was launched that year.  The thumbnail is an ironic term here since it features my thumbnail!  What huge flowers from the Grand Duke!  Many are the size of small carnations, which they remind people of, due to their tightly-clustered petals.  The window to harvest this flower is small since they’re slow to ripen to the proper stage for harvesting, and then, boom, overnight, it seems, they start to turn brown. A gorgeous, intensely-fragrant slow-growing jasmine. So many of the white flowers produce an orangey-brown absolute or tincture, have you noticed that?  Jasmines and gardenias, Michelia, and lotus come to mind.  When I pop Michelia alba flowers into a tincture, the menstruum turns reddish-brown immediately!  The Grand Dukes take a bit longer to chang

 Originally published July 18, 2013 Lucky me!  I received two assignments from students in my Natural Perfumery Institute perfumery course recently, and I just loved the poetry they wrote to describe their experiences with the module’s topic.  Both poems are very different, as different as the authors, one from Ghana, the other from Canada.  I post the second one in a few weeks, and maybe they’ll inspire you to write some poems about perfume.  I am not a poet, so I really admire these talented students! Aba Williams Module 2 29 June, 2013   Illustration of Aromatic Groups from Natural Perfumery Institute textbook Basic Natural Perfumery Course Poem describing some Observations on Aromatic Groups and Differences between Aromatic Groups and Fragrance Families How do I describe an aromatic group in one word, When there is so much going on in there, I thought it would be easy, But then I was kind of wrong.   I thought all WOODS would smell woody, That all FLORALS would smell sweet, That al