Anya's Garden Perfumes + The Natural Perfumery Institute

  How Perfume Got Its Stank On – Five Perfumers Write About Using Animal Essences by  Anya McCoy  |  Nov 14, 2013  |  Anya McCoy  |  0 comments This goat is coated with labdanum resin because he grazes on hillsides covered in the fragrant plant. Photo by Dimitris Nykarsis Basenotes, one of the most popular and longest-lasting perfume forums on the Internet, is hosting a five-part series on Animal Essences in Perfumery. I invited four other perfumers to write about their take on this controversial subject. I think you’ll be surprised, as I was, at the different topics they chose. The series launched on Wednesday, Nov. 12, 2013 with my contribution, and I’ll post the links to all of them as they are published. Enjoy! http://www.basenotes.net/content/1718-The-Essence-of-Animals-How-Perfume-Got-Its-Stank-On http://www.basenotes.net/content/1855-Tri-dimensional-and-Spiritual-Perfumes http://www.basenotes.net/content/1856-The-Lure-and-Licensing-of-Using-Natural-Animal-Extracts

  Scented Geraniums Have Glorious Perfume by  Anya McCoy  |  Nov 19, 2013  |  Anya's Garden Perfumes ,  natural perfume ,  raw materials of perfumery  |  2 comments Scented geraniums have delicate, beautiful flowers that also carry the scent of the particular variety I was delighted that several scented geraniums I planted last spring survived the hot, humid Miami summer. Pelargoniums are native to the high desert of South Africa, so they like it on the dry side. I just planted a dozen varieties so they can grow during the winter, and I’m looking forward to distilling and tincturing them come the Spring harvest. Did you know that these beautifully-scented geraniums often have gorgeous flowers?  The flowers are delicate and heavily scented also. I have attar of roses, bourbon, musk, several lemon types, almond, and some wild cards just for curiosity. I had a professor in Syracuse who had a 20-year-old scented geranium in his office, and I’ve grown them successfully indoors when I li

  Tips to Lessen the Impact of Gardening with Arthritis by  Anya McCoy  |  Nov 21, 2013  |  Anya's Garden Perfumes  |  4 comments PVC pipe is used to drop big seeds into furrows, so bending over is avoided October and November begin the planting season for us here in Miami, and a few weeks ago I got busy beginning the planting of my veggie garden. And then the arthritis flares began three really bad ones. I have no problem bending over, I’m flexible, and I feel very little pain at the time. Over the next week, though, I had three bouts of flare that disabled me and made sleeping difficult, as every tiny movement brought excruciating pain. I remembered something I had seen years ago: a length of PVC pipe cut to about four feet, with one end cut on the diagonal. The diagonal end is supposed to touch the soil, so you can see where your seed goes, but I found that useless. I actually like dropping the seed in the upright diagonal end, but YMMV. See the instructions in the photo on how

  Ask the Perfumer forum and Tropical Lilac! 12/8/2013 by  Anya McCoy  |  Dec 8, 2013  |  Anya's Garden Perfumes  |  6 comments I’ll be here until 10 tonight to answer your perfumery questions and take time out to play with the velvety, highly-scented *leaves* of the tropical lilac plant I found yesterday. I’ve been searching online for a long time for it and accidentally stumbled across it when I went to buy an elderberry plant Friday. Cornutia grandifolia trained as a tree. Source trees454blog I was looking at the Everglades cherry tomato plants (another one I’ve lusted after for some time!) and saw these pots with huge, velvety leaves. The nursery didn’t mention the plant as available on their website. Their garden helper didn’t know the plant's name, esp. the botanical name I used. Finally, after I had him load it into my cart, and I was paying, I remembered tropical lilac or Jamaican lilac, and he said “yes, yes,” which confirmed what I already knew. See how pretty those f

  When is a Jasmine not really a Jasmine? by  Anya McCoy  |  Oct 2, 2013  |  Yellow jasmine – not really a Jasminium, a Gelsemium First things first, the backstory: I’m making lemons from lemonade. Recently, the landscaper butchered my orange jasmine hedge in the back garden, and it has to be removed. I did some retail therapy, and went to three different online rare plant sites and had fun! One plant I’ve meant to grow is Caroline Jessamine, Gelsemium sempervirens. I’ll now have about 65 feet of fence to grow several fragrant vines on, so I’m really happy. In the upcoming Perfume From Your Garden book there will be similar plants – the jasmines – with instructions for readers on ways to extract the scent. Sign up for the newsletter at  http:// perfumefromyourgarden.com/ There’s lively interaction with folks on Facebook who waiting for the book, and they’re asking questions, leaving comments and suggestions, and having a lot of fun thinking of the Perfume From Your Garden projects. Ple

 Originally published Sept. 22, 2013 There’s a saying in the natural lifestyle world: “Can you eat….so and so” meaning is the lotion or body care product made with pure and natural ingredients? I was reminded of this recently when someone interested in buying my perfume wrote me several times, asking specific questions about the ingredients. I answered each email, also telling her to check out my Ingredients page. She then sent another email asking if I used undenatured alcohol. Of course, I do, and I wondered why she wasn’t finding the answers on my website. I discovered the Ingredients page was listed last on the menu, so I moved it up to the #4 position. I want customers to know that the ingredients in my perfumes are so pure, they could eat them. Rose, citrus, jasmine – all are good enough to eat – or drink. I’m not saying you should ‘eat’ my perfumes, although I do remember Maria Browning of Bitter Grace Notes blog and Elena Vosnaki of Perfume Shrine blog musing online about using

 Originally published Aug. 19, 2013 (Note: the book was published as Homemade Perfume by Page Street Publishers in July 2018, available on Amazon and other online booksellers) When Elise and I sat down to discuss the options for the illustrations for our upcoming book Perfume From Your Garden, color photos were considered, but the ability to get similar lighting and composition for them ruled them out.  Maybe in the future, but our timeline for a publication date of late Fall (Nov 8 is the target date) means we can’t get them together by then.  I told Elise of some drawings that I had traced out of an herb book in 1983 or so. The doctor’s wife loved the illustrations in the book and asked I used them for this drawing, as it was going to be hung on the wall in the office. So, I used them for a private, not-for-publication illustration for a doctor’s office.  At the time I was in grad school for landscape architecture, but had a landscape and interiorscape business on the side (a cateri