The natural aromatics that we use in our creations are among the rarest, most expensive materials in the world.
While the mainstream perfumery business is now ruled by those who strive to use the cheapest petrochemical synthetic chems to keep costs down, natural perfumers are dedicated to the art of the aromatic, the luxury of the ancient aromas and bringing that high level of artisanry to the customer.
The Guild has issued a Position Paper on the definition of natural fragrance. You may read it here. |
Slow Scent
Brave New Scents Project
Who: Professional Perfumers of the Natural Perfumers Guild
Why: Because we're brave outlaw perfumers, and we're pushing the envelope further, into 21st Century fragrance territory.
Where: The Natural Perfumers Guild perfumer's blogs and Internet blogs.
When: Launch Oct. 1, 2011
The Vision of this Project: The new avalanche of glorious aromatics, including the ones we create ourselves, deserve acknowledgement as perfume materials as the Outlaw Perfumers create Brave New Scents. The Outlaw Perfumers of the Natural Perfumers Guild are staking out more aromatic territory, moving into the 21st Century with an attitude of conquering new frontiers. The Guild perfumers are focusing on capturing the beauty of aromatics introduced after the year 2000, or that have been made available to us via the Internet after 2000, or that we created ourselves.
Many of these are untested by regulatory agencies. History is our guide, since many of these have been in use for hundreds of years, such as ambrette seed absolutes, kewda flower absolutes and others from India.
How brave, how sensible!
O wonder!
How many goodly creatures are there here! How beauteous mankind is!
O brave new world! That has such people in it!
~ Miranda in Shakespeare's "The Tempest", Act V, Scene I
I want God, I want poetry,
I want danger, I want freedom,
I want goodness, I want sin.
~Aldous Huxley
Perfume Organ Reference from Aldous Huxley's novel Brave New World:
"The scent-organ was playing a delightfully refreshing Herbal Capriccio - rippling arpeggios of thyme and lavender, of rosemary, basil, myrtle, tarragon; a series of daring modulations through the spice keys into ambergris; and a slow return through sandalwood, camphor, cedar, and new-mown hay (with occasional subtle touches of discord - a whiff of kidney pudding, the faintest suspicion of pig's dung) back to the simple aromatics with which the piece began. The final blast of thyme died away; there was a round of applause; the lights went up."
In the Brave New Scents project, the Guild perfumers are likened to the members of Huxley's novel. Like the starring characters in the novel, these brave new perfumers go against the grain and out of bounds, thwarting the ever-expanding regulatory nanny state in order to showcase aromatic extraction feats and use 21st Century aromatics that are not necessarily condoned in mainstream perfume society.
Some of the brave new perfumers throw convention to the wind and blend perfumes that showcase their skill extracting scent from previously non-commercial plants, flowers, and substances. Others use the palette of newly-available essential oils, concretes, absolutes and CO2 aromatics, sometimes blending in their own artisan extractions, be they infusions, tinctures or distillations.
What aromatics will this include?
The Guild perfumers were provided with an extensive list of 100+ 21st Century aromatics, which was compiled by Guild President Anya McCoy and Guild Manager Elise Pearlstine. They recognized that before the year 2000, most artisan perfumers purchased their natural aromatics from aromatherapy suppliers. These suppliers did not carry many absolutes, and some aromatics available to the mainstream perfumers were not known, or available, to them. Suppliers for mainstream perfume houses did not carry many, if any, aromatics from India, such as jasmine sambac, lotus, champaca and other tropical scents.
We now have the bounty of newly-available delightful absolutes such as aglaia flower, boronia, ambergris and many more.
Newly-conceptualized and extracted aromatic wonders such as lilac flower and the amazing world of CO2 and SCO2 extractions are now available to the fragrance industry. Also included are the hand-extracted fragrant bounties from the gardens of the perfumers themselves, such as peony enfleurage, Grand Duke of Tuscany jasmine sambac enfleurage, and a myriad of distillations and tinctures. To make it interesting, the perfumers were allowed only one "wildcard" aromatic from the era preceding the year 2000.
Invited bloggers will review the Brave New Scents perfumes (2) that they have been paired with. All bloggers will receive all 10 perfumes, and will review two of them, with the exception of CaFleureBon which will review all ten.
Clickable links for the following can be found here
Natural Perfumers Guild Perfumers
Adam Gottshalk http://lordsjesterinc.wordpress.com/
Ambrosia Jones http://perfumebynature.blogspot.com/
Anya McCoy http://anyasgarden.blogspot.com
Charna Ethier http://providenceperfume.blogspot.com
Christi Meshell http://matriarch.biz
Elise Pearlstine http://bellyflowers.blogspot.com
Jane Cate http://www.etsy.com/shop/wingandprayerperfume
JoAnne Bassett http://www.joannebassett.com/natural_perfumes
Liz Cook http://oneseedcompany.com/
Rohanna Goodwin Smith http://ascentnaturalperfumes.com
Bloggers
Feminine Things http://femininethings.blogspot.com
Donna Hathaway http://www.examiner.com/x-4780-Portland-Fragrance-Examiner
The Perfume Critic http://theperfumecritic.com
Perfume Shrineki http://perfumeshrine.com
All I am a Redhead http://alliam-aredhead.blogspot.com/
Cafleure Bon http://cafleurebon.com
The Natural Perfumers Guild is dedicated to perfumes and all fragrance products that use botanical extracts and natural animal essences solely as their scent source. No synthetic aromatics are used in creating the perfumes, and no diethyl phtlate or other synthetic extenders are in any of our perfumes. We create and celebrate all fragrance products that use botanically-based aromatics, as we are artisans dedicated to the alchemy and hands-on methods of time-honored traditions or natural perfumery.
These liquid beauties are sometimes also known as botanical perfumes.
There are Guild members who do not use animal essences, only botanics in their perfumes, and they may call themselves botanial perfumers.
Natural perfumery an art as old as civilization and as new as the latest harvest of roses in Turkey, jasmine in Egypt and lemons in Florida. It connects us to the ancient temples of Egypt, the fragrant mosques of the Middle East, the native peoples of the Americas and the temples of India, China and the Far East. People have loved the scent of beautifully fragrant plant materials since time immemorial, and we are reviving that art with a 21st Century sensibility. We gather natural plant extracts from around the world - and some from our own gardens - and craft perfumes, incenses, body balms, room fresheners and much more.
The Guild was founded by Mandy Aftel, author of Essence and Alchemy and the nose of Aftelier Perfumes, in 2003, and closed later that year. In 2006, ownership of the Guild was handed over to Anya McCoy, the perfumer of Anya's Garden Perfumes. This move was made in recognition of Anya's ability to manage and guide thousands of members on the Yahoo Natural Perfumery group. Anya forges the intent and direction of the Guild and strives to build this nascent art into a cultural and artistic force, most recently through the Mystery of Musk and Outlaw Perfume projects.
Built upon the goal of nurturing the art of natural perfumery through education, legislative efforts and networking among members, the Guild is an organization that welcomes all who love natural aromatics.
We're a consortium of international perfumers, associates, suppliers and enthusiasts united on the Internet, and when lucky enough, we meet in person and share our stories and dreams of the future of natural perfumery.
The public is demanding a new paradigm in perfumery, one that gives them the option of obtaining quality perfumes made only with pure and natural aromatics and the Guild artisans meet that requirement and desire to create new, exciting fragrances free of synthetics.
Guild Mission
Our purpose is to gather and strengthen our existing community, increase public awareness and education about pure and natural perfumes, and establish standards of excellence in perfumery.
The Guild efforts are focused to exalt and encourage the use of natural botanicals in perfume, body care products and environmental fragrancing. Standards of excellence in creating perfumes are required of, and met by, our members.
We encourage you to sample their handmade artisan products so that you may experiencing the fragrant beauty of nature, captured in a bottle.
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