M: First of all it's a pleasure to chat with you!
A: Same here -- we've only been trying to connect for about two years now!
M: Right!?!
M: And you've had a very busy two years!
A: We've both had a very busy two years, you with the PhD and upgrading PC.com to the huge, informative site it is now. How did we do it all? LOL I feel now that the foundation has been laid, everything is in its place, and I'm actually getting my life back - more social life, not working late each night, etc. It's very rewarding now to look back.
M: I understand completely - the website has taken over my life in many ways - I'm struggling to balance everything. But not only have you been working with your own company, Anya's Garden, you are also now President of the NATURAL PERFUMERS GUILD!
A: And I'm finally getting some more time to blend, which is what this is all about! I'm also teaching the first-ever online class for natural perfumery, and I pulled together the Primer, syllabus, website, etc. over the summer. I still don't know how I did it. It's so different from when I was an Adjunct Professor at Florida Atlantic University. I'd show up for three hours, give a lecture, be done. Not the same online, tons more work.
M: I know a little bit about you, Anya, from reading your website and our few email exchanges, but where are you from originally?
A: I'm from Philadelphia, moved to Berkeley (hitchhiked cross country by myself, actually) when I was 20. I’ve moved a lot all over the USA in the years since.
M: Oh tell me more about working at FAU - my sister is a student there, and I actually took a couple classes there about 15 years ago...
A: I was at the downtown Fort Lauderdale campus, not the Boca one. I taught in the graduate program for Urban Design and Development to candidates for their Masters degree. Back then, early 90's, the campus was just really blooming in downtown, and it was a fun, lively scene. I brought in great guest lecturers and had some memorable field trips.
M: And how did you get into academia?
A: The FAU department chair approached me, since he knew me from working on a big beachfront - Las Olas Blvd - urban design project. How that Blvd has changed in 15 years. During that time I was blending, however, and traveling to South Beach on Wednesdays and Saturdays, selling my oil-based perfumes and herb plants!
M: You're such a slacker! Lol!
A: Yes, I do tend to be lazy, lol.
M: Ah Las Olas, I know it well...So let's jump right into your fragrances, Anya...
A: Fine, let's get fragrant.
M: So today I am wearing Temple. This is a very, VERY special scent for many reasons.
A: Please tell me your reaction - gut reaction, not professional critic.
M: First of all, it's the first "incense" scent I've tested that resembles Japanese Zuko powder (a powdered incense used on the body for ritual). Amazing that you captured this very unique aroma! Others have come close, but you nailed it - was this your intent, or just coincidence? It's obviously an agarwood scent...
A: Oh, I remember David Oller sending me Zuko powder years ago and saying use it as a deodorant, and I resisted that, but I studied deeper into the ingredients, and yes, your nose is correct, a lot of the same raw aromatics are in there. Temple is based on Buddhist and Ayurvedic calming, spiritual scents.
M: Hooray, points for me!
A: Again I'll mention David Oller. He sent me some incredibly rare and previously-unknown-to-me Ouds a few years ago, including an iconic 1971 distillation that was part of someone's PhD dissertation. It got me stoned. I had no idea the monks smoldered agarwood to lower the speed of their brainwaves to assist in meditation. I felt like I was drunk. I have included exquisite Oud - which is agarwood, but not all agarwood is Oud - in Temple. Sidenote – Kaffir, my other new release, has golden agarwood in it, which is not an Oud.
M: LOL! I remember when my friend and fellow contributor to PerfumeCritic, Ashne, and I were shopping together in Kyoto. She purchased a "potpourri" of agarwood and sandalwood chips (amongst other things) and we were both fascinated by the aroma. The salesperson noted that it was a traditional blend that people traditionally kept as a sachet in their kimonos. Ashne had presented it to me as a gift for helping her explore the city (I had been living in Japan at the time and she was visiting – we only met because we were both MakeUpAlley users and she was curious if I had any advice travelers to Japan). I still have it and keep it in my bedside drawer so that every time I open the drawer, I can get a whiff of my beloved Kyoto…I see that David Oller works with Baieido, a very old, very well known Japanese incense house. I’m pretty confident that Baieido is the company I purchase my Zuko from.
A: Oud is treasured in the East and Middle East for its scent and powers. Many aromatics reach us on a truly emotional level, and please us, but Oud - and Sandalwood, for that same reason, have entered the religious practices of the people. They're very powerful beyond emotion. Yes, David is the US distributor for Baieido http://japanese-incense.com
M: I can understand why - there is something about the aromas of sandalwood and agarwood (and cedar too for that matter) that hits me in a very deep place, on a spiritual level. I have always been drawn to sandalwood.
A: Did you find the top note of Temple surprising? I believe I'm the first to use *distilled orange juice* essential oil in a perfume!
M: Yes! Orange juice! I just noticed that in the list of notes from your website, but it didn't register to my nose...now that you've pointed it out, I can get a citrus rind note slowly fading as the warmth of the middle notes is emerging. Another reason I find Temple so special is that you have dedicated it to a specific group of people. Would you like to talk more about that?
A: Certainly, and I have to say the responses are also coming from outside that group I specified. Temple perfume was my instinctive response to the posttraumatic stress disorder myself and so many here in Florida suffer from on a day-to-day basis. We are all so tense inside because of the previous hurricanes, and the unknown future damage others may bring. It's palpable in the air, really. Many homes are still damaged; lives have been uprooted and destroyed. Just horrific. I wanted to help people heal, and Temple was my answer.
M: Tell me about it - so many businesses have suffered, like our beloved shop Suravi in Tampa... We miss Vijay and Suravi terribly...
M: So Temple is a scent for spiritual healing and meditation?
A: When I read about the floods, fires and tornadoes, all over our country, my heart aches -- they're all in the same boat as us. So I developed Temple with a real healing intent. I truly believe, just as my Pain Relief Oil I created five years ago took the severe arthritis and inflammation pain out of my hands and gave me back the use of my hands, that Temple may reach inside people and help give them strength to carry on with less pain and hope for the future. It's an aromachology perfume, not a French perfume, and there is a big difference. Not aromatherapy, either, since I blended in a very different manner.
A: For healing and meditation I recommend to just put a drop in your palms, rub them together, and inhale deeply with your hands cupped over your nose. Do this when there are no distractions. That's all. You can also wear it as a perfume, of course, and just enjoy it for the Oud incense aspect of it.
M: Excellent distinction, thanks for explaining - please do tell us more about the differences among the three.
A: Before I forget - back to the other folks who are writing in and that I'm sending Temple to -- domestic abuse victims, house fire victims, some who have suffered the loss of loved ones recently, and those with health issues. They weren't addressed in my press release, but they're responding, so I realize I need to expand the recipient base.
M: It's incredible how people have such emotional and spiritual reactions to aroma.
A: Yes, scent memories are the strongest, they turn us back in time. Aromatherapy perfume is the closest to aromachology. AT can consist of top, middle, base notes, but it may not. Perhaps an AT perfume just has rose and lemon, because the person blending likes those, that combo makes them feel good. AC perfume has a more specific emotional goal, may have top, middle and base notes - or not. Traditional perfumery, which I create (but without the use of modern synthetic aromachemicals), is a very structured art, of top, middle and base notes, which are always used, and requires years of study to master. AT and AC perfumes = easy to make, fun to use, sometimes with an emotional purpose. You can copy a recipe out of a book and have something nice immediately. Traditional perfume formulation takes many, many modifications, aging, filtering, tweaking, agonizing over. It's not easy, but the rewards are a true work of art.
M: Interesting - I don't think the average consumer truly understand the distinctions among various styles of fragrance. Is that part of your mission as an artist/perfumer?
A: Highlighting and educating about the differences is definitely part of my role as the Guild
president. When someone submits a very nice aromatherapy perfume, we all feel terrible that we have to deny them acceptance in the Guild. There is an evaluation team that looks at the perfume, packaging and professionalism. Many of the declined applicants have taken a weekend course and think they're perfumers. In my online course, for example, I have them working through two months of just evaluating one or two raw aromatics a day, writing down all their impressions on a form I provide, then they'll go through two months each of accord creation and evaluation, comparison and contrasting raw materials in a methodical manner, and won't begin to blend until June.
When the course is over in October, 2008, they'll need more study for two more levels. Even with three years of study, that's shortening the French standard of seven years of study by quite a lot.
There’s also a difference in how the AT perfumer differs from a professional perfumer: an essential oil supplier once asked me why a lot of the members of my group lurked, kept quiet, seemed distant. He was used to dealing with folks who bought oils for AT. I explained that AT folks blended a few oils, loved them wanted to share their blends. Nobody critiqued them. Perfumers agonize over their complex blends, hope for public acceptance, and then they face the *ahem* dreaded perfume critic! LOL. You'll notice there are no aromatherapy perfume critics out there. Completely different discipline.
M: Completely! I am hoping that by addressing the entire spectrum of perfume, from aromatherapeutic products, to natural perfumes, to the classically styled fragrances, and even the off the shelf drugstore brands, PerfumeCritic can bring the beauty and social significance of fragrance use and olfaction to the public. So let's get to know more about you - how did you get started in perfumery? Just how young were you when struck with the realization that scent is fascinating?
A: My mother says I was two. I was so obsessed; her friends knew to give me their almost-finished bottles of perfume so I could play with them.
M: I don't think most people understand the years of study it takes one to "become" a perfumer...especially when we see so many new releases in department stores each month.
A: Well, perhaps those perfumers have gone through the system, Marlen. They work for large corporations and get lots of briefs and just are able to churn out the perfumes due to a support system that’s in place. That's mainstream perfumery.
M: I understand, Anya - my mother's friends would save their fragrance samples and turn them over to me by the bagful!
A: By age seven, I was so adept at recognizing perfumes, when my aunt gave me a wrapped present for Christmas/Hanukkah, I shook the package and pronounced it a four ounce bottle of Chanel No. 5 since I knew the heft and shape of the packaging. I was correct.
M: Hmm, well, we'll come back to the mainstream in just a bit...That reminds me...My piano teacher (when I was 12) lent me her entire set of essential and perfume oils for a few months - she had no idea she was creating a monster! Do you still wear Chanel #5?
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