Lalique will launch Fleur de Cristal, a new fragrance marking the 150th anniversary of the birth of René Lalique.
The notes for the floral fragrance for women include bergamot, jasmine…
Organic Glam Citron, Oriental Blossom, Jasmine & Oud ~ new perfumes
The Organic Pharmacy’s Organic Glam line has launched their debut fragrance collection. The four fragrances, Citron, Oriental Blossom, Jasmine and Oud are 100% natural and organic…
Strange Invisible Perfumes Tahitian Honey & Vacances ~ new fragrances
Strange Invisible Perfumes has launched two new limited edition fragrances for summer, Tahitian Honey and Vacances:
Both celebrate the idyllic locales of summer…
Natural perfumes: a few favorites
About the author: Trish Vawter is the creator of Scent Hive, a blog dedicated to natural perfumes and beauty products. She lives in the Pacific Northwest with her husband and two boys, and is a practicing nurse midwife.
I come to this guest post with sincere excitement and admittedly, a dose of trepidation. Since I write primarily about natural perfumes and beauty products at Scent Hive, I am acutely aware that discussions can get heated around the “natural” topic. While I do prefer natural perfumes, I don’t want this post to become a natural vs synthetic debate, mostly because I don’t believe one to be superior to the other. But I do have reasons for my preference which I will share with you.
Beauty is ephemeral, and I appreciate that in a fragrance. It’s not quite the first thing most people regard as a virtue in perfume, but there’s delight in reapplying perfume over the course of a day. Oftentimes it’ll be a different perfume depending on my mood or where I am going. But there’s a balance to be struck: a perfume that’s too fleeting is frustrating, so I want my perfume to last a few hours, if not longer, which most high quality natural perfumes do. Yet, I don’t like a perfume to last into the next day, or to have huge sillage. Less tenacity and more intimacy are the qualities I seek. Additionally, longevity and sillage are commonly enhanced in synthetic perfumes with phthalates, a petrochemical I try to avoid in all beauty products.
While I find the evanescence of naturals compelling…
About as much fun as picking cat hair off an angora sweater
One of the first plants to greet visitors by the front walk is a rare 15-foot-tall Chinese perfume tree. “It has the tiniest flowers you have ever seen,” Ms. McCoy said, “about the size of a match head.” Gathering these yellow blooms, by her account, sounds like it’s about as much fun as picking cat hair off an angora sweater. But the bouquet is peerless: a little “like whole warm uncut lemon,” she said.
— The New York Times talks to Anya McCoy of Anya's Garden (and several other natural perfumers) about distilling their own raw materials in In the Garden: Making Flowers Into Perfume.