Choosing which chapter of Mandy Aftel’s gorgeous The Museum of Scent: Exploring the Curious and Wondrous World of Fragrance to publish here was both pleasurable and painful. The pleasure was in lingering on passages and pictures that I loved, painful because we couldn’t excerpt the whole book! I highly recommend this generously illustrated book to the aromatically wise and naïve alike. The Museum of Scent was published last October and is a natural and cultural history of scent that was …
Tag: Mandy Aftel
Spirit Becomes Concrete: Mandy Aftel’s Jasmine Grandiflorum Concrete * Leona Godin
“Is Jasmine then the mystical Morn—the centre, the Delphi, the Omphalos of the floral world? Is it the point of departure, the one unapproachable and indivisible unit of fragrance? Is Jasmine the Isis of flowers, with veiled face and covered feet, to be loved of all yet discovered by none? Beautiful Jasmine! If it be so, the Rose ought to be dethroned and the Inimitable enthroned in her stead; suppose we create a civil war among the gardens and crown …
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Olfactory Report 10: Art/Science/Industry Roundup (Includes a Perfume Analysis!) by Catherine Haley Epstein
Art While I was unable to visit the Venice Biennale, I have scoured the internet, badgered friends who attended, and consulted various resources to unearth the one work that most directly pointed to the olfactory sense and olfactory material. Many of works included in the exhibition had tangential, suggestive and material aspects of scent. Simone Leigh’s extraordinary re-imagining of the US pavilion is called Sovereignty. Culturally potent materials like cowrie shells, plantains, raffia, and tobacco leaves have natural olfactory tones …
Nose Dive by Catherine Haley Epstein * Book Review
Nose Dive: A book for the curious seeking creative potential through their noses (2019) by Catherine Haley Epstein is an adventure for your nose in art, anthropology, and science. You will be amazed at how much you didn’t know about this oft-neglected sense. Epstein is an artist, award-winning writer, designer and curator. She wrote a great review of Milan’s Esxence for us earlier this year, and I was delighted to receive her book available for purchase HERE! As Epstein explains …
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The Marvelous, Unplanned Life of Mandy Aftel, Author, Perfumer, and Museum-Creator * Interview
“Everything I’ve done, I’ve just followed what I’ve been interested in. I’ve never had a plan, I have had no plan about any of this.” – Mandy Aftel Mandy Aftel started making natural perfumes almost 30 years ago. Her passion and artistry have won Aftelier Perfumes many awards and accolades. She’s been featured in countless magazines and blogs from Vogue to Forbes, Now Smell This to Bon Appetit. In 2003, Mandy launched Chef’s Essence, which supplies natural flavor oils and …