Mandy Aftel of indie natural line Aftelier has opened the Aftel Archive of Curious Scents..
New & upcoming perfume books for 2017
New and upcoming perfume books for 2017: The Art of Flavor: Practices and Principles for Creating Delicious Food by Mandy Aftel and Daniel Patterson, Smothering the Savage and An Imperfect Mimic by Avery Gilbert, Eisenberg Originals: The Golden Years of Fashion, Jewelry, and Fragrance, 1920s-1950s by Sharon Schwartz and Laura Sutton, Scents and Sensibility: Perfume in Victorian Literary Culture by Catherine Maxwell, Le roman des Guerlain by Élisabeth de Feydeau.
The Art of Flavor: Practices and Principles for Creating Delicious Food
A second book from chef Daniel Patterson and perfumer Mandy Aftel of Aftelier…
A limited but more exuberant lexicon
Like a chef who only uses ingredients grown within 100 miles of her kitchen, a large part of [Mandy] Aftel’s pride and satisfaction is derived from the sacrifice that comes out of self-imposed constraints. That those constraints result in a limited but more exuberant lexicon is more than just a pleasant side effect; it’s arguably what Aftel’s business is all about — exposing the uninitiated to the world’s most precious products and talking about them.
— Read more at The World’s Most Dedicated All-Natural Perfumer at The New York Times. Hat tip to Julien!
It smelled kind of like cat pee
"I shared it with Daniel [Patterson], my co-author. I did a cookbook with him, and he uses my oil in his food,” she told me. “But I didn’t have that much left, and I started to try and rebuy, and everything was dreadful. It smelled kind of like cat pee. It moves a little bit over and it’s just awful.” She spent 10 years on the hunt, sampling different crops, until she found the right kind.
If this happens to a perfume sold on a small, independent website, it’s a problem. It would be a disaster if it happened to a fragrance at Sephora, which was expected to sell millions of bottles every year.
— Mandy Aftel of Aftelier talks to The Guardian about the challenge of sourcing natural materials. Read more at 'All-natural' perfumes rarely are – but independent makers hope to change that.
From Kings to Dunkin Donuts
Realize Magazine talks to Mandy Aftel of Aftelier. It's a long conversation — about 40 minutes — and covers topics ranging from how Aftel got interested in fragrance; to her latest book, Fragrant; to her perfume organ and the basics of top, middle and base notes (they smell a 100 year old sandalwood, among others). At about the 23 minute mark, Aftel mixes up a perfume from one of the recipes in her book, and talks about how the music of Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen helps her create. [Note that the sound is messed up for a couple minutes early on in the video, but it resolves quickly.]