• About
  • Listening
    • Baroque
    • Bluegrass and Country
    • Classical Fusion
    • Classical Period
    • Early Music
    • Film soundtracks
    • Folk Music
    • Jazz
    • Modern Classical
    • Modern Pop Fusion
    • Musicals
    • Romantic Classical
    • Spoken word
    • World Music
  • Reading
    • Fiction
      • Children’s and Young Adult Fiction
      • Classic writers and their works
      • Contemporary Fiction
      • Crime and Detective Fiction
      • Fictionalised Biography
      • Historical Fiction
      • Horror
      • Lighter-hearted reads
      • Literary Fiction
      • Plays and Poetry
      • Romance
      • SF
      • Short stories
      • Western
      • Whimsy and Fantastical
    • Non-Fiction
      • Arts
      • Biography and Autobiography
      • Ethics, reflection, a meditative space
      • Food and Drink
      • Geography and Travel
      • Health and wellbeing
      • History and Social History
      • Philosophy of Mind
      • Science and nature
      • Society; Politics; Economics
  • Reading the 20th Century
  • Watching
    • Documentary
    • Film
    • Staged Production
    • TV
  • Shouting From The Soapbox
    • Arts Soapbox
    • Chitchat
    • Philosophical Soapbox
    • Science and Health Soapbox
  • Interviews / Q + A
  • Indexes
    • Index of Bookieness – Fiction
    • Index of Bookieness – Non-Fiction
    • Index of authors
    • Index of titles
    • 20th Century Index
    • Sound Index
      • Composers Index
      • Performers Index
    • Filmed Index

Lady Fancifull

~ adventures in a mainly literary obsession

Lady Fancifull

Tag Archives: Essence and Alchemy

Mandy Aftel – Essence and Alchemy

14 Wednesday Dec 2016

Posted by Lady Fancifull in Arts, Ethics, reflection, a meditative space, Non-Fiction, Reading, Science and nature

≈ 8 Comments

Tags

Book Review, Essence and Alchemy, Mandy Aftel, Natural Perfumery, Perfumery

Writing on perfume so fine and evocative I could smell the accords in imagination!

essence-and-alchemyAftel’s book is a delight, to all who might be interested in perfumery, the mysteries of olfaction, and, particularly how psyche and aroma connect. Her book is far from a leaf through, light on substance pretty picture coffee table book. Instead, dense and engagingly written text, lightened and deepened by beautiful line drawings – which are actually so much more satisfying (for this reader) than the usual photographer and bottles of perfume artfully arranged number.

There is something enormously pleasing about the original slow work involved in making, for example, botanical line drawings, woodcuts and the like, which are then here reproduced.

Aftel is a fascinating writer, too. Originally a psychotherapist she brings that listening delight to teasing out the useful story of ‘the other’ the uncovering of hidden meaning, to the way she sees her present vocation – perfumer. And, her interest is in natural perfumes, rather than those of novel synthesised chemistry created in a lab.

Those of us who are pulled, for many reasons, by perfume using plants, know that this is slow, reflective perfumery. At its best we are drawn into a realisation of the complexity of growing the plants, of extractions to yield their aromatics, of a weight of history behind them

And Aftel brings all this along with her in her book, connecting ‘’Per fumem” to its original, sacred roots, and the making of perfume from extracting essential oils from plants to an original pairing with alchemy.

C. Gesner, The newe jewell of health

                   C. Gesner, The newe jewell of health

Along the way as well as philosophical, psychological and historical reflections, there is much practical information for the budding kitchen perfumer, including methods, aromatic suggestions, information about what will harmoniously marry with what, and what might connect with interesting, piquant oppositions.

This is a book to enjoyably read and re-read – not to mention, embark on given formulations and sail out on one’s own to assay others.

Enfleurage, in times of yore

                          Enfleurage, in times of yore

The book concludes with a list of potential suppliers, though as this was originally published in 2001 I note some of the listed suppliers have long disembarked from their perfumed barges and vanished into the wild blue yonder,

 

There is also an extensive bibliography and reference section, to take the eager reader mandy-aftelonwards into further aromatic journeys, be these deeper into an exploration of alchemy, or neurobiology and olfaction, or, even weighty tomes exploring the history and design of perfume bottles!

This is very much a deep, broad, wide read on the subject, but beckoning the lured reader on the further exploration

Essence and Alchemy Amazon UK
Essence and Alchemy Amazon USA

Advertisement

Share this:

  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Print
  • Email
  • More
  • LinkedIn
  • Reddit
  • Pocket
  • Pinterest
  • Tumblr

Like this:

Like Loading...

Page Indexes

  • About
    • Index of Bookieness – Fiction
    • Index of Bookieness – Non-Fiction
    • Index of authors
    • Index of titles
    • 20th Century Index
  • Sound Index
    • Composers Index
    • Performers Index
  • Filmed Index

Genres

Archives

February 2023
M T W T F S S
 12345
6789101112
13141516171819
20212223242526
2728  
« Mar    

Posts Getting Perused

  • Philip Glass - Glassworks
    Philip Glass - Glassworks
  • John Steinbeck - The Grapes of Wrath
    John Steinbeck - The Grapes of Wrath
  • Barbara Vine - House of Stairs
    Barbara Vine - House of Stairs
  • Cormac McCarthy - The Road
    Cormac McCarthy - The Road
  • Joanna Rakoff - My Salinger Year
    Joanna Rakoff - My Salinger Year
  • Christiane Ritter - A Woman In The Polar Night
    Christiane Ritter - A Woman In The Polar Night
  • Janine Jansen - Bach: Inventions & Partita
    Janine Jansen - Bach: Inventions & Partita
  • Virginia Woolf - The Voyage Out
    Virginia Woolf - The Voyage Out

Recent Posts

  • Bart Van Es – The Cut Out Girl
  • Joan Baez – Vol 1
  • J.S.Bach – Goldberg Variations – Zhu Xiao-Mei
  • Zhu Xiao-Mei – The Secret Piano
  • Jane Harper – The Lost Man

NetGalley Badges

Fancifull Stats

  • 162,942 hits
Follow Lady Fancifull on WordPress.com

Enter your email address to follow this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Follow on Bloglovin

Tags

1930s setting Adult Faerie Tale Andrew Greig Arvo Pärt Autobiography baroque Beryl Bainbridge Biography Biography as Fiction Bits and Bobs Bits and Pieces Book Review Books about Books Cats Children's Book Review Classical music Classical music review Classic Crime Fiction Colm Toibin Cookery Book Crime Fiction David Mitchell Dystopia Espionage Ethics Fantasy Fiction Feminism Film review First World War Folk Music Food Industry France Gay and Lesbian Literature Ghost story Golden-Age Crime Fiction Graham Greene Health and wellbeing Historical Fiction History Humour Humour and Wit Ireland Irish writer Irvin D. Yalom Janice Galloway Japan Literary Fiction Literary pastiche Lynn Shepherd Marcus Sedgwick Meditation Mick Herron Minimalism Music review Myths and Legends Neil Gaiman Ngaio Marsh Novels about America Other Stuff Patrick Flanery Patrick Hamilton Perfumery Philip Glass Philosophy Police Procedural Post-Apocalypse Psychiatry Psychological Thriller Psychology Psychotherapy Publication Day Reading Rebecca Mascull Reflection Robert Harris Rose Tremain Russian Revolution sacred music Sadie Jones Sci-Fi Science and nature Scottish writer Second World War SF Shakespeare Short stories Simon Mawer Soapbox Spy thriller Susan Hill Tana French The Cold War The Natural World TV Drama Victorian set fiction Whimsy and Fantasy Fiction William Boyd World music review Writing Young Adult Fiction

Blog at WordPress.com.

Privacy & Cookies: This site uses cookies. By continuing to use this website, you agree to their use.
To find out more, including how to control cookies, see here: Cookie Policy
  • Follow Following
    • Lady Fancifull
    • Join 771 other followers
    • Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
    • Lady Fancifull
    • Customize
    • Follow Following
    • Sign up
    • Log in
    • Report this content
    • View site in Reader
    • Manage subscriptions
    • Collapse this bar
 

Loading Comments...
 

You must be logged in to post a comment.

    %d bloggers like this: