Īftel's 2005 book Scents and Sensibilities guides the reader through the history and creation of solid perfume.

Solomon Award, and has helped pioneer the trend toward using natural ingredients. Publishers Weekly called the book a 'most extraordinary treatise on the history and making of perfume' and praised Aftel's 'sheer delight' in the material and her 'irreverent sensibility.' Įssence and Alchemy: A Book of Perfume has been translated into seven languages, won the 2001 Sense of Smell Institute's Richard B. The result, Essence and Alchemy, was published in 2001. She became interested in scent while working on a novel envisioning her protagonist would be a perfumer, Aftel began collecting rare books on perfume as part of her research, but ultimately wrote a book on the history of perfume instead. Writing Īftel is also an author herself, publishing several books in the 1980s and 1990s including a biography of Brian Jones.

Career Īftel began her career as a psychotherapist in Berkeley, with a practice focused on artists and writers. Mandy Aftel was born in Detroit and attended the University of Michigan, where she studied English and psychology in college, then earned a master's degree in counseling.

She is the owner and nose behind the natural perfume line Aftelier as well as the author of nine books, including four books on natural perfume and a cookbook on essential oils. Aftel tracks scent through the boudoir and the bath and into the sanctums of worship, and along the way teaches us the art of perfume-making, including many of her own recipes, offering insights on the relationship of scent to solitude, sex, and soul.Mandy Aftel (born 1948) is an American perfumer. 'Essence and Alchemy' resurrects the social and metaphysical legacy that is entwined with the evolution of perfumery, from the dramas of the spice trade to the quests of the alchemists. Wealthy Romans used to scent their doves while in Shakespeare's time, a woman in love would place a peeled apple into her armpit to saturate it with her scent and then present it to her lover. Īs long as there has been passion, there has been perfume. Aftel tracks scent through the boudoir and the bath and into the sanctums of worship, and. As long as there has been passion, there has been perfume.

Essence and alchemy a book of perfume