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New Service: Seasonal Subscription Boxes

New Service: Seasonal Subscription Boxes


Ever wanted to be a fly on the wall in a perfumer's lab? This is the next best thing! Get a whiff of what's brewing in Ayala Moriel Parfums studio each season, which is not only perfume! I also create incense, soaps and natural cosmetics from the best ingredients on the planet, fragrant teas and even chocolates! 

If you follow my feeds (on Instagram and Facebook), you probably already noticed that I just love plants and love growing, harvesting and handcrafting beautiful things from them. Some are fragrant, such as incense, enfleurage, and hysrosols, but are not exactly feasible to produce in large amounts as they are so precious and time-consuming to extract, and are truly too precious to offer regularly in my selection at the online boutique. At the same time, what's the point of making them if I can't share them with you?

And so I've decided to leverage my various interests and experimentations with anything plant-related, to bring to you one-of-a-kind packaging for these seasonal delights. These are bundles of joy and delight, each a surprise that is carefully curated each season, and although all are made by one pair of hands, I believe they will be just as versatile and surprising as any subscription box you could dream of. 

Therefore, you won't be getting boxes per-se, but rather, packaging that is handmade, beautiful, sustainable and reusable - Furoshiki from up cycled fabrics, locally made botanical Japanese-style paper (a collaboration with a local artisan), and last but not least - eco-printed natural fabrics and baskets that I weave from wild and local plants I harvest and forage around my beautiful studio in Clil, in the Western Galilee of Israel.
The Summer Subscription box is schedule to be ready to travel to you in June, so that you have it in time to celebrate the Summer Solstice. The following seasonal mailouts are planned to coincide with the Autumnal EquinoxWinter Solstice and Vernal Equinox in the spring. 

Almond Blossom Paper

Almond Blossom Paper

Since the day I completed Hanami perfume I had a vision for making Hanami paper as well. I collected Sakura (cherry blossoms) and pressed them, but didn't know till meeting master papermaker Izhar Neuman, that I didn't have the right materials, or the right idea of the process...

As much as I like to be hands-on and create everything possible that I dream of, I knew right then and there that I should leave this task for him. He has created for me paper from my recycled scent-strips (still a work in progress, as the original concept was to make this into a scented paper, and the scent didn't really come through). When I saw his exhibit of handcrafted paper, along with several other artists, I fell in love with the almond-blossom lampshade that his apprentice Neta has created. It was just about the end of almond blossom season. I managed to harvest a boxful of fresh flowers from my bitter almond tree, and drove up to Jatt where Izhar's workshop is. A few days later, the paper was ready. 

Strangely, and fortunately, the freshness and colours of the blossom gets preserved in the paper, in a manner that is not possible to produce with pressed dried flowers or any other technique I know of. Something about them being trapped within the two layers of fine paper fibres convinces them to keep blooming. it's a sort of paper enfleurage I supposed. 

Wooden mallet used for pounding and breaking down the paper mulberry fibres, from the inner bark of the tree. Izhar grows his own mulberry trees in Clil, harvests them and makes traditional Japanese paper from their gorgeous translucent fibres, in his atelier in Jatt, the neighbouring village. Earlier that winter, I took my Botanical Alchemy students to Izhar's workshop to experience first hand the process of peeling off the steamed mulberry branches. 

Traditional Japanese paper press for flattening and further refining handmade paper. 


The paper custom-made for me, against the natural light from the window. 

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