Just a couple of hours after landing in SFO, I headed to Berkeley, for my long-awaited visit with world renown natural perfumer and writer Mandy Aftel. Peaking through the thoroughly-shingled house, a window offers a glimpse into the world that awaits within: several rows of antique and vintage perfume bottles, beakers and flasks. I knocked with a copper door-knocker shaped like knocking wrist, and Foster, Mandy’s husband, greeted me with a smile. Moments later, Mandy joined him welcoming me with a big warm hug.


Mandy gave me the tour of her lovely home studio, which upon entry had a distinct smell of raw natural aromatics, although not in the least overpowering and my nose got used to it very quickly. I browsed through her beautiful flacons to smell her newest creations – Honey Blossom, which was nominated for FiFi, and smells primarily of linden blossom CO2; and Candide, which is a voluptuous jasmine possessing both depth and light, partly I think because of the beautiful frankincense and the highlights of the natural isolate benzyl acetate (which is a very sheer, bright ester that is present in most white florals – i.e.: gardenia, jasmine, ylang ylang, narcissus, hyacinth, etc.), and even got a whiff of Haute Claire - the new perfume she created during her correspondence with perfumer Liz Zorn on Nathan Branch's blog, based on a contrasting accord of galbanum and ylang ylang.

Mandy has generously let me feast my olfactory bulb on her fascinating perfumer’s organ, featuring not only unusual and at times quirky aromatics (sarsaparilla absolute, for instance) and isolates; but also most rare, vintage oils of years past – patchouli, and twin glass bottles of vintage ambergris tincture and ambreine (an isolate) that came encased in an antique leather box.


I also smelled other rare treasures, such as her tiare absolute, blue lotus absolute (the prettiest I’ve ever smelled!) and the foody sarsaparilla (yum!), and even a rare tincture of musk deer’s pods (without the grains inside, which were scraped away before the pod found its way to Mandy’s studio). The musk tincture did not smell remotely as I imagined it would be – it was more green than animalic to my nose, almost like angelica. I personally prefer ambrette seed so much better, but than I have never blended with musk and it is likely to have an unusual effect beyond how it smells on its own, similarly to how ambergris behaves, which is why animal essences have been in such demand for centuries, and why there is still so much controversy around them. Thankfully, there are alternatives available to today’s perfumers that are sustainable as well as cruelty free and reach similar effects. Perfumers today are using African stone tincture instead of civet and castoreum; ambrette seed instead of musk; and beach harvested ambergris, which does not harm any whales in the process – and of course, mass scale perfumery would use the synthetic alternatives.


We both share a passion for tea, so I was very excited when Mandy brewed a pot of her Frankincense GABA oolong tea. Mandy’s technique of scenting her teas is very different than mine – technically they are “aromatized” with the essences she chooses and blends carefully (where as mine are blends of teas that were often perfumed with flowers, in conjunction with freshly dried herbs, spices, fruit, etc.). I was pleasantly surprised at the delicate, subtle complexity of these scented teas. They were so beautiful and balanced. I smelled all four from their tins (linden blossom, and the jasmine & mint were both beautiful but there was only time for so many teas in one afternoon!). We started with the Frankincense GABA tea – an oolong rich with antioxidants and scented with a tincture Mandy prepared herself of an unusual specimen of frankincense that has a very smooth note. It opened feeling quite citrusy, like a light Earl Gray or Orange Pekoe tea, and the woody notes only peaked out later on as she kept re-steeping the tea. To my delight, when we were done sipping this delicate brew, she prepared her beautiful Ginger & Turkish Rose Tea (also oolong tea), a combination that sounded strange to me when I first saw it, but smelled so delicate in the dry leaf, and just sublime when steeped. Mandy certainly has a knack for surprising scent combinations, and being able to reach a stunning balance with notes that wouldn’t normally pair too easily together.


Isolates seem to be a newly found obsession among natural perfumers, as they open many possibilities with their single-molecule purity – a quality that is so different from the complex essences we work with, often containing dozens if not hundreds of different molecules. It was not difficult to fall in love with some of the isolates Mandy picked for he palate – Benzyl acetate (jasminey), Octanol-3 (rubbery and a little like black truffle), Alpha Ionone (woody sweet candied violets), Methyl Methyl Anthranilate (grapey wintergreen), and anisaldehyde (like heliotropin with hints of licorice and green notes). I bought a few interesting isolates and oils at the end of the visit, and also Mandy generously gifted me with the very last bottle of her Petitgrain Citron, which she describes as possessing the scent of Meyer lemon blossoms!

Time flies when having fun, and sooner than I hoped the visit had to come to an end – after all, I couldn’t be late for the party Yosh Han organized for me… About which I will tell you in the next post, tomorrow!

Leave a comment with your favourite Aftelier perfume or product, and enter to win a miniature of Aftelier's Cassis parfum.
UPDATE: The winner of our giveaway is Lavanya. Congratulations! Hope you enjoy the Cassis :-)

Note: All the photos are courtesy of Mandy Aftel and copyrighted to Aftelier.

P.s. The visit was on June 29th.

“The nightmare city was gone (…) In the interval the city had disappeared. The roar of it no longer dinned upon his ears. Before him was smiling country, streaming with sunshine, lazy with quietude”.
(Jack London, White Fang)

So begins White Fang's life in Northern California, which resonates with my state of mind these days. Although I can't really say that Vancouver is all that intimidating of a city (unless you are a wild wolf meeting it for the first time...), nor is it detached from nature to that point that I feel disconnected from it; but somehow, after my 13 consecutive years of urban life, and swearing by it as if my sanity depends on it, I'm coming to a realization that even that phase might pass. I'm not so much fed up with the city itself as much as I'm longing for simplicity, and am a little bit tired by how materialistic city life can be. Of course, even for city-dwellers, there is still some choice in the matter. It's not as if living in the city is by default materialistic; but it certainly is far easier to get there and try to fill any existential void that might present itself with pretty things (or at least window shopping for them).

The other part of my White Fang equation is the longing for a slightly warmer climate. Growing up in Israel, I was always attracted to the North - especially Canada where I was born. Not that Vancouver is really a hard-core Northern city, but the greenery, snowy mountains, forceful rivers and soft cloud-filtered light certainly have their Pacific Northwest magic to them. However, these days I'm trying to break free from these glass towers, where my heart was kept on ice for years of exile... I'm seeking a change of scene and my spirit wants to wander southbound, where the sun is warm and rarely gets interrupted by rain. A place where the country is smiling!

And until I'm there again, all I can do is bottle up my dreams (no pun intended) and work feverishly on my perfume for the Midsummer Night's Dream scent event. Which is the only excuse why this post ever made it to SmellyBlog. But it will all make sense in the end... I promise.

One of the lovely things about travel is how it randomly brings new scents into your life. I was out of my travel size hand cream and had no alternative (body lotion or what not) when I headed down to Sonoma last Friday, and I just had to do something about it. Across from the gate was Butter London's boutique, so I stepped in, hoped for the best, and the best turned out to be this relatively natural smelling Lemongrass Sage Hand & Nail Creme. It went perfectly well with my Ayalitta perfume I was wearing that day and I was glad to embrace a new scent in my life (at least while traveling). The cream itself is very light, not nearly as effective as my favourite* but it did the trick and saved my hands' skin from falling apart during this trip. I liked it so much that on the way back I got another tube for my dear friend Tina, who always takes care of business when I'm away, and also got me on the plane in the first place. She loves lemongrass and she liked the scent immediately.

* I like using Aveda's hand cream, which is very nourishing, and basically saves my hands from being as dry as the desert with all the frequent washing I need to do as part of work; it also has a surprisingly light scent, unlike most of their other products, and does not clash too much with most of the perfumes I'm wearing.