Mandy Aftel Natural Essence Box

Mandy Aftel Natural Essence Box includes her newly released and GORGEOUS book Museum Of Scent, two of her incredible Chef’s Essences  – Fresh Ginger and Litsea Cubeba (Lemon), and her cult-favorite Perfume Wheel.

Note from Lavanya:

Mandy Aftel is a pioneer of Natural Perfumery in the US. (Some of the green beauty brands that many of you love have either taken classes with Mandy or source ingredients from her amazing collection of oils & extracts). Mandy has been called many things from ‘Queen of Green’ & ‘Queen of Natural Perfume’ to ‘Alice Waters of American natural perfume’. To me she is all that and more: a muse, a favorite artisan, and an inspiration. Mandy takes slow beauty & slow perfume to an entirely different level creating pieces of wearable olfactory art.

Fun Fact: She has created bespoke perfume for the likes of Leonard Cohen and Madonna.

In 2017, Mandy Aftel opened a Museum of Scent in Berkeley, called Aftel Archive of Curious Scents, showcasing her collection of rare essences, perfumed artifacts, and more. And just a couple of months ago, her book The Museum of Scent: Exploring the Curious and Wondrous World of Fragrance, was published, bringing all the wonderful information about each of the perfumed ingredients in her Museum, right to our shelves. 

Another way to experience essences is through food and Mandy sources the highest quality ‘Chef’s Essences’ to add distinct & delicious flavors to food. These Essences are used in Michelin-starred restaurants. Mandy Aftel says: “All of our Chef’s Essences are 100% pure & natural essential oils and extracts — there is nothing else added. They are either wild-harvested or farmed without pesticides in small batches using sustainable practices. We test dozens of oil samples from around the world to find the most flavorful varieties of fruits, citruses, herbs, spices, and flowers.”

We have included two for you: Fresh Ginger oil extracted in Indonesia from the fresh root (tastes amazing in Stews, Curries, and Fried Rice) and Litsea Cubeba oil is a lemony-floral wildharvested extract that I love adding to pasta sauces and stir-fried rice.

This box also includes the Aftelier Natural Perfume Wheel©, which says Mandy “is an invaluable tool to help organize the world of natural essences and link vocabulary to scent. It is a straightforward visual way to link scent experience to description, and to understand the relationships between scents and scent families.”

We have a variation of this Box with mini perfume here!

Ships only within the U.S.