Perfume Tea Party

On a toasty September afternoon, a handful of LA ladies got together to make perfume. Hosted by my friend Shiva Rose of The Local Rose and Kirsty Hume, this afternoon was gorgeous and inspiring to the max. Natural perfumer Mandy Aftel of Aftelier Perfumes flew down from Berkeley to teach us about top, middle and base notes. We smelled dozes of essential oils, selected the scents we like best (turkish rose, blood orange, tabacco and fir were among my faves) and waited for the expert Mandy to review our proposed formulas. Once approved, we mixed drops of each oil into a beaker and handed them over to Mandy’s partner who turned each mixture into solid perfume. While we waited for our perfume to be ready, we sampled tea blends and snacked on baked goods created by The Paper Palate, like a rose-topped Chocolate Cardamom Ricotta Tart. This was a dreamy afternoon and I’m super inspired to host a tea party/perfume party this fall. Oh! One last thing – Vogue wrote about this magical afternoon.

All photos by Mel Blanchard (minus the final picture, taken by Beatrice Valenzuela)