Description
Jill Mulvaney from The Alembics Lab leads a small group through a comprehensive range of fragrance-building techniques using seasonal organic botanicals, and introduces us to the wide range of ingredients we use to make natural perfumes. We will build our own bespoke blends, and explore the ways you can work with the natural ingredients around you to make and prepare these blends. (Suitable for both beginners and experienced distillers).
**When you sign up for these in-person workshops, you will also receive a complimentary online Foundation Distillation Course of your choice (valued at $175). All our online courses come with lifetime access, so you can refer back to them whenever you need, making them a great learning resource. Feel free to explore your online course before or after your workshop with us.
Saturday Workshop Schedule
Covers alcohol, oil and water-based perfumes. Includes blending with perfume accords, distilling aromatic hydrsol and perfume attars.
- Create a perfume in the still—using a 10L copper column still, we will distil a selection of seasonal botanicals taken from our environment to create a ‘perfume of place’. (Combo steam/hydro distillation).
- Includes plant selection, harvesting, packing the still, when to stop, correct collection, bottling and storage.
- ‘Fragrance explainer’—Jill introduces us to our fragrance palette. Explore and sample the range of ingredients we use to create different natural fragrances—waxes, resins, aromatic tinctures, perfume oils and essential oils.
- Includes how we source and make the elements in our scent library, and how to create your own fragrance palette—by focusing on working on a small-scale, using what you already have around you to create a scent library that reflects your own environment.
- Eau de parfum—learn to create perfume accords using the traditional pyramid structure. We will create our own eau de parfum from our selection of natural fragrance essences—utilising resins, lichens, seasonal aromatic fruits and flowers (diluted with aromatic hydrosol) while our combo distillation progresses.
- BREAK FOR LUNCH
- Perfume oils—learn how to capture elusive scents, based on the ancient method of distilling attars (or ittars).
- Using a 10L cask hood, we will steam distil seasonal botanicals into an aromatic base oil, layering scent to create unique aromatic perfume oils.
- Perfume waxes—while our attar is distilling, Jill walks us through the process for making perfume waxes (based on the extraction technique for absolutes).
- Finishing off our perfume oil distillation—using our newly-distilled attar as the base, create your own perfume oil blend, enhanced with your favourite essential oils.
Sample bottles of everything prepared during the workshop will also be available to take home—our aromatic hydrosol, your own perfume oil and eau de parfum blends.
Getting here: Ferries depart from downtown Auckland, and take approximately 45 minutes. If you are not staying on the island, we recommend an 8am ferry to arrive in plenty of time. You can easily bus to the venue—public buses depart from the ferry terminal at Matiatia. All three buses (50A, 50B and 502) will get you here—just ask your friendly driver which stop to get off at to get you to Moa Ave.
Lunch: The Lab is an easy 10 minute walk from the shops and cafés of Oneroa Village.
