Enrollment Closes Tonight for the Traditional Incense Crafting Course!

I would like to remind you that today is the last day to sign up for The Traditional Incense Crafting Course and receive some fantastic bonuses! 

If you register by midnight tonight, Nov. 12th, you’ll receive 3 new bonuses (5 in total!):

*Incense Crafting Starter Kit – A variety of aromatic wood and resin powders help you make your first few batches of incense. Plus free shipping within the US! ($50 value)

*Aromatics & Incense Master Interview Series – Precious and rare insights into the world of incense and scent with hours of interviews from the world’s top incense crafters, perfumers, and herbalists. ($97 value)

*Incense Resins Mini-Course — Learn all about the wide world of tree gums and resins—the incense crafters favorite ingredients. Know their histories, uses, and how to incorporate them in incense, infused oils, salves, and other healing and fragrant products. From the resins ambassador Dan Riegler ($149 value)

*Natural Perfumery Mini-Course –Learn the foundations of Natural Perfumery and how to make botanical extractions and formulate and craft amazing homemade perfumes in this in-depth introductory class from master natural perfumer, Ayala Moriel.  ($149 value)

*The Materia Aromatica eBook – A collection of the traditional therapeutic, ritual, and historical uses of 20 of the most popular aromatic incense plants. ($9 value)

*PLUS, Evan just announced a new $33 a month payment plan today for the course!

The knowledge in this program from the Northwest School of Aromatic Medicine can add layers of depth to your understanding of plants and healing, and gives you more ways to use aromatics plants in your life; whether with your clients, in your business, or in your home.

You’ll be guided to work with the natural world’s raw aromatic materials and be shown many professional incense techniques, tips and tricks. You’ll also gain confidence to continue developing your incense practice after the course is complete.

I'm so happy to be able to share this opportunity with you at a discounted price with such great bonuses!

I really think you’ll love this class. I’ve personally taken the incense programs from the Northwest School of Aromatic Medicine, and loved every moment. I learned so many incredibly valuable teachings and had so much fun in the process!

Reserve your spot in program today! 

See you in there,

Ayala Moriel

Invitation to the Traditional Incense Crafting Course

Incense is one of the oldest herbal traditions that brings healing, spiritual enhancement, pleasure, and positivity to people all around the world. 

To be able to make your own custom incense blends for fragrance, therapeutics, or ritual is a powerful skill that can bring potent transformation to your aromatherapy or herbal practice, your friends and family, or your customers and patients. 

And that's what my good friend Evan Sylliaasen’s Traditional Incense Crafting Course is all about!

I'm excited to invite you to enroll in the only in-depth, comprehensive online program on traditional incense crafting there is.

This special offer is only available this week so be sure to check it out today!

This one-of-a-kind program is a culmination of Evan’s 10 years of professional incense crafting as the founder of Higher Mind Incense, his study of incense cultures from around the world, and thousands of hours of trial and error learning the best methods for making many types of incense. 

Learn all the details here

If you've ever felt like there was something missing in your work with plants or aroma, or you've been wanting to learn more about the traditional roots and teachings behind aromatics, the Traditional Incense Crafting Course is your missing link!

This program respectfully weaves different fragrant teachings together to create a synergy of practicality, modern practice, ancient tradition, and spirit.   

In the program you’ll learn:

• The histories and traditions of incense as medicine, as the roots of all aromatic arts, and as the most universal ritual tool
• Properly use gums and resins, binders and bases, fragrant hardwoods, and oil-dense botanicals
• Learn multiple modes of formulation for therapeutics, fragrance, and ritual, & understand how to use the 4 Key Elements of a successful incense
• Craft incense cones and sticks that burn properly, hold their form, and smell amazing
• Incorporate essential oils to enhance your incense and utilize plant medicine to the fullest
• Make your own loose incense blends for healing, ritual, and fragrant enjoyment

And much more.. 

Learn more about this special program here

Evan’s generosity, passion and philosophy resonates with my feelings and attitudes to the world of natural aromatics. His respect for the world of plants and the ancient traditions that work with plant medicines around the world really comes through in everything he does, including this very generous and thorough online video course. You will find the instruction easy to follow, and the breadth and depth of this program make it a wonderful experience even when attending from the comfort of your own home. I can’t recommend this incense making course enough! 

I wish there was a program like this when I started out on my path some 20 years ago, and I'm pleased to be contributing something to it, with three bonus videos that will be featured in the course later in November. 

I hope to see you there!

- Ayala

P.s. This special offer and discounted program price is only available for One Week, so don’t miss this special opportunity!

Citrus & Colognes + Lab 101 Masterclass begins November 1st

Citrus & Colognes + Lab 101 Masterclass begins November 1st, 4:00-5:00pm Israel/Palestine Time.

You're invited to begin exploring the world of perfume creation though wonderfully accessible raw materials, some of them even from your grocery store, garden and citrus grove.

We'll learn how to create historic Aqua Mirabillis and Eaux de Colognes-style fragrances, Agua de Florida, and more. This is your entry ticket to learning in-depth perfume composition, and get over any fear you may have had from working the bench (scale, dilutions, complex looking formulae, etc.). If this sounds like magic to you, enjoy a 50% off the normal price for this correspondence course, and pay $450 instead of $900 for 12 Zoom classes, as well as online group support, email support and much more fun and friends all over the world! Students from all over the world have enjoyed connecting and learning through this format in our Spring & Summer sessions via Zoom and I'm excited to offer this introductory course again this fall. Looking forward to meeting you soon XO Ayala 

Khulnejan Soap on Its Way

Coming up soon from the drying rack: Khulnejan soap. Khulnejan is Arabic for galangal, the main ingredient in the brew that inspired this soap: Meghli tea, AKA the Druze answer to Pumpkin Spice Latte. Those of you who attended my many fall and winter events on Haro Street probably know it as "Witch's Brew". This spicy tea is made by simmering dried galangal root of a very particular kind that is both very hot and musky, with added dried ginger root. Optional is also the addition of cinnamon and cloves, which I opt for as a sweetener rather than packing it with sugar as is customary to do, as well as sprinkled nuts on top. Anyway, the soap has a teeny bit of honey as a sweetener as well... Actually more for improving lather during the bathing experience, and conditioning to the skin. The soap will be ready just in time for Halloween, as well as all the winter festivities to follow.

Beach Lily

Happy Summer Solstice! 

There is a secret spot on the northernmost beach, below the sandstone slopes laden with beach lilies, purple everlasting and sea-celery,  where saltwater meets a freshwater spring. It is accessible only in low tide, when the spring is revealed and its water can be drank and purify before the short stream is swallowed by the thirsty tongue of the Mediterranean Mother. When the tide is up, the flowing spring is immediately consumed by her salty womb and none would know it was in the least diluted. 

Today, 21.06.2020 is an unusual day: the sun is at its peak, and there is also a Sun Eclipse. This reminds me of the merging of the two waters. And therefore, I chose this day to release my new creation, Beach Lily. 

This is a perfume in honour of one of my favourite flowers - the Sea Daffodil (Pancratium maritimum), an endangered bulb flower that usually only beings to bloom at the end of summer and early fall (sometime around late August and early September). This year I have already seen some in bloom in mid-June! It has an incredible scent, very heady and lily-like, with a hint of green, that intensifies in the afternoon and evening, and attracts night pollinators. 

The process for creating this scent was a bit unusual: It actually started as a soap-scent for my Beach Lily shampoo bar with Coconut Milk & Shea Butter, and I loved it so much that I turned it into a fully-fledged perfume. On this conspicuous day, both the Beach Lily shampoo bar and perfume are ready for you to enjoy. And also the label design has just got in.  

Credits are due to my graphic designer who is so talented, hard working and a joy to work with. Thank you, Terry! And many thanks also to my brother Yotam Dehan, who took this gorgeous Sea Daffodil photograph back in 2006 and sent it to me when I was still living in Canada (and missing all these special wild flowers). Wise Woman Inbal Levite taught me that this plant is the teacher of unconditional love, and I think my brother's simple gesture of sharing a photo of something I love so much is an act of love. How blessed I am to live next to such plant teachers, and to my close family that I love so much. 

Each bottle contains a few drops of both saltwater and freshwater, from the secret, swollen spring; and I put a little bit of both low tide water and spring water just for you. With these bottles of fragrance, saltwater and freshwater, I share with you my love for the sea and the wild beaches. May they be clean and rich with sea life! I will donate 20% of each bottle sale to "Mediterranean People", a local organization that works to protect the beaches and sealife (particularly the Sea Turtles, whose eggs are being laid these days), keeps the beaches clean and does ongoing educational campaigns in this beautiful nature reserve, just 20 minutes away from my studio. 

Today I feel truly blessed and grateful for Nature and beauty and a good health and being surrounded by love - far and near. If you ever find yourself feeling lonely or unloved, remember that you contain all this unconditional love within you. May this perfume be a reminder of that, and of all the love you receive (maybe not romantic, but that is not the only love that nourishes us!) and the unconditional love that you too embody.  

Top notes: Bayberry, Galangal, Ruby Red Grapefruit

Heart notes: Ylang Ylang, Jasmine, Ginger Lily

Base notes: Sandalwood, Foikienia 

Seville Orange Marmalade

Anything can become an obsession. Even marmalade. This translucent, jelly-like sunshine-in-a-jar has become such an institution in English afternoon tea and continental breakfasts that entire festivals and competitions have been dedicated to it. Seeing that I have a Seville orange tree (AKA bitter orange) that is never completely used up, I set up to prepare some marmalade for the Purim's treat-kits (Mishloah Manot) which is a tradition of giving your neighbours and friends a little care package with baked goods, sweets and wine. Kinda like the opposite of Trick-or-Treating for the Jewish carnival-like holiday of costume-wearing and getting drunk beyond all logic. 

I've tried several reliable recipes, online and offline, which promised no need for any added pectin for the marmalade to set. Supposedly, such jams, which contain the skins, seeds, pith and juice of these bitter-sour  suckers would have all you need to make such spectacular marmalade, and the only thing added would be sugar (in lesser quantities than those needed for pectin-boosted ones). I have used some recipes from online, some recipes from The Joy of Cooking. I won't share a recipe here because non of them succeeded under my hands to deliver the desired effect without adding pectin. Nevertheless, they have become translucent and very delicious. But most did't at all set. Those who I was able to give them to before the holiday (which was followed closely by the Coronavirus instigated country-wide lockdown, beginning in March 15th) immensely enjoyed them. Some remained in my home because I wasn't able to deliver them all in time; and instead were given to the post office clerks who helped me ship out orders in the beginning of this strange, new era. 

I made some with only seville oranges and a little lemon; some tinged with rosemary sprigs; and others with a mix of pink grapefruit and seville oranges and a little lemon (the latter is notorious for its high pectin contents). They were all delicious. But didn't set without pectin. Some I use as syrup to top ice creams or drizzle on pancakes. Or on Pannacotta. Or rice pudding. Or Malabi for that matter. Any kind of neutral desert that can use some brightening and tangy contrast would be great as a backdrop for this liquid sunshine. The ones that I used pectin for were mostly given as presents. Except for that one that I sent to my grandma via my mom (a whole 1 Liter jar) which she forgot to give and carried it in her handbag all the way back from Tel Aviv to Clil via train; probably one of the last trains before the lockdown). 

I'm including photographs for your enjoyment. When I qualify for a Marmalade festival submission maybe I will also share a recipe. For now, please try the ones in Joy of Cooking 

(which I'm sure are the ones my grandmother used to make hers - she always made the one with mixed citrus - orange, lemon and grapefruit) and let me know if you managed to make it set.  

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.