Anya's Garden Exotic and Rare Ylang Flower Tincture

Natural perfume house Anya's Garden Perfumes has a special treat for floral lovers, straight from Anya's garden.  (Literally.)by: Jodi Battershell

Perfumer and founder Anya McCoy has blogged over the years about the ylang-ylang trees she first planted in 2010. The trees thrive in the subtropical climate of Miami, Florida, giving Anya the chance to enjoy their natural perfume in the wild and to harvest the blossoms for use in her own natural perfumes.

After contemplating different extraction methods, Anya settled on tincturing the blossoms in organic sugar cane alcohol. This "cold" process, using flowers Anya picked at midnight, when their scent is the richest, preserves the high sweet notes of the flowers produced by what is fondly known as the "Chanel No 5 Tree." "The big, deep yellow ylang flower is the type I harvest for the tincture. The smaller, green flower with its petal curved around the ripe flower is immature, and needs a day or two to reach the maturity of the prized ylang," describes Anya.

These delicate yellow blossoms yielded a visual surprise as well. A typical steam-distilled essential oil of ylang-ylang is pale yellow in color. Anya's ylang-ylang tincture was so saturated with aroma molecules that it turned from dark green to black during the production process.

Anya originally planned to use the tincture in her perfumes, but she decided the lovely scent, produced entirely in the USA, is rare, precious and  beautiful enough to stand on its own as a natural perfume. Anya's Garden offers Ylang Tincture 2014 in 15 ml bottles, for USD $75.00. Please visit the official website of Anya's Garden to learn more and purchase a bottle.