Perfume

The paragraphs below this one are written by Liliana Pagnotta, who owns an eco-friendly perfume and tea atelier called Arkadia, in Buenos Aires, Argentina. She creates the perfumes herself, including the ones pictured above, which are from a line called Loya Rossa, and are made from native Argentinean herbs. She also has a line based on teas such as green tea and white tea.

A History of Perfume

A magical world surrounds tea and perfumes. Perfumists, heirs of the ancient magicians, are even today considered to be modern day alquimists.

Perfumes have accompanied men since the beginning of times. In 9000 b.c. men used them to please the Gods in order get food and shelter; the term perfume (from the latin Perfumus – “through smoke”) derives from those days, because plants were burned so that their aroma could find its way to heaven, Gods’ residence.

The properties of beautiful aromas and delicious flavors obtained from the Camellia plant were well known in China , in 3700 b.c.; in fact, a specific variety of this plant provides us with Tea.

In the 9th century, Arabs already knew about the method of plant and flower distillation in order to “capture its soul”, technique its said they copied from an Egyptian alquimist who, in the 5th century b.c.., developed the famous Kyphy (classic incense made from the maceration of 17 different herbs with aromatic resins, honey, wine and raisins).

Later on, in the 16th century, Catalina de Médicis encouraged her personal perfumists to develop new techniques to perfume the beautiful and fragrant Versailles palace. As a result, the city of Grasse was born. This is the perfume capital in the south of France and still today houses the most beautiful fragrance ateliers.

Nowadays, perfume is one of the most profitable and venerated industries by the modern man. Loyal to those bucolic images, Liliana Pagnotta (founder of Arkadia, made to order aromas and flavors) continues to capture these “beautiful subjects” (as she calls them) in her collections, which include teas, perfumes and books related to the subject.


A big thank you to Liliana for providing the passages above. I’m not very knowledgeable about perfume, so it’s good to have some insight from someone who knows a lot more! Check out Liliana’s website: http://www.arkadiavirtual.com.ar/. It’s in Spanish, but if you don’t know any Spanish, you can use Google to translate it into English. And check out her store if you are ever in Buenos Aires. I would love to go South America myself one day, so I will keep it in mind if I ever visit Argentina

Closer to home, only last year, I couldn’t find any eco-friendly perfume in New Zealand, but now there are quite a few options. I recently bought Origins Shedonism Exotic Floral Essence, normally $110 for 50ml, but I got it for $70 on sale at Kirkaldies, because it is unfortunately being discontinued. It’s a lovely light flowery scent.

Kirkaldies also sells Ren Rosa Maya EDP, $165 for ml (in their Mecca Cosmetica store). It’s a floral, musky scent.

Available at Commonsense Organics and Nature Unplugged is Latential Latentialme EDT, $79.95 for 50ml. This smells GORGEOUS – it is described as a ‘fruity floral’, and it smells fruity, zesty, and yummy.

WORLD Beauty Store sells Aesop fragrances. There are two of them (both Eau de Toilette fragrances) – Marrakech, which has notes of clove, cardamom and jasmine, and Mystra, which has incense and resin notes. I can’t remember the exact price of them, but I think they are $199 at WORLD Beauty, although the Aesop website lists them as $140 each (however, that may be in Australian dollars).

If you would rather go for a more low-cost option, try Nuts Cream Perfume Organic Rose de rosée, $39.95, available at Life Pharmacy stores. It smells kind of nutty (Or maybe I just think that because of the brand name!) as well as like roses.

Another option is to order fragrances online via the Viola Organics website . These fragrances are not the Viola Organics brand, but instead are made by Aubrey Organics (and they also sell the Latentialme perfume). You can order the Aubrey Organics perfumes in full size bottles (60ml) for $42.50, or in 2ml sample bottle for $2.50. The fragrances available are Angelica, which has notes of citrus and lavender, Jade Spice, which has notes of ginger, mandarin and cardamom, and Musk which has notes of neroli and bergamot. Please note that these fragrances are available for delivery only within New Zealand.