On the Perfumed Trail..an Interview with Ambrosia Jones, High Priestess of Scent ~ Perfume by Nature

Ambrosia Jones is, in my eyes, a High Priestess of Scent.

As a royalist and an Englishwoman I do like titles, and I dub Ambrosia High Priestess of Scent for reasons symbolically laid out in traditional Bohemian Tarot, in the Archetype of High Priestess.

In Tarot the High Priestess is the knower, she sits between two pillars with the book of knowledge in her lap. Ambrosia likewise is a knower, her knowledge of Natural Perfumery is profound, and her balanced beautiful perfume creations reflect this knowledge.

The following is a sharing of Ambrosia’s Perfumed Trail, of her life as a Natural Perfumer.

Perfume Pharmer thanks Perfumer in Residence Ambrosia Jones, Perfume by Nature, for sharing her thoughts and stories with our readers.

Please would you tell us about your beginning as a Perfumer?

It all began in my mothers garden…I’ve always been fascinated by smells, and one of my earliest childhood memories is sniffing the crushed rose petals from her delicately pink and cream colored “Peace” roses…..I also used to use up all of her toothpaste and shampoos mixing “potions” in the bathroom…

As I grew up, I began to study and collected everything scented, from herbs and flowering plants to old books on perfumery and herbal medicine, and I also began to collect perfumes…

From sticky Indian oils labelled “Arabian night” to Chanel No5, they all fascinated me and delighted me… and I also began to collect and experiment with old recipes for scents and cosmetics from all over the world…eventually,  I began to focus more and more on perfume, and the natural ingredients traditionally used for this. I was lucky enough to grow up in Europe where a great deal of herbal knowledge has been preserved and is still used. And there was an amazing museum called “The Apothecary Museum” in Heidelberg where I spent my teenage years pouring over the old books and perusing the displays of old oil bottles and unguent jars…

From there I spent the next 3 decades studying traditional herb usage around the world, and adding to my collection of interesting ingredients..and collecting qualifications in Traditional Chinese Acupressure and a Bachelor of Nursing Degree for good measure…

I started up a business making a variety of different scented things:  traditional incense made from real frankincense and myrrh and a range of herbal skin creams and oils, and at one stage was wholesaling these all over Australia under the company name “Ambrosia, Scents of Mother Earth”…but my greatest love remained perfume…

A few years ago I decided to focus exclusively on perfume and restarted the business under the name “Perfume by Nature” My approach to Perfumery is of course hugely influenced by my background in Healing.

The ancient texts I grew up with all treated the scent of the products they used as part of their healing approach. Sandalwood and Patchouli are mentioned in Ayurvedic texts as a remedy for depression, which is why I used them for the base of one of my first perfumes: “Happiness”.

So my design approach always includes the emotional and physical effect of the ingredients as well as the scent itself.

As natural perfumes mostly contain ingredients that are also used in healing/ aromatherapapy, do you believe that natural perfumes literally influence one’s health and well being?

Aromatherapy has been used for a long time and there is a huge amount of evidence out there that proves it’s effectiveness.

But it’s not that simple. Simply adding random essential oils to a bubble bath does not make it aromatherapy. You have to actually use the right oils for the effect you want to achieve. And there’s a huge amount of wrong information out there.

Translating this into perfumery is another ball game altogether too…because you need to understand your ingredients well enough to tailor them first to the person who will be wearing the perfume and their physical and emotional needs, and secondly be a good enough perfumer to marry the ingredients together in a way that also creates a beautiful scent.

Is there a link between natural perfumery and aromatherapy, new age, paganism and/or alternative medicine or spiritual healing?

I think it would be better to say that there are a lot of natural perfumers that also work within some of these areas.

Personally, I have a deep interest in shamanic practices, which grew partially out of my research into traditional uses of herbs and oils and my workshop certainly has overtones of a traditional Witches Potion room with it’s jars of roots and herbs, bottles of strange concoctions, grin!

And there is certainly a growing number of people who focus on the magical, spiritual and energy healing uses of scented ingredients.

On the other hand, what I love about interacting with other perfumers is the very wide range of cultural and spiritual backgrounds they come from. It is a true joy to see Islamic, Christian, New Age and Shamanically inclined people finding a common ground to communicate on.

Many of them bring aspects of their spiritual practices to their work as perfumers, but in a way that still allows them to share with those from other paths and faiths.

What are your sources of inspiration?

Often I will start with the concept of a certain emotional effect I want to achieve…”Love Potion” and “Happiness” are good examples of this: I wanted the perfumes to have a specific effect, in these cases an aphrodisiac and an antidepressant one respectively…from this outline I built them to be beautiful scents as well…so I guess you could call them “Aromatherapy Oriented Perfumes”.

At other times it may be a specific smell….such as “Gardenia” in which I strove to capture the actual scent of a fresh Gardenia flower as I remembered it from my grandmothers garden….

Sometimes it is a specific ingredient that fascinates me and leads me to experiment…cocoa absolute obviously inspired the making of “Death by Chocolate”…and “Goddess” started off with 2 particularly precious rose and jasmine absolutes……

“Sense of Honour” was my first person based project…I built it to bring alive my treasured memories of my grandfather….

Any future plans and dreams? How do you see yourself and your business in the next 10 years

I’m actually in the process of writing a “How to”  book on Natural Perfumery, working title “Wild Perfuming” in which I share some of my own experiences, tips and tricks which I’m hoping will be interesting to others…..

It’s basically attempting to answer all the “How do you do that?” questions I had myself when I first started out…basic stuff like what ingredients to use, what all the different terms mean, how to measure and dilute and filter things and most importantly, how to learn to smell and evaluate scents, then more on composing layers, different approaches to perfume design, blending exercises all dotted with different anecdotes from my career so far (including the many mistakes, grin!)….I’m up to 30 chapters and 14000 words so far…I keep on thinking of more things I need to include, but it’s an interesting process!

I’d love to have a larger slightly more ornate version of my present workshop, with an attached coffee bar where you can refresh your senses in between sniffing bouts!

I’d like to spend more and more time custom designing perfumes for peoples special occasions, as this is something I enjoy more than anything else…

I don’t really want to go mainstream, so I have no dreams of seeing my perfumes in department stores. I’d prefer to stay an insider tip, that special wonderful little perfume house that people go to when they want to have their own special personal perfume made to commemorate their anniversary, their wedding, or their daughters 18^th birthday…

I’d like grandmothers to bring their granddaughters to my shop to buy their first perfume, a bit like aristocracy taking their offspring to the family tailor….

And I’d also like to expand the shop to stock perfuming supplies as they aren’t easy to come by. I have built up a huge collection of contacts for everything from bottles and perfume bases to the more obscure absolutes etc…And in particular I plan on offering a range of Australian native essential oils to share these amazing scents with the rest of the world!

Do you have a spirit animal?

Yes, a few actually….what would you guess?

Black wolf.

Hehe yeah wolf did turn up first… But not black.

And why did u guess wolf?

I had a vision of you as a black wolf…in nature.

Here is what I found to explain Wolf Medicine. I love that Wolf’s power ally is the Moon,which is the symbol for psychic energy. The High Priestess is also connected with the Moon, and psychic energy. I love when power symbols come together like this.

Wolf

TEACHER

Wolf is the pathfinder, the forerunner of new ideas who returns to the clan to teach and share medicine. Wolf takes one mate for life and is loyal like Dog. If you were to keep company with Wolves, you would find an enormous sense of family within the pack, as well individualistic urge. These qualities make Wolf very much like the human race. As humans, we also have an ability to be a part of society and yet still embody our individual dreams and ideas.

The senses of Wolf are very keen, and the moon is its power ally. The moon is the symbol for psychic energy, or the unconscious that holds the secrets of knowledge and wisdom. Baying at the moon may be an indication of Wolf’s desire to connect with new ideas, which are just below the surface of consciousness. Wolf medicine empowers the teacher within us all to come forth and aid the children of Earth in understanding the Great Mystery and life.

If you have drawn Wolf’s card, you may be able to share your personal medicine with others. Your intuitive side may also have an answer or teaching for your personal use at this time. As you feel Wolf coming alive within you, you may wish to share your knowledge by writing or lecturing on information that will help others better understand their uniqueness or path in life. It is in the sharing of great truths that the consciousness of humanity will attain new heights. Wolf could also be telling you to seek out lonely places that will allow you to see your teacher within. In the aloneness of a power place, devoid of other humans, you may find the true you. Look for teachings no matter where you are. Wolf would not come to you unless you requested the appearance of the tribe’s greatest teacher.

Interview by Monica Miller, Pharm Marm.

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