Stephanie Vinson Of Stephanie K Naturals

I grew up in Amarillo, a small city at the center of the Texas panhandle, with two wonderful parents, a sister who is to this day my best friend, and two little puppy dogs in the backyard.

Stephanie with her parents and sister

As a child I always had creative leanings. My first “when I grow up” was to be an artist–along with being a scientist and an astronaut. I didn't have a great deal of patience with drawing and painting though, which were the only types of artists that existed in my child's mind. So I abandoned the intent of becoming an “artist,” but I still felt most fulfilled in creating things. I made jewelry, sculptures, small decorative items and crafts. On the computer, I'd make banners printed on dot matrix feeder paper, digital drawings in Microsoft Paint, and eventually full websites coded from scratch. When I went to college, I studied graphic design and became a web designer.

One thing that lingered in the background was the fact that I got severe headaches from inhaling fragrances. It didn't seem to matter what type—perfumes, candles, bath and body products. What it actually is within mass manufactured fragrances that triggers my headaches I may never know. What I discovered though was that with pure essential oils, I could enjoy their scent and wear them without any trouble at all. It opened a brand new world to me. I made blends for myself and felt called to make fragrances that more sensitive people could wear. It is fulfilling both on a personal and a creative level. There's something about perfume-making that felt right, yet I felt for a long time that perhaps I was trying to enter a world I didn't and couldn't ever understand. Could I ever really become good at something when I couldn't study what are considered the greats?

 

I have had no formal training in perfumery but as I experimented, it became clear that the principles of design translated to perfume. In all aspects of design, sometimes you align similar things for unity and other times you juxtapose different things for contrast. Each scent has a color, a tone, a dimension. The more I explore, the more I find parallels between perfume and design, visual arts, music, cooking, and storytelling. I am now a certified perfumer with The Natural Perfumers Guild. Art of all kinds tells a story. The aromatics are dimensionally woven like complex characters. You know at the beginning where the story is meant to end, and each of your characters has a different reason for being there in the beginning. But each one brings a personality that affects and dictates the way your story progresses.

Stephanie's Perfume and Natural Essences Organ

On American Perfumery: To me being an American natural perfumer and an indie perfumer both describe how it is a very independent journey. It means there is a great deal of creative freedom, the ability to blaze your own path. It means you can take risks and do what larger organizations might not be able to do. The tradeoff is that you hold all the responsibility for every aspect of running a business. It's not always easy, but it is absolutely worth it to be able to do something so special. It's living the dream.

Dale Chihuly Hand-Blown Glass Garden  via  Architecture & Design Magazine

Favorite American Artist: Dale Chihuly. I've always loved glass, I think it is the most beautiful thing even in its simplest form. He takes it so far beyond the expected. Here is this rigid, unforgiving medium and he sculpts it into such beautiful organic shapes as if they grew from the ground. He elevated something that people only viewed as craft. It must have taken quite a lot to go up against preconceived notions, taking on this difficult work at a large scale, and to say boldly “This is what I am meant to do.” And to me, that is the very essence of being an American artist.

Stephanie Vinson, founder of Stephanie K Natural Perfumes.

Thanks to Stephanie K Naturals we have a worldwide draw for a ÇaFleureBon registered reader(be sure to click the link to register)  of a 6ml size perfume oil.  This is a reader’s choice of either: Mountain, Firelight, Green Sun, Opulence, Autumn Spice and Nightflower. OR a sampler of all 6 fragrances. To be eligible please leave a comment with what you found fascinating about Stephanie Vinson's path to perfumery, your choice of prize should you win and where you live. Draw closes 8/21/2015

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