InFocus Magazine

It seems fitting that I would meet with Anita Kalnay on a day when the autumn air is ripe with the aroma of changing seasons. I take a deep breath to savor the scent of ripe apples, cedar, wet leaves and other fragrances of fall, and then settle down to chat with this woman of many talents. In addition to being a perfume-maker, Kalnay has a university degree in recreation administration. She is also a certified aromatherapist, reflexologist and yoga instructor.

To be perfectly honest, I never knew that the art of perfume making, which combines artistic talent and intuition with scientific knowledge, existed outside of laboratories in perhaps Paris or New York. But here I am, sitting on a deck in Courtenay, chatting with a woman who creates award-winning perfumes in a modest laboratory in the corner of her kitchen!

Personally, I am allergic to store-bought perfume, so I asked Kalnay why she makes perfume. Is there a market for fragrances when many public places—such as churches and theatres—are now mandated as ‘Scent Free?’

“I am actually allergic to synthetic perfumes, too!” says Kalnay. “Natural perfumes are different. For the most part, I work with 100 per cent natural plant-based ingredients that are blended with a small amount of organic alcohol or jojoba oil. I guess you could say I am like a vegan perfumer. Most people who can’t wear synthetic perfume are fine with these botanical blends. They smell nice and they can even have a ‘remedy’ effect. Often, they are so subtle that only the person wearing it can detect the scent.”

Kalnay’s natural perfume line is marketed under the name Flying Colors: Genie in a Bottle and it is, she says, “Inspired by nature.”

Her unique botanical blends are produced by painstakingly calculating the perfect combination of all-natural (no synthetic) ingredients, counting minuscule drop by drop, inhaling deeply, pausing for thought, and then adding a little more of this or that, until it is perfect. “My nose knows when I get the fragrance ‘just right’,” says Kalnay. “There is a lot of technical skill and accurate note-taking—as well as sniffing—involved in the perfume-making process.”

Inspiration for each individual perfume usually comes from personal life experiences. A stroll through a forest near Cumberland, for example, resulted in the creation of a fragrance called Cumberland: Wild Forest Apple and Spearmint. Mountain biking at breakneck speed through the warm, dry forests of Oregon inspired her to create Hood River. A quote by iconic actress Mae West—“I generally avoid temptation… unless I can’t resist it”—resulted in a coconut-scented massoia, tuberose, and chocolate perfume called VVAVOOM! (It will be officially released with her spring 2012 White Floral collection.)

The raw materials to create these perfumes are very expensive. As a result, the finished product may be pricier than some nationally branded synthetic perfumes. To keep costs in check—and because ‘a little dab will do ya!’—Flying Colors perfumes are packaged in smaller bottle sizes. The cost of a 4.5 ml roll-on is about $60. In addition to her signature blends, she also customizes fragrances for individual clients.

While I am impressed by the imaginative names and descriptions of her product line, as well as the professionalism and creativity of her promotional materials, I still wanted to know how one becomes a professional perfumer.
Kalnay smiles and explains that her grandmother was a professional wine taster in southern France. Fragrance, of course, plays an important role in wine tasting. Maybe there is a genetic connection?

“But the real reason I ended up becoming a perfumer, and acquiring such a unique range of skills, was because my husband, Chris, and I have spent much of the past 20 years living in very isolated places. I had a choice—keep busy or go crazy! I chose the path of educational enrichment!”

She laughs. “It’s quite a story… how much time do you have?”

After graduating from the University of Alberta in 1981, this native of Swift Currant, Saskatchewan, got her first real job teaching outdoor education at a junior high school in Fort McMurray, Alberta. It was where she met Chris, also a teacher. They married in 1984.

In 1990, Chris accepted a position at a private school in Kemano, BC. The remote town of only 350 people existed solely for the purpose of housing the families of people who worked for Alcan Hydro and was located two hours south of Kitamat. It could be accessed only by boat or helicopter.

“We thought this would be a good place to live for a couple of years and save some money,” says Kalnay. “In hindsight, I guess we didn’t pay much attention when they told us that supplies were only brought in twice a week and that a trip ‘to town’ and back would be a 24-hour turnaround! When you combine living in the shadows of towering mountains with over 1200-centimetres of annual precipitation, you seldom see the sun. The average length of time most people could stand living there was three years. We stayed for 10.”

While Chris taught school, Anita made every effort to keep busy. She drove a frontend loader in the winter and worked alongside a master gardener in the local greenhouse in the summer. With her background in recreation administration, she served as a volunteer to help plan recreation activities for the community.

“Working with the gardener for two years was a great experience for me,” says Kalnay. “It helped me move beyond being an intellectual to become more grounded. It awakened in me a desire to nurture my creativity, and I began to expand my interests.”

During breaks from the solitude of Kemano, Kalnay attended as many continuing education classes as she could, including an art therapy class in Victoria. While living in Kemano, she took distance-learning courses through the Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design. She studied reflexology, aromatherapy, metaphysics and more. A friend taught her to quilt and, while she found all the straight lines and precision of quilting “a little anal for me,” she did learn that she loved working with fabric. To elevate her mood during the long, dark days of a Kemano fall and winter, Kalnay crafted with fabric, using bright colors, aromatherapy, and lots of fluorescent lighting to keep her motivated.

In 1993, Kalnay secured a grant from the Terrace Community Futures Program. The grant enabled her to market a line of one-of-a-kind sweatshirts created with fabric she had hand-dyed in her basement. She marketed them under her own label: Flying Colors – Let your imagination fly! Her shirts were sold through local markets and she became known as the ‘Flying Colors Lady.’

Eventually, the people of Kemano learned that Kalnay could perform aromatherapy and reflexology treatments, so she started doing that, as well. When they asked for massages, she took some courses and then added massage to her repertoire of services. She soon learned that, in addition to body treatments, she became a confidant. “These people were stressed and needed a massage or reflexology treatment and someone to listen to them with an open heart. I felt privileged to be able to be there for them.”

In 1999, the residents of Kemano were informed that the town was going to be completely shut down. Of the 80 homes there, 10 were moved, four were left standing, and the remainder were used by BC firefighters for ‘practice’ and they were burned to the ground. The closure of this town was so significant that Canadian Geographic Magazine did a feature story on it.

In 2000, the Kalnays moved to Gabriola Island. They spent the next year building a log home while Chris looked for work. Kalnay started a massage/reflexology/aromatherapy business in a yurt—and by now had added hot stone massage to the mix—still continuing to peruse advanced education, focusing now on aromatherapy.

Kalnay was consumed with learning more about the use of various essential oils as a complement to other alternative health services. She learned that ‘scent’ could be used to relieve stress, enhance mood, improve sleep, boost the immune system and much more. She traveled to Washington and earned a diploma in the holistic science of Spiritual PhytoEssencing, which is based on an interface of aromatherapy, herbal medicine, physiology, homeopathy and other natural healing modalities. She is one of only six people in the world to have received this level of accreditation. She also studied under international aromatic consultant Michael Scholes of LabofFlowers.com and organic chemist Dr. Kurt Schnaubelt of the Pacific Institute of Aromatherapy in California. Somehow, she also found the time (and energy) to become certified as a Kundalina Yoga instructor. This style of yoga is designed to strengthen the neuro-endocrine system, ‘exercise your potential,’ and increase self-awareness through meditation.

In the meantime, Chris’ efforts to secure a teaching post on Gabriola Island had not been successful, so he began looking elsewhere. “He applied for a job in Alert Bay and got it. At the time, we didn’t even know where it was on the map!” recalls Kalnay with a laugh.

The couple sold their island home, packed up and, in 2004, moved north to the rugged coast of British Columbia. This time, they were able to make regular escapes from the solitude of a small town and they traveled to the Comox Valley almost every second weekend to ski and enjoy many of the other recreational activities offered here.

Anita rented a storefront location in Alert Bay and, for the next four years, operated a successful aromatherapy, reflexology and massage business. She also offered yoga classes out of space donated to her by the local Family Resource Centre.
In Alert Bay she got serious about mixing personal essential oils blends for clients. She started another division of her Flying Colors brand and called it Genie in a Bottle. In 2007, one of her spiritual teachers said to Kalnay: “You are only operating from one per cent of your full potential.”

Kalnay tells me this just as I am taking a long sip of herbal tea. This seems so absurd I almost choke on my tea. I was still trying to figure out when this woman had time to sleep. Surely this ‘teacher’ had to be kidding.

“Seriously! That’s what he told me,” Kalnay replies, then pauses. She takes a sip of her tea and then continues: “Anyway, I did some soul searching and decided to take my business to the next level. I signed up to apprentice under Vancouver-based Ayala Moriel Parfums, an Israeli artisan perfumer dedicated to the art of natural perfumery. For the next three years, I traveled to Vancouver once a month to learn from her.”

In 2009, Chris was offered a teaching job on Cortes Island. They bought some property there and, while Chris commuted from Cortes, Anita continued building a life (and her business) in the Comox Valley. Along with her friend and colleague, Sandra Shotton, she also opened an Ayurvedic Spa in Nanaimo at Island Yoga Vista. She spends one week a month in Nanaimo giving ‘intuitive’ massage treatments, which use herbal-infused massage oils from India.

In 2010, during her final year of internship, Kalnay produced a line of artisan perfumes called the Flying Colors Muse Collection. This past summer she was one of several perfumers from five countries who accepted a challenge to create a new blend in a ‘soli-flore”—a single-scent perfume. Another Canadian perfumer, Lyn Ayre, of Coeur d’Esprit Natural Perfumes, sponsored the contest. Kalnay’s wild azalea blend she labeled as Kokoro—inspired by a visit to the Mount Shasta region of Northern California—took top honors.

“I am very grateful to Lyn for opening me up to the ‘world’ of perfuming and encouraging me to enter challenges such as hers,” says Kalnay. “The entire fragrance industry is based on responding creatively to ‘briefs’ that poetically describe the needs of the clients. So, perfumers can’t shy away from competitions and the artistic challenges they bestow. As a result of my success in this competition, I have now been invited to participate in a ‘top secret’ international challenge in 2012.”

It has been a long and sweet-smelling journey, but it is time to let this ‘genie’ out of the bottle! Flying Colors: Genie in a Bottle now boasts a product line of more than a dozen blends and Kalnay has been busy creating her 2012 spring collection, as well as developing marketing materials, building her website, and promoting her natural perfumes. As a result of her diligent efforts, Flying Colors perfumes are catching the attention of natural perfume aficionados across North America, putting both Kalnay, and the Comox Valley, in the spotlight.

For more information call 250.650.1204 or visit: www.genieinabottle.ca