Bulgarian Rose Containers





Short biography: Kathryn Degraff

Kathryn was a photojournalist for the New York Times, a United Nations Speaker, and the first woman reporter to enter the Algerian Underground, during its revolution for freedom from the French government.

She has interviewed and photographed A. Bouteflika, the President of Algeria, taught English in Turkey, worked aboard sea vessels to see the world, and been a lifetime spokesperson for the use of natural oils in the perfume industry. She speaks French, has lifetime teaching credentials, holds a masters degree in History of Education. Her areas of expertise and interest lie in the Middle East and North Africa.

The publication of her book In Search of Amber will culminate her lifelong quest which began as a graduate student in search of a topic to satisfy the thesis requirement for her doctoral degree.

AROMA NOTES - New Century Press - July 6, 1996
The Roudnitska Legacy - A Sense of Destiny & Feminist Empowerment


Edmond Roudnitska was an ardent feminist agitator who incited women to revolt and spent his life trying to give them the knowledge and experience that would enable them to overcome the subservient role to which they were consigned in the 19th and 20 Centuries.

Everything he wrote following L'INTIMITE was designated to develop awareness (in both men and women) of the world within; our inner space, our feelings about ourselves, our desires, ambitious, fears and anxieties. How perfume can help us deal with these aspects of our beings is its most important function. If a perfume is well made with a clear and distinct form, it can help us gain awareness and mental clarity, help us articulate our ambitions and goals, strengthen our desires - a prequesite to realizing them, bolster self-esteem, self-confidence, poise and dignity.

"The choice of a perfume, can only rest on the competence acquired by education of olfactive taste, by intelligent curiosity and by a desire to understand the WHY and the HOW of perfume. Instead, the public was given inexactitudes and banalities. The proper role of publicity is to assist in the formation of connoisseurs, who are the only worthwhile propagandists for perfume." and it is up to the perfumers to enlighten, orient and direct the publicity agents."
Kathryn Degraff (Edmond Roudnitska: Curriculum Vitæ)

"For many years, most of my efforts have been concentrated on defending the creative side of the perfume industry and the recognition of the artistic copyright of this creativity. Everyone talks of the "art of perfume" but how many are prepared to give legal status to this "art"? Not all perfumes are works of art (no more that all musical compositions are masterpieces) or incline one to grant them artistic status for the simple reason that they are more and more composed industrially and less and less by professional artists. As a result of this industrialization, which tends to replace true creative perfumers with prolific "mixers" and also vulgarizes the product, we have entered a period of artistic decadence with profit being the excuse for any kind of deformation of the product no matter how blatant. I am not only expressing my own opinion here but one held fairly generally. What I shall never cease to support, because it is to me a primary truth, is that beauty and profit are not incompatible. In fact, profit should allow one to have more beauty and that beauty will prolong the duration of profitability." Kathryn Degraff


Questions? More Information? Don't hesitate to
fax (831) 623-2889 or
email Kathryn DeGraff Aroma@StarBand.net



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