I’ve been trying to avoid talking about the struggling world economy, because I don’t know what the hell I’m talking about. It’s a big picture thing requiring lots of ≈ and weird things meaning coefficients, with € ¥¢ and $ mixed in between. However, on a small level I can talk about a country I’ve never sold to: Ecuador.

Because the world economy – and Ecuador itself – isn’t doing so great, their president Rafael Correa has had to put down trade restrictions on a host of items, among them, perfume. First off, I had no idea Ecuador had its own perfume industry – you hear all about Italy, France, even Dubai, but you just don’t hear about perfumers in the Americas until you run into a fellow perfumer. And apparently, the US sends them a LOT of perfume.

I had no idea.

At a national debt of $17.12 billion dollars, I can hardly blame Correa for his decision. That’s a lot of debt for a small country.

This also makes me curious: does Ecuador have its own perfume industry, designers who are famous within the country? Certainly Ecuador has a significant influence on perfumers in the northern hemisphere: their chief exports include tropical flowers and fruits, not to mention the of-late controversial palm oil.

Stop by Magickal Realism natural perfumery.

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I have this recurring daydream/fantasy nightmare:

I have achieved my dream of establishing a perfumery in the Warehouse district in Minneapolis, and for whatever reason I’m out front working in the retail section of my fantasy shop (I suppose that I’m a kindhearted perfume overlord and would actually give my minions the night off – and stuff like health insurance.)

So there I am, alone, surrounded by long glass cases with bottles underneath (seriously, I need to put some fantasy energy into display while I’m at it.) In walks Paris Hilton, with her entourage.

Ugh.

You need to know, I hate Paris Hilton the brand and I’m none too impressed with Paris Hilton the human being. Only she could make the Hilton name seem like something you’d find in the bottom bin at DollarTree.

Still, there’s evidence that she’s got a brain. I just see no evidence of a soul to go with it.

So, she walks into my shop and she wants to shop my perfumes. And maybe she wants a custom job.

I can imagine the conversation.

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I read a letter in the December/January issue of Fast Company complaining about the “over coverage” of environmental technology startups and company greening techniques. The author of the letter likened it to “more of a Fast Hippie than a Fast Company experience.” Admittedly, the coverage of environmental technology there is obvious, but the reason for that is also obvious, or should be to anyone paying attention:
Environmental technology and advancement is where the greatest market need is at right now, and thus is the center of nearly all market innovation today.

There is also the other matter: why does environmental interest automatically equate with “hippie?” First of all, hippies are not necessarily as earth-friendly as one would think, at least, not according to some of the firsthand reports I was told of the Woodstock anniversary celebration. Second, hippies were not the first and are hardly the only people to be concerned about the following earth-centered concerns:

• Global Warming
• Landfill limitation and waste disposal
• World food distribution
• Alternative energy combined with efficient and cheap travel

I would hardly call the Boy and Girl Scouts of America hippies, and there are plenty of Republican gun-toting conservations because they want somewhere to hunt. It’s not just a hemp and dreadlocks issue, and the market reflects that – consequently, Fast Company does, too.

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There’s already some buzz starting about the book Handmade Nation, which is intended as a companion piece to an independent documentary on the same subject. A few of us remember the Handmade Nation blog, and now all their work has come to fruition. It’s getting some very positive response already – so picking up a copy to see what all the chatter is about will put you ahead of the curve. Besides, I love reading the book before I see the movie. It makes me feel like I’m in an inner circle of some sort, just not one of Dante’s.

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With the good news that stevia now has FDA approval, there’s a lot more healthfood and coop shoppers looking for ways to make it useful in their own lives.  I’m sometimes amused by people that think they “know” stevia, having bought the little sugar packets or tinctures – only to find that it smacks them with a bitter aftertaste that competes with burnt coffee.

To truly understand and apply stevia, you have to understand a few things:

1. Stevia replaces the flavor of sweetness but can’t altogether replace sugar because even in a granular form it just doesn’t do the same things chemically that sugar does.

2. This means that stevia’s applications are limited mainly to sweetening liquids.

3. Every time you convert a natural food to a processed form, it’s going to lose some or all of the benefits of its natural form.

Yes, most of you know I’m suspicious of Splenda for that very reason.

I’ve used stevia for years, and I only use it in plant form – again, I’m wary of processed foods since I’m allergic to most of them, so I avoid processed anything. Stevia takes some practice in determining where it will work and how. Here are the places I’ve gotten the best use from stevia:

1. In coffee, I just sprinkle the leaves in the coffee filter on top of the coffee. Since coffee is already slightly bitter, the aftertaste isn’t notable, and the coffee does end up easier to down “black.”

2. Stevia is a godsend when I have to make medicinal teas with a bitter flavor – mullein and coltsfoot are especially nasty tasting but very important with my usual ailments. Adding stevia to the mix renders the other bitter herbs infinitely sweeter and I then have no trouble drinking them, and there’s no need for me to add honey or anything else.

3. I haven’t found much I can use stevia for in cooking, but this is because of lack of experiments. I would guess – and I’ll try it and tell you how it works – that your best bet is to make a tea of the stevia and then mix the liquid with something it will stick to in some powdery substance that easily forms a dough, such as flour or rice flour. While this is giving me a disturbing vision of a wave of all-gluten cooking, there may well be a workaround. I would NOT attempt to use the processed “sugar-like” version – that’s just made for people to lazy to think outside the packet, and that’s not the general mentality of any herbalist I know.

I’m wishing you much sweetness, and I’ll be back on the subject with posts on my experiments or hilarious flops in the future.

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If you made it a resolution to be more green in 2009 and were not thinking of body paint when you said it, you might be interested in the Do Not Mail List movement. Run by the organization Forest Ethics, this group wants to give US consumers the same opt-out rights in the mail that they have with their telephones.

I’ve actually spent hours removing myself from magazine mailing lists only to have them reappear at my door. While a Do Not Mail List would certainly reduce material available for me to convert to incinerates incense paper, I think I’d be willing to make the sacrifice to have both more privacy AND more oxygen from trees still standing.

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