Artisan Perfumer Erica Vinskie Offers Life's Finer Things

by Jane Stahl

In preparing a “photo essay” for November’s Small Business Saturday recently, I realized—yet again—how much the Boyertown retail, non-profit, and hospitality community has to offer shoppers and visitors. Unique shops, museums, fine art venues, and one-of-a-kind eateries bring art, history, cultural, and dining opportunities—enough for a weekend full of activity. The community has really come into its own!

Henny Faire Company
One of the newest unique shopping opportunities to arrive in Boyertown for the holidays is Henny Faire Co., a pop-up shop featuring a line of perfumes—Foraged Fragrances— made from Eastern U.S. plants, along with a selection of soaps, books, gifts-even amaryllis and unique local daffodil bulbs--from both near and faraway places like France, Denmark, New Jersey and Fleetwood. The pop-up shop is located in the front space of the Building a Better Boyertown office at 3 E Philadelphia Avenue, Boyertown, PA 19512.

The upscale offerings are the work of artisan perfumer Erica Vinskie who, as a high school student, had plans to become an art therapist. Yet, her travels after high school and her studies at Tyler School of Art led her initially to consider herself a studio painter. When she discovered that she wanted not just to create art but also spend time with people, she searched for a new avenue to utilize her creative talents.

“Being alone, I discovered, was not fulfilling, so I needed to find a way to be artistic and to serve others by bringing them some of the beauty, comfort, and joy I found in the art world,” she admits. And so, she decided that “painting with fragrances” was an art she could learn and offer others.

While she is primarily self-taught, the Institute of Art and Olfaction in Los Angeles gave her a start into the art of perfumery, and by 2016 she launched Henny Faire Company.

Vinskie is a native of a small coal region village between Pottsville and Tamaqua—“a collection of about 350 souls,” she says. Yet, in some ways, her foray into perfumery is a return to her younger life inspired by woman named Henrietta Fehr who said of herself that she had “champagne taste with nickel beer money.” As a young girl, along with “Henny,” Vinskie foraged the hills for herbs, medicinal plants, and remedies for health and beauty.

“My friends and I admired ‘Henny,’ Vinskie explains. “She became our ‘mother figure.’ She was thrifty and clever, resourceful and practical in the way she used natural ingredients that she found around her. But she always encouraged us to make sure we had what she called ‘life’s finer things’ in our lives.

“‘Henny’ recalled that her first home had dirt floors but for Christmas she asked for silk slippers! I loved her down-to-earth side and also her aspirations, an outward looking determination to have ‘finer things’ too,” Vinskie recalls.

One of Vinskie’s first muses in the plant world was an ornamental quince that, she explains, exuded a beautiful scent as the fruit ripened when brought inside her home. Her attempt at duplicating the aroma was an “utter fail” but provided the impetus to learn how perfumes were made.

“My first fragrance was a total flop,” Vinskie admits. “I had a lot learn about how the fragrances worked together and what concentration provides just the right statement. I was in and out between the garden and the house innumerable times to test the fragrance I was building.”

At first, she offered three fragrances; now she offers seven—blending fragrances to create unique scents from the plants her husband, a master gardener, grows on their property.

Her perfumes, along with individual tinctures, are available at the pop-up shop in Boyertown through December 31, 2022, in her home studio outside of Reading, PA, and at Maggpie Market, 160 South Grims Mill Road, Boyertown.

“I credit Maggie and Jason for bringing me to Boyertown,” Vinskie offers. “I hope folks visit their unique shop; they’ve done a lot to encourage unique businesses to set up shop in this area.”

“For myself, I’m eager for individuals or small groups to come into the store this season for a workshop to learn how perfumes are created or to enjoy a cup of tea, have a perfume party and blend their own fragrance,” she explains. “For now, I can host two or three people and look forward to when I have a larger space and can accommodate more.

The process of creating a fragrance is an art and a science,” Vinskie explains. The first step is observing the specimen “in the wild.” Vinskie offers that while she doesn’t have a great nose, she has a great memory.

After spending a few moments taking in the scent of a flower or botanical in the woods, she analyzes the “molecules” around the flower as it is growing and can “recreate the ‘headspace’ of a plant molecule-by-molecule.” She speaks casually about the unique process she uses to create atypical fragrances in jargon familiar only to fellow-perfumers. And she is passionate about her desire to add an additional texture or level to her fragrances to optimize the scent’s beauty, translucence and wearability.

“These are not designer scents that you’d find at a mall. Designer scents are built primarily of synthetic scents—with perhaps 5% natural elements. Mine are 60-98% natural.”  

Vinskie insists that her products are readily biodegradable and sustainably harvested, cruelty-free and vegetarian, non-toxic to humans and the environment. And, she says, “except for beeswax absolute in our rose accords,” all other ingredients are vegan. “I enhance and extend the natural [ingredients] with sustainable synthetics that provide a realistic, clear scent that provide 10-12 hours of wear,” she offers.

There are “rules” for her products: there are NO silicones or polycyclic or animal musks, NO sandalwood or non-RSPO palm or petroleum solvents, NO added sulfates, parabens, or phthalates. Products are tested only on humans. Packaging is in reusable glass containers; restricting plastic is a goal.

Available in Henny Faire’s Botanists Cupboard are products like Heirloom Apple Butter Spread with Maple Syrup, Tart Cherry with Cardamom & Port Jam, Gooseberry with Elderberry Jam.

In Home Fragrances are bath and body products, books, cards, and stationery, candles, room mists, body sprays, chocolates, jams, bitters, shrubs, and teas, syrups, oils and vinegars.

Vinskie’s commitment to the natural environment is apparent in her sensitivity to the history of the exploitation of the natural resources of Appalachia. She explains that “while mining and industry brought prosperity, they also left behind ruined landscape, poverty and despair. And so, we donate a portion of their proceeds to organizations that promote environment and community renewal in Greater Appalachia.”

Henny Faire Co. at 3 E Philadelphia Ave, Boyertown, PA, is open Thursday 12-6; Friday and Saturday 12-7; and Sunday 1-6 through December 31, 2022. Contact Erica at erica@hennyfaire.com, visit her website for more information.

A discussion of Vinskie’s personal favorite fragrances and concentrations; other fragrances that, for example, include the scent of gunsmoke; her style of naming her fragrances; and other “wonky” details of the process involved in creating a fragrance from native wildflowers are part of Jane Stahl’s “B Inspired” podcast episode recorded with Vinskie that will be available on your favorite podcast platform. Stay tuned.

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