Event Details

Meet the instructor

Rebecca Suerdieck is a Virginia Historian and Educator of Domestic Arts. She grew up in Colonial Williamsburg and worked there for many years, winning several awards for her unique contributions to the preservation of forgotten stories. Her favorite thing to do is to study household manuals and recipe collections from the 18th and 19th century, demonstrate homemaking skills which were once in common daily use, and share her research with anyone who will listen.

Natural cosmetics have always fascinated her and she reads anything she can find on the subject. When research alone wasn’t enough, she decided to actually follow the instructions from a handwritten manuscript discovered in a rare books library. This experiment turned into a passion, and she has now successfully produced the fragrances once worn by Dolley Madison and George Washington.

Little by little, her niche in natural perfumery has grown. She now specializes in hand-made, all-natural and historically-accurate scents. She continues to investigate the flowers grown in Virginia for the purposes of distilling into “floral waters” and plans to add those to her collection. With the growing interest in natural health, plant-based and chemical-free living, her perfumes and workshops are on-trend and in demand. Rebecca has led demonstrations and hosted workshops at many historic properties in Virginia and she is delighted to be invited to teach at the Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden.