How perfume is refined

Until the late 19th century, liquid ingredients were almost exclusively made from a mixture of oils collected from plants, although animal extracts were occasionally used. There were times when the refining process was relatively easy, and other times when it was more time-consuming and yielded little. In some cases, refining a fragrance is nearly impossible, so perfumers tend to spend their time working out how to make blends that smell like animal extracts.

Most people think of floral fragrances when they think of plants for perfumery, but it's surprising how many parts of a plant can be used to make perfume. The original essential oils, also known as fragrance oils, can be extracted from petals, buds, leaves, stems, trunks, fruits, seeds, bark, gums and roots. Sometimes the entire plant can be scented, and sometimes different parts of the same plant can develop different notes. Let's take the example of the bitter orange tree (also known as the Seville orange tree), which can be used to make neroli oil, while, using another process, it is also possible to extract orange blossom oil from the flowers, orange peel oil from the orange peel, and bud oil from the leaves, branches, and tiny, unripe fruits. All of these products have different fragrances that can be blended to create different perfumes.

Flowers with thick petals usually yield more oil, while white flowers are generally more strongly scented, although roses are an exception.

-Synthetic Fragrances

Over time, essential oils have been discovered and extracted from more and more plants. So perfumers, who generally qualify as chemists, now have to double as botanists, with almost 500 to 600 plant scents available to them. But these types of scent variety, but still can not be compared with the number of synthetic fragrances, has been commonly used by the perfume industry, these synthetic fragrances have very complex chemical names, and their number is in the thousands. Their names are seldom mentioned in the promotion of perfumes, and names such as hexahydroxyhexamethyltetramethyltetramine cyclopentane benzene, which is obviously not in harmony with the romantic style of perfumery, has been widely used in synthetic musks. In Worth's JeReviens, the chemical pentyl salicylate is indeed present, and it is this that provides the floral base of the perfume.

Today, chemicals often make up the bulk of a perfume, not only adding flavor but also making other fragrances stronger. All the ingredients in a perfume are made to have better compatibility and a longer lasting fragrance.

These chemicals often come in the form of fragrance fixatives. While we don't need to mention these chemicals much because they are just a product of high technology, there is one ingredient that cannot go unmentioned, and that is aldehyde. It is extracted from alcohol or natural plants and was discovered at the end of the 19th century. Ernest Beaux introduced it to the perfume industry when he created ChanelNo.5. Aldehydes have many uses: toluene aldehyde, for example, mimics the smell of hawthorn; another aldehyde mimics the smell of violets; they also give perfumes a distinctive identifying flavor and a new, rich flavor profile. They should also be used with care and in controlled amounts, as a small drop of the original liquid can give you an unpleasant odor if you're not careful.

-Animal ingredients

The ability to make a scent last longer is an important indicator of a perfumer's skill. Lately, older women have been complaining that those classic fragrances seem to go off more than they did when they were younger. One of the reasons for this is that modern perfumes are manufactured through large-scale, industrial methods suited to mass production, and contain only tiny amounts of pure animal extracts, which not only have a stronger scent, but also a longer-lasting scent retention effect.

The main animal ingredients used by perfumers are:

Ambergris For a long time no one knew where it came from, in fact, it is the secretion of sperm whales after eating cuttlefish, floating in a ball on the surface of the tropical sea and wave-washed beaches, in different shapes and sizes. It should be left to dry and blow for a minimum of three years before use.

Musk is granular crystals extracted from male Himalayan musk deer, the capsule is about the size of a walnut, and the extraction process does not require the killing of the musk deer. This is the strongest fragrance of all the spice species, and a single drop on a handkerchief can remain fragrant for 40 years.

The musk cat scent is a secretion extracted from a sac in the tail of the musk cat, which looks a bit like butter, and is produced in Ethiopia, Burma and Thailand.

Beaver scent is a reddish-brown, creamy secretion extracted from the fluid sac of the beaver. It has been used since the 9th century AD and the first users were the Arabs.