Rensselaer Republican, Volume 16, Number 26, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 6 March 1884 — Perfumery and Flowers. [ARTICLE]

Perfumery and Flowers.

It is a carious fact that some of our sweetest flowers a e unavailable for the purposes of perfumery. Sweet-brier, for instance, and eglantine cSn only be imitated. No process has yet been discovered by which their delicate perfume can be extracted and preserved; but spirtuous extracts of rose pomade, of flower of orange, neroli oil—also produced from the orange and verbena—when cunningly combined, very fairly imitate both. Idly of the valley—another useless flower to the perfumer, though of exquisite scent of itself—is marvelously imitated by a compound of vanilla, extract of tuberose, jasmine, and otto of almonds. Almost all lilies are found too powerful even for perfumery purposes, and are, therefore, little used, even in combination with other odors, for it has been found in many instances that they do not harmonize well with the “fixing and disguising” scents in general use. It appears from Dr. Piesse’s little book on perfumes that most of our very sweetest flowers are only successfully imitated, as the wall flower, clove pink, sweet pea. Magnolia is too expensive to be genuine. Myrtle is very rarely genuine. Real sweet pea there is none, and heliotrope and honeysuckle are cleverly made up. Tuberose, vanilla, orange flower, violet, rose, jasmine, and oassie, with orris and vitivert, musk, and ambergris in proper proportions and combinations, are the leading ingredients in most perfumes. Mignonette, sweet as it is in the garden, is almost useless by itself to the perfumer: and tuberose, one of the sweetest, if hot the very sweetest, floweys that bloom, combined with jasmine, makes the perfume called stephanotis. By tnfleurage it gives a most delicious extract, but it needs to be fixed immediately by a less volatile scent or it will immediately evaporate. Fixed by vanilla or some other enduring odor, it is one of the most charming and useful essences in the perfumer’s repertoire, and enters into the composition of almost all the favorite handkerchief bouquets. Cassie, otto of almonds, tuberose, and orris form two-thirds of the violet essence generally sold. The genuine essence of violets is only to be procured at special places and at exorbitant prices. Of fixing of permanent scents, the principal are musk, vanilla, ambergris, orris, and vitivert. Orris is perhaps more used than any other, and enters largely into the composition of all popular dentifrices. From the odors already known, wemay produce by proper combinations the scejit of almost every flower that blows, except tho jasmine. It is the one perfume that defies spurious imitation. It seems almost needless to say that otto of roses comes chiefly from the East. The rose-fields of Kizanlik, in Roumelia, and the sweet valleys of Cashmere give ns the attar gul renowned over the whole world. But there is a very sweet otto of rose made from the beautiful Frovence roses that grow' to such perfection at Cannes and Grasse. The flower has a rather subtle odor, arising, it is said, from the bees carrying the pollen of the orange flowers to the rosebeds. The otto is obtained by maceration and enfleurage. The whole south of Europe is what one might call the perfumer’s-happy farming-ground. Cannes and Nice are especially famous. There, on the mild sea coast, grows the delicate cassie that can scarcely bear a blast; at the foot of the mountains, the violets are sweeter than if grown in the sheltered valleys, where the orange, tuberose, and mignonette attain to such marvelous perfection. Bnt flowers are grown for perfumery purposes in many other places. Nimes is famous for its rosemary and thyme, Nice for its violets, Sicily for its lemons and bergamot, and England is famous for lavender and peppermint ; the latter always commanding a high price in foreign markets, as it forms the general mouth-wash used on the contineut. The lavender grown at Mitcham and Hitchin is about eight times tho value of that grown in France and Italy; and for ordinary use there is no sweeter perfume than good lavender water. — Cham hers' Journal.