Until the late19th century, although animal extracts were occasionally used, the fragrance of liquid components was almost made of sesame oil collected from plants. Sometimes, the process of refining is relatively easy, and sometimes it is time-consuming and laborious, with little gain. In some cases, it is almost impossible to extract some spices, so perfumers often spend time studying how to make mixed spices have a smell similar to animal extracts.

Most people think that fragrant plants are flowers, but it is surprising that so many parts of a plant can be used to make perfume. The original essential oil is sesame oil, which can be extracted from petals, buds, leaves, stems, stems, fruits, seeds, barks, gums and roots. Sometimes the whole plant has fragrance, and sometimes different parts of the same plant give off different fragrances. Take bitter orange (also called Seville orange) as an example. Can be made into neroli oil. At the same time, another process can also be used to extract neroli oil from flowers, orange peel oil from orange peel, and branch bud oil from leaves, branches and immature small fruits. All these products give off different fragrances and can be further mixed into different perfumes.

Flowers with thick petals can usually extract more oil. White flowers are generally fragrant, but roses are an exception.

synthetic perfume

As time goes on, people find and extract essential oils from more and more plants. Therefore, perfumers who are generally qualified as chemists should also be qualified as botanists, and there are almost 500 ~ 600 kinds of plant fragrances for them to choose from. However, although there are many kinds of these spices, they still cannot be compared with the number of synthetic spices. These synthetic perfumes, which are widely used in perfume industry, have complex chemical names and thousands of them. In the promotion of perfume, their names are rarely mentioned, such as hexahydroxy hexamethylenetetramine cyclopentane benzo, which is obviously incompatible with the romantic style of perfume, but it has been widely used in the synthesis of musk. In Voss' perfume "JeReviens", there is indeed a chemical component pentane salicylate, which provides the floral tone in the perfume.

Nowadays, chemical components usually constitute the main components of perfume, which can not only increase the fragrance but also enrich the taste of other spices. Let all the ingredients in a perfume have better compatibility and last longer.

These chemical components often appear in the form of fixative. Although we don't need to mention these chemical components, because they are only high-tech products, there is one component that can't be ignored, and that is aldehyde. Extracted from alcohol or natural plants, discovered at the end of 19. ErnestBeaux introduced ChanelNo.5 into the perfume industry when he founded it. Aldehyde has many uses: for example, toluene formaldehyde can simulate the taste of hawthorn; Another aldehyde can simulate the fragrance of violets; They can also make perfume have a distinctive taste and show new and rich taste characteristics. When using them, we should also be careful and control the dosage. If you are not careful, a little stock solution will drop on you, which will make you smell bad.

Animal composition

The ability to maintain fragrance for a longer time is an important indicator to measure the skills of perfumers. Recently, old women always complain that those classic perfumes seem to lose their flavor more easily than when they were young. One of the reasons is that modern perfume is made by large-scale industrial methods suitable for mass production, and contains only a very small amount of pure animal extracts, which not only has a stronger fragrance, but also has a more lasting fragrance.

The main animal raw materials commonly used by perfumers are:

In Long Xianxiang, no one knew its origin for a long time. In fact, the secretion of sperm whales after eating cuttlefish floats in groups on tropical seas and beaches washed by waves, with different shapes and sizes. It should be air-dried for at least 3 years before use.

Musk is a granular crystal extracted from male Himalayan musk deer, and its capsule is about the size of walnut, so it is not necessary to kill musk deer in the extraction process. This is the strongest fragrance among all kinds of spices. A drop on a handkerchief can last for 40 years.

Civet fragrance is a secretion extracted from a pouch at the tail of civet, which looks a bit like butter. This civet cat is produced in Ethiopia, Myanmar and Thailand.

Castoreum is a reddish-brown creamy secretion extracted from beaver's fluid sac. It has been used since the 9th century, and the earliest users are Arabs.