Terri Mills, age 14, of Overland Park, Kansas, for her question:
HOW IS PERFUME MADE?
A perfume's composition depends largely on how it is intended for use. Most expensive body perfumes are made with rare flower oils from many parts of the world. Perfumes used in soapmaking come from low cost, man made materials. Many perfumes are blends of flower and plant oils, animal substances, synthetics, alcohol and water.
Fragrant plants have tiny baglike parts called sacs that make and store the substances that give them their pleasant odors. These substances are called essential oils.
Essential oils taken from flower petals are used in the most delicate and expensive perfumes. Essential oils are also found in other parts of plants. They may come from the bark, buds, leaves, rinds, roots, wood or from the whole plant.
Plants whose oils are used extensively in perfumes include the cinnamon, citronella, geranium, jasmine, lavender, patchouli, rose, rosemary, sandalwood and tuberose.
Much essential oil is extracted from plants by steam distillation. The first step in this process is to pass steam through the plant material. The essential oil quickly turns to gas, which is then passed through tubing and cooled to make it liquid again.
The essential oil is obtained from some flowers by boiling the petals in water, rather than by passing steam through the petals.
Solvent extraction is also an important way of obtaining essential oils from flowers. The petals are dissolved in a solvent or liquid that can dissolve other substances. The solvent is distilled from the solution, leaving a waxy material that contains the oil.
The waxy material is then placed in ethyl alcohol. The essential oil dissolves in the alcohol and rises with it to the top of the wax. Heating is applied, and the alcohol evaporates leaving a highly concentrated form of perfume oil.
Enfleurage is still another method of extracting oils. Glass plates covered with fat are used to press the petals. The fat absorbs the petal oils which is then treated with alcohol.
Animal substances slow the evaporation of perfume oils and make the fragrances long lasting. For this reason, they are called fixatives. Perfume ingredients from animals include castor, from the beaver; civet, a fatty substance from the civet; musk, from the male musk deer; and ambergris, from the sperm whale.
Synthetic substances account for the largest amount of materials used in the perfume industry today. The raw materials for these substances may be obtained from natural sources, petrochemicals or coal tar.
Some synthetic materials have the same chemical makeup as naturally occurring materials. Others are different from any material found in nature.
Many synthetic odors have been developed in the United States to meet the increasing demand for perfumes. However, the United States still imports a variety of essential oils.
Perfumes go a long way back in history. They have been found in the tombs of Egyptian rulers who lived more than 3,000 years ago.