100 YEARS AGO
The extraction of the perfume from flowers such as jasmine, tuberose, violet and cassia has long been carried out by the process of enfleurage, the blossoms being left in contact with purified lard for a few days, and then replaced by fresh blossoms. The lard is either sold as such, or the essential oil may be extracted from it by melting it under strong alcohol. As the process of enfleurage is somewhat tedious, attempts have frequently been made to extract the oil directly from the flowers by means of light petroleum, but these processes have not as a rule proved successful, and it has recently been found that a very large proportion of the perfume is actually produced for the first time in the blossoms during the time occupied by the enfleurage. An interesting illustration of this is given by Dr. Albert Hesse in a recent number of the Berichte, in which he states that a ton (1000 kilos.) of tuberose blossoms only yielded 66 grams of oil when extracted with light petroleum, but during enfleurage yielded 801 grams of oil to the fat in which they were embedded, whilst a further 78 grams remained in the faded blossoms and could be separated by extraction or distillation.
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