Synthetic Fragrances |
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Synthetic Fragrances - Synthetic fragrances are laboratory-made imitations of natural perfumes, or fragrances devised in a laboratory which do not exist in nature. They began to be manufactured for commercial perfumery (starting with mirbane essence) from the middle of the 19th century, when the popular demand (or perfumes necessitated production in bulk quantity with materials which were not limited in supply, or subject to wide variations of quality and price, or prohibitively costly. Chemists,- notably among them Tiemann and Baur, isolated the significant chemical elements of essential oils which provided their odour and then reproduced them. Sometimes the odoriferous elements in an oil which was expensive to produce could be found in much greater abundance and more easily available in the essential oil of other plants; hence gerianol, which provides the nucleus of the basic fragrance (the 'odorous principal') in a rose, can be more cheaply and abundantly obtained from, for example, geranium and palma rosa and is taken from these plants for use, after chemical treatment, in making synthetic rose perfumes. Among many other substances used as synthetics in perfumery are: aldehydes, citronellol, coumarin, eugenol, farnesnl. hpliotrooin. indole, ionene, linalool, methyl Salycilate, musk ambrette, musk ketone, nerol, pinene, skatole, styrene, terpineol and vanillin. The role of all of these will be found under their respective headings. But the total range of synthetic fragrances is vast, many being made from minerals such as coal tar (e.g. benzene and methyl salycilate) and petroleum. There are very many invented fragrances in addition to the imitations of natural scents, so that perfume makers now have some four thousand different fragrant materials to choose from when selecting the ingredients for their new compositions. Most perfumes made nowadays contain a high proportion of synthetic materials.
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