THE SCIENCE OF PERFUMERY:

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVII, Issue 2550, 10 July 1909, Page 3

THE SCIENCE OF PERFUMERY:

FORTUNE !N NEW PERFUME

COSTLY SEARCH FOR NOVEL BLENDINGS. Secrets of tlie science of perfumery were revealed at the Chemists’ Exhibition, London, by a distinguished exponent of the art of blending delicate odours. “Women are strangely fickle in tlleir choice of perfumes,” he eaict. “Tired of the scent of single nowers, thev are. now demanding subtle blendings. More than £IOO,OOO is nowadays to be made from the evolution of OJ ' G new perfume. Perfumery has risen to be an art. Beautiful music and lovely pictures strike their note upon the senses; so does a delicate blending of odours. In the ovolution of a new perfume I play upon a certain number of harmonious notes. Large sums of money are often spent upon preliminary laboratory work. Here”—he produced a tiny fragrant pot, two inches high—“is the perfume essence from a half a ton of violets. It is worth £4O. Our flower basis for laboratory experiments includes also jasmine, rose, orangeblossom, and cassia—a French flower produced solely for,perfumery. To these are added vegetable odours—tlie seed of tlie musk plalit, tonquin bean, vanilla bean, cloves, and the distillation of complete plants, such as lavender, and rosemary. When delicate blends from these have been obtained in special laboratorys we have to procure animal substances to keep the odours from evaporating, such as the natural musk from tlie .musk deer, castor from the bever, and ambergris from tho whale. An art in itself is the coloring of tlie perfume when it has been obtained. Pure vegetable colorings chiefly are used. The cult of perfumes has so advanced that a woman with a rose-tinted gown now demands as a mattci or course a haunting rose odour, and a violet costume must correspondingly have a violet perfume.”