Perfume, aromatic product that consequences from the suave mixing of positiveodoriferous elements in terrific proportions. The phrase is derived from the Latin per fumum, that means “through smoke.” The artwork of perfumery used to be interestinglyrecognized to the historical Chinese, Hindus, Egyptians, Israelites, Carthaginians, Arabs, Greeks, and Romans. References to perfumery substances and even fragrance formulationare located in the Bible.
Raw substances used in perfumery consist of herbal products, of plant or animal origin, and artificial materials. Essential oils (q.v.) are most regularly bought from plant substances by using steam distillation. Certain refined oils may additionally be boughtby using solvent extraction, a system additionally employed to extract waxes and fragrance oil, yielding—by removal of the solvent—a strong substance known as a concrete. Treatment of the concrete with a 2nd substance, normally alcohol, leaves the waxes undissolved and presents the targeted flower oil referred to as an absolute. In the extraction approach referred to as enfleurage, petals are positioned between layers of purified animal fat, which come to be saturated with flower oil, and alcohol is then used to achieve the absolute. The expression method, used to get better citrus oils from fruit peels, stages from a normal system of urgent with sponges to mechanical maceration. Individual compounds used in perfumery may additionally be remoted from the integraloils, typically through distillation, and may also on occasion be reprocessed to acquirenonetheless different perfumery chemicals.
Certain animal secretions comprise odoriferous supplies that enlarge the lasting featuresof perfumes. Such components and some of their parts act as fixatives, stopping extraunstable fragrance substances from evaporating too rapidly. They are commonlyemployed in the structure of alcoholic solutions. The animal merchandise encompassambergris from the sperm whale, castor (also referred to as castoreum) from the beaver, civet from the civet cat, and musk from the musk deer.