Perfumes and Essential Oils
David S. Seigler
Department of Plant Biology
University of Illinois
Urbana, Illinois 61801 USA
seigler@life.illinois.edu
http://www.life.illinois.edu/seigler
Perfumes and Essential Oils: Outline
Importance
Historical
Economic
Esthetic
Manufacture
Types of perfumery ingredients
+ Odorants
+ Concretes
+ Absolutes
+ Tinctures
+ Distilled oils
+ Expressed Oils
+ Fixatives
+ Extenders
o Methods of isolation
+ Enfleurage:
Pomade, soap
Important oils prepared by
enfleurage: Rose, jasmine,
violet
+ Steam Distillation
+ Fractional Distillation:
Important oils prepared by
distillation: Ylang-ylang,
patchouly, oil neroli,
lavender, lemon grass oil,
citronella oil
•
•
•
•
+ Expression
Important oils by expression:
lemon, lime
+ Extraction
Important oils by extraction
Question: Why is one method preferred over
another?
1. Cost
2. Quality of product
3. Availability of product
• Commercial essential oils:
Uses
Properties
Sources
Reading
• CHAPTER 8 IN THE TEXT
The origin of perfumes
• It is difficult to know when people first
started to use perfumes. The Egyptians
had become skilled perfumers over
5000 years ago.
• The Hebrews learned from them.
Recipes for perfumes and incenses are
found in the Torah or Jewish law.
• Perfumes also showed up very early in
the Orient. The Japanese and Chinese
both developed perfumes and incenses
as well.
A perfume market in
Sudan
Courtesy Dr. Dorothea Bedigian
• Perfumery reached its pinnacle during the
Roman Empire. They perfumed everything.
After the fall of the Roman Empire, perfumery
in Europe just about disappeared.
• The Arabs maintained these skills and
improved them.
• At the time of the Crusades, the crusaders
not only discovered spices, but also
perfumes.
• The French developed the art of perfumery
even more.
• There is a lot of folklore associated with
perfumery. Many of the recipes for the
best perfumes are guarded trade
secrets.
• In the last few years, all major
perfumers have a staff of organic
chemists and perfume compounding is
no longer an art, but a science.
How perfumes are made
• All perfumes originally came from plants (or
animals). The material could be used directly
(as frankincense and myrrh) or extracted in
some way. The challenge was (and is) how to
remove the essential oils from the plant
material without changing the composition.
• Other materials known as fixatives retard and
modify the evaporation of volatile essential
oils.
• Odorants give the perfumes characteristic
odor.
• There are five types:
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–
–
–
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concretes
absolutes
distilled and fractionally distilled oils
expressed oils
tinctures.
http://www.fragonard.com/@en-us/Default.asp
Concretes
• Many factors determine which method is
used. Among these are cost, quality of
essence, and use of the product.
• Concretes are the purest of the natural
odorants. They are obtained by using a
hydrocarbon solvent to dissolve the essential
oils out of the plant.
• The solvent is then removed under vacuum
by mild heating.
Absolutes
• Absolutes are extracted from the non-volatile
materials with alcohol.
• The alcohol is removed under vacuum
• The alcohol is recovered and used in
colognes and lotions.
Enfleurage
• Enfleurage is a special method for making
concretes and absolutes. The petals are
pressed onto a coating of pure lard and
changed often.
• After several days, the lard has dissolved the
released essential oils.
• The essential oils are then removed from the
lard with alcohol.
• The residual lard is pomade.
• After extraction, the lard is used to make
soaps etc.
Tray of lard with jasmine flowers used for enfleurage
Pomade from enfleurage
• It is possible to make exceedingly fine
fragrances in this way, but it is also very
expensive.
• This process today is seldom carried out in
France, but more commonly in the Balkans
and the Near East where labor is much
cheaper.
• Grasse in Provence used to be the center for
this industry.
Grasse, Provence, France
• Rose oil or attar of roses (also otto). The best
quality oils (absolutes) sell for as much as
$10,000 per kilogram.
• From Rosa damascena (or R. alba and R.
centifolia) in the late bud stage. These are
small shrubs with not too showy flowers.
Done from April to July. One g from about
2000 g of flowers.
• The oil is about 40-65% citronellol but many
minor components that are essential for good
rose quality.
• In fact, some are quite important at less than
0.1% of the citronellol content.
• Rose oils are usually extended before
marketing.
Rosa damascena,
Rosaceae
Rose petals
National Geographic
Jasmine (Jasminum grandiflorum, Oleaceae)
• Jasmine (Jasminum grandiflorum, Oleaceae)
is also grown in southern France. From July
to October.
• 5000 flowers makes about 1 lb of flowers.
• More than 300 lbs. of flowers are required to
make 1 lb. of oil.
• The flowers are picked at daybreak for best
odor.
• Today this oil is mostly obtained by solvent
extraction because of price.
Jasmine, Jasminum officionale, Oleaceae
Violet (Viola odorata, Violaceae)
• Violet (Viola odorata, Violaceae) is also from
Grasse, Toulouse and from the Taggia valley in
Italy. Grown under shaded conditions. January to
April.
• The flowers are picked at night or early morning.
1000 lbs. of flowers gives 1 lb. of oil.
Violet, Viola odorata, Violaceae
Courtesy Dr. Anita Brinker
Codistillation with water
• Steam distillation (or codistillation with water)
is another gentle and widely used process.
• Much less expensive than enfleurage.
• The oils are insoluble and when the steam-oil
mixture is condensed, the oil can be
removed. The most volatile compounds come
over first and some fractionation is observed.
Fractional distillation
• Fractional distillation (without water)
separates the components by boiling point
(the explanation in the text is not quite
accurate).
• Both steam distillation and fractional
distillation of essential oils are much cheaper
than enfleurage, but different mixtures of
compounds are obtained and heat causes
some rearrangements and changes in
structure of the essential oil components.
Oil ylang-ylang (Cananga
odorata, Annonaceae) is
widely used in perfumes
and is relatively
expensive.
Steam distilling ylang ylang, Cananga odorata
National Geographic
Essential oil from Acacia dealbata
Patchouly oil (Pogostemon cablin,
Lamiaceae or Labiatae)
• Patchouly oil was brought from India to
England by the British East India Company.
• This perfume became the mark of dissolute
women. Used in heavy perfumes and soaps
as a fixative.
• Isolated by distillation. The foliage is 2-3% oil.
• Now produced in the Seychelles and
Indonesia.
• Oil neroli (from orange blossoms)
(Citrus aurantium) is also isolated by
distillation.
• From Italy, Spain, Portugal, Provence.
May.
Lavender
(Lavendula
officinalis or L.
vera) (Lamiaceae
or Labiatae) also
important from
Provence.
• Lemon grass oil (Cymbopogon citratus,
Poaceae or Gramineae) is widely used as a
substitute for expressed lemon oil.
• It is used in soaps, perfumes, food products,
and in mosquito repellents.
Citronella oil
(Cymbopogon
nardus), Poaceae,
used to be widely
used as a mosquito
repellent in the South.
Bentley and Trimen, Medicinal Plants
Expressed oils
• Expression is useful for things like lemon and
lime peels.
• For most plants, the oils are contaminated
with too many other undesirable compounds
to make the method practical.
• The compounds are not changed by heat,
however, and in some instances are better
quality than steam distilled or fractionally
distilled.
Citrus fruits.
Carolina Biological Supply Co.
Tinctures
• Tinctures (or alcoholic extracts) are
widely used. They are cheap, but they
are sometimes contaminated with other
undesirable products as well.
• Today, many perfumes are purely synthetic,
but the best quality perfumes still come from
plants.
• In laundry soap, this is probably not too
critical. For good quality perfume, it's
obviously more a concern.
• In some cases, the plants are so inexpensive,
that synthetic products are not competitive.
• Not only the isolation of the essential oil, but
also the compounding of the perfume is
complex and critical.
Types of perfumery ingredients
Odorants
Concretes
Absolutes
Tinctures
Fixatives
Extenders
• The balance of essential oils, fixatives,
and extenders is all involved. This stage
is often highly empirical.
• Most perfume companies have a "nose"
to evaluate the products.
A “nose”
National Geographic
Orris root, Iris florentina, Iridaceae
National Geographic
Orris root
National Geographic
Extenders
Some essential oils, such as rose, jasmine, or neroli
are very expensive.
When used in a blend it is important that their
fragrance is not wasted.
Natural extenders are the oils used with the most
expensive oils to make the blends affordable while
at the same time respecting the notes of the
precious oils.
Commercial essential oils
• The major components of essential oils are
terpenes, phenylpropanoids, and metabolized
fatty acids. They are found in all different
parts of plants and the essential oils from the
different plant parts differ in composition.
They often differ with stage of development
as well.
An alembic or still
• Essential oils are used in: soaps,
deodorants, toilet preparations, flavoring
food and beverages, tobacco,
antiseptics, solvents (e.g., turpentine),
insecticides and insect repellents (as oil
of citronella), and plasticizers in plastics.
Camphor tree, Cinnamomum camphora,
Lauraceae
Eucalyptus, Eucalyptus globulis, Myrtaceae
Sassafras, Sassafras albidum, Lauraceae
Juniper or cedar,
Juniperus virginiana,
Cupressaceae