Chemistry in daily life - perfume

Perfume is chemically a mixture of fragrant essential oils or aroma compounds, fixatives and solvents, in which fragrant constituents are extracted from  the leaves or flowers of plants by

● steam distillation using water steam slowly to breaks through the flowers and plant materials to extract their volatile and essential oil constituents. There are three types of distillation, including water distillation, water and steam distillation, and steam distillation include.

 ● solvent extraction using organic solvents such as petroleum ether, methanol, ethanol, or hexane to extract the odoriferous lipophilic material from the flower and plant materials.

● enfleurage using a large framed plate of glass, called a chassis, is smeared with a layer of odorless animal fats (usually from pork or beef ) that are solid (cold enfleurage) at room temperature to capture the fragrant constituents from botanical materials (usually petals or whole flowers).  In hot enfleurage, botanical matter is stirred into the fats heated t by heating extract aromatic constituents from flower and plant materials.

● maceration, or expression involving a prodding, pricking, sticking action (also referred to as cold pressing) to release the essential oil from fruits  such as tangerine, lemon, bergamot, sweet orange, and lime.

supercritical carbon dioxide extraction using carbon dioxide that under pressure will turn from a gas into a liquid to be used as an inert liquid solvent to extract aromatic constituents from flower and plant materials.

Various organic constituents are detected , when essential oils are tested using chromatograph technique.  The main ones are given as follows:
● terpenes – representative oil: sandalwood and myrrh, huge various class of organic compounds with basic molecular formula (C5H8)n which are produced by a variety of plants, particularly conifers;

● phenols -  representative oil: oregano
● alcohols - representative oil: cassia
● aldehydes - representative oil: melissa
● ketones - representative oil: peppermint
● esters - representative oil: lavender
● oxides - representative oil: eucalyptus radiate.

A perfume is composed of fragrance, aroma volatiles, alcohol (75 - 80%) and water, in which alcohol and water dissolve fragrance, the core part of perfume.  The components founded in  fragrance ingredient are the compounds, such as 2-phenyl ethanol, phenyl acetaldehyde, citronellol, civetone coumarin, linalool, amyl salicylate, isoboruyl acetate.

Perfume transfer its flavour can be divided into three stages:  1. volatile components such as: benzene, acetaldehyde (phenyl acetaldehyde), quickly reach the nose, causing a first impression,  2. the main components of perfume smell, such as benzene, ethanol (2-phenyl ethanol) (with rose flavour) and nose effect, 3. the lasting ingredients, such as: civet ketone (civetone) with a musky smell.