Semi-weekly south Kentuckian. [volume] (Hopkinsville, Ky.) 1883-1889, 1885-07-07
BoTTLING SWEET DOORS.


The Violeis Fragrance Caught and I'M
prisoned In Layers of Grease--The Rest
Perfume Flowers Properties of Amber
girls.
ooh, no." sad chemist. at does
not follow, nowadays, because toilet
perfume is made in France, or any other
foreign country, that it is superior in
quality to one of American preparation.
Such was formerly the case, but the art
Of making fine perfumes has been car
ried 10 such perfection of late years in
this country that not more than one
eighth as much of the French prepare
tions is sold in the United States to-day
as was sold ten years ago. Nearly
$2,C0a, 900 worth of home-dstilled per-
fumes were made in this city alone last
year, and Chicago made nearly half as
great a quantity as that. Then there
are large lcrfumery manufacturing es-
adjustments in Boston, Philadelphia,
ST. Louis, San Francisco and other
ties" care the American as good as
the French"
Exactly as good, for the general i'm
preston that many of our best handker-
chief extracts bearing the names of
flowers are merely chemical limitations
of the genuine odors is far from cor
rect. The fact is that genuine oils of
tlowerrof which pure American per-
fumes are made, are imported princi-
pally from France, and genuine musk
and ambergris, the two most impor-
tant and valuable bases for fine per-
fumes, must be obtained in other coun-
tries. While the best American-made
perfumes are equal in quality to the
Ilnest Of the French, such could not be
the case if we had not that country to
depend upon for our essential oils. The
reason for this is that no successful ef-
forts have been made in this country to
raise flowers of sufficient richness and
density of perfume to supply essential
oils in sufficient quantities to make it
profitable to extract them, although it
is held that the odorous blooms of some
OF the Southern States, especially Flor
ida and other Gulf States, have the full
bouquet of the same blooms grown in
Southern France, that great garden of
commercial odors The flowers that
l"a as providers of popular perfumes
for the handkerchief and toilet are the
jasmine, violet, tuberoSe, rose, bitter
orange flower, and cassia. Combina-
tons OF these with ambergris and musk
Result in the delicious perfumes that are
used.
"Ihese flowers, or the most of them,
are indigenous to the south of France.
Cassia, the blossom of the cinnamon
tree, comes from the East Indies, as
does the tuberose. Bitter orange is
from upper Italy. The oils of violet
tuberose, jasmine and other delicate
flowers, Icing highly volatile, must be
cxtr,nIeI in peculiar manner in order
that they may be retained any length of
time for use. The essential oil in vio-
lets is the most volatile of all flower ex-
tract, and, rs the flower itself is the
most dil'cult TO grow of all the per-
func overs, violet extract is of double
tlI value OF any other volatile essential
al OF flowers. Cassia is used as a sub
= tue f.. violet when the latter is
scarce. The oils of these Covers NE
extracted and held by what is knC IN
technically as grease absorption, but
the French give the process The more
delicate name of enileurage. l do not
know who discovered the process, but
it is one OF the simplest, and at the same
time one of the most effective, known
to chemical science. A layer of re-
ined fat is spread upon large wire
sieve with small meshes. Unnn this