ABSTRACT
All perfumes are mixtures of chemicals, and are normally analyzed in terms of three components called ‘notes’, as an analogy with the notes that make up a musical harmony. Ernest Beaux was a Russian-born son of a French father, chief perfumer to A. Rallet & Co., a Moscow soap and perfume manufacturer. He eventually became the senior perfumer at Rallet in 1907. His first major perfumes were Bouquet de Napoleon and Rallet No. 1. In 1904, the French chemist Georges Darzens devised a reaction–which bears his name. The Darzens reaction is relatively simple, and involves reacting a long-chain ketone with ethylchloroacetate, followed by hydrolysis of the product to the corresponding acid, which readily undergoes decarboxylation. This produces long-chain aldehydes, where the length and composition of the chain can be varied depending upon the starting ketone. An original unopened bottle of Beaux’s perfume Rallet No. 1 was analyzed.
