ABSTRACT
Until the mid-nineteenth century, the only raw materials available to perfumers for creating fragrances were the extracts of plants and a few animal materials such as musk and civet. The most important raw materials were the flower scents. It is not surprising that Grasse, the center of the fragrance industry in the nineteenth century, was also the center of flower cultivation in France. The scent of the flower is from the so-called essential oils. These oils are composed of molecules that have a molecular weight below 400 and sufficient vapor pressure at ambient temperature to volatilize. The essential oils can occur in several parts of the plant and their usefulness to the plant is varied. For example, flowers use scent to attract insects to pollinate them, and oils found in the roots and barks of plants often have antimicrobial properties, thought to be part of the plant’s defense mechanism.
