The Art of Perfumery, and Methods of Obtaining the Odors of Plants

SPIKE.--French oil of lavender, which is procured from the Lavandula spica, is generally called oil of spike. (See Lavender.) STORAX and TOLU are used in perfumery in the same way as benzoin, namely, by solution in spirit as a tincture. An ounce of tincture of storax, tolu, or benzoin, being added to a pound of any very volatile perfume, gives a degree of permanence to it, and makes it last longer on the handkerchief than it otherwise would: thus, when any perfume is made by the solution of an otto in spirit, it is usual to add to it a small portion of a substance which is less volatile, such as extract of musk, extract of vanilla, ambergris, storax, tolu, orris, vitivert, or benzoin; the manufacturer using his judgment and discretion as to which of these materials are to be employed, choosing, of course, those which are most compatible with the odor he is making. The power which these bodies have of "fixing" a volatile substance, renders them valuable to the perfumer, independent of their aroma, which is due in many cases to benzoic acid, slightly modified by an esential oil peculiar to each substance, and which is taken up by the alcohol, together with a portion of resin. When the perfume is put upon a handkerchief, the most volatile bodies disappear first: thus, after the alcohol has evaporated, the odor of the ottos appear stronger; if it contains any resinous body, the ottos are held in solution, as it were, by the resin, and thus retained on the fabric. Supposing a perfume to be made of otto only, without any "fixing" substance, then, as the perfume "dies away," the olfactory nerve, if tutored, will detect its composition, for it spontaneously analyzes itself, no two ottos having the same volatility: thus, make a mixture of rose, jasmine, and patchouly; the jasmine predominates first, then the rose, and, lastly, the patchouly, which will be found hours after the others have disappeared.