Ever wonder how the delicate scents of flowers like plumeria, rose, and jasmine make it into perfumes and natural products? Unlike herbs that can be steam distilled into essential oil, these flowers yield their magic through more complex methods—because they simply don’t produce enough oil for standard distillation.
To capture these ethereal aromas, perfumers use techniques like hexane extraction, CO2 extraction, and even the old art of enfleurage. Each method requires a huge amount of fresh flowers (imagine baskets and baskets just for a small bottle of absolute or hydrosol)! Flowers like rose, jasmine, and plumeria are prized for extraction, but each petal’s chemistry is so delicate that it takes careful craft and lots of plant material to collect their true scent.
So next time you experience a floral scent, absolute or hydrosol, take a moment to appreciate just how rare and precious these gifts are...from both flower and artisan.