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 European
countries dominated the period between 1848 and the outbreak
of World War I in 1914. Several nations had colonial possessions
before 1848; Spain had won and lost an empire in the Americas.
But the real expansion of European colonialism came in the
second half of the 19th century. The continent's industry
and technology enhanced European expansion. The factories
of Britain, France, and Germany supplied goods and machines
to countries all over the world, colonial or independent.
This vast export market, coupled with a supply
of cheap food and raw materials from the colonies, made Europe
extremely wealthy, and this wealth was the perfect economic
climate for the birth of modern perfumery. At the start of
the nineteenth century, the technique of the enfleurage had
reached its current degree of perfection; however, it was
so labor-intensive that it was, for the most part, abandoned
after World War II. In 1809, Bertrand indicated that the malaxation
of pomades with spirits of wine (which today we will call
85/86 degrees alcohol) provided products he called "Extraits
de pomades."
Also at this time, thanks to the work of Chaptal
under Napoleon I, the first distillery was created in the
south of France which was capable of obtaining the azeoptrope
of alcohol (95/96º). Around 1860, it became common to define
different concentrations of pomades and their washings by
a number, although these dilutions were difficult to manipulate
and transport. Consequently, around 1870, Louis Maximin Roure,
an accomplished technician, considered concentrating alcoholic
washings obtained with 96 degrees alcohol to form, "essence
concrete de pomades" which were entirely soluble in alcohol.
Thanks to Naudin's and Shneider's chemistry
work on petroleum ether, they obtained it from the infant
crude oil in 1879 and later by Massignon in 1880. Although
many chemists and perfumers have worked since 1830 to discover
many indispensable ingredients to modern perfumery, the first
marriage of chemistry/perfumery was by Antoine de Chiris and
Roure Bertrand Fils, who presented essences extracted with
volatile solvents at the 1900 World's Fair, for which they
won the World's Fair Grand Prize. However, it was French and
German manufacturers, Schimmel and Haarman & Reimer(H&R) who
first reproduced scents of plants and fruits synthetically.
The first modern perfume appeared in 1882,
going by the name of "Fougere Royale." Created for Houbigant
by perfumer Paul Parquet, it set a trend for men's fragrances
that would appear later. Early in the 20th century, the requirements
of Coty on Baccarat and Lalique for new containers of very
high quality for the commercial sales of perfume revolutionized
ideas about the design of perfume flacons. Enfleurage is one
of the oldest methods used to process natural ingredients.
It is similar to maceration, except that cold purified fats
are used rather than hot ones. As in maceration, a pomade
is obtained which is washed with alcohol from which an extract
of the flower oil is obtained.
This is a labor-intensive process, making the
cost almost prohibitive. This method, however, produces the
very finest jasmine and tuberose oils available. Only a small
amount of essential oil is extracted by this method and is
used only in the costliest perfumes. For cold enfleurage,
30g to 50g of freshly picked flowers, sorted and winnowed,
were laid on frames, covered with a mixture of pork and beef
fat, for 48 hours. These frames consisted of sheets of glass
measuring 50 to 60centimeters. They were piled up on tables,
35 at a time. This operation was renewed 30 to 40 times until
the fat was saturated. Before the Industrial Revolution, Most
people worked on the land or in cottages. As towns grew around
the factories, crowded grimy conditions were the mark of the
new Industrial Revolution. It was during the Industrial Revolution
and especially in between 1889 and 1910 that insiders of powerful
European chemical companies discovered breakthroughs in aroma-chemicals:
1869 heliotropine, 1877 coumarin, 1888 artificial musk, 1890
vanillin, 1890 ionone, 1905 l'hydroxycitronellal.
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