Making Perfume in the Organic Chemistry Laboratory - Science 1

Condenser for making perfume

You, we, teenagers, young, old, all of us encountered what we call as “perfume” in daily life.

May be thousands of perfume’s trade marks (brands) are available in the market: from famous to ordinary, from cheap to very expensive; from attractive to ordinary scents.

Many famous brand names perfumes made by modern manufacturer, mass scales, but some of them are homemade or small-scale industries.

In principle, we can produce perfumes by ourselves too, even in the garages.

First, we need apparatus called Condenser (please see above figure). It is a simple tool with two sides of tubulations: distilling flask in one side, and the receiving flask in another side.

Then, please prepared chosen fragrance herbs or shrewd plants in the distilling flask.

A flower, one source of scents. Illustration only.

There are plants or flowers could be sources of scent ingredient naturally, some of them are:

- jasmine

- lavender

- amyris

- lemongrass

- eucalyptus

- narcissus

- common lilac.

These plants known for their attractive fragrances.

Distilling flask which contains crushed plants or flowers within liquid, then ready to be heated.

Steam will bring the solvent, but crushed materials will stay in the distilling flask. Pure fragrance solvent will be collected in receiving flask.

Basically, this solvent could be used for further purposes such as for making perfumes.

You can make your own perfumes or may be your own brands. You may select many flowers you like as source of fragrances.

Just an example, luxury brand, Chanel used fragrance that extracted from plenty flower species include jasmine, rose geranium and iris pallida.

Would you try?