Enfleurage: 1 post

by Elise Pearlstine

Plants breathe but flowers exhale. Their fragrances may be light and airy or strong and spicy but they are all distinctive and beautiful, these flowers that exhale. Plants breathe in carbon dioxide and breathe out oxygen – not with lungs but with leaves, stems and sometimes roots. For most of their growing period they use carbon dioxide and minerals from the soil to build leaves, stems, twigs, blades, roots, tendrils, and fronds. Then they create the flowers. Some plants form flowers that are scented, a few of those have lovely diffusive scents. An even smaller number of flowers will continue to exhale their fragrance after they are removed from the plant. From those, a precious few produce scents that are wondrous and magical, perfect for making perfumes. For these few and fragile flowers, capturing their scent may be best achieved through enfleurage. A list of these flowers includes jasmine, tuberose, violet, jonquil, narcissus, mimosa, acacia, gardenia and hyacinth.

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