Lessons on Natural Perfume, Ambergris, Musk, and Perfume Making With Mandy Aftel

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Creating fragrance essences requires more beakers and pipettes than your average chemistry lab. For animalics like ambergris, you grind the raw material with a mortar and pestle, then tincture it with ethyl alcohol. Some ingredients demand rather complex extraction processes, too. For flowers like jasmine, enfleurage (or soaking the flowers in fat) is the only traditional way to draw out scent.