Scented Smoke; Perfumes.

What is perfume? A nice, attractive and sweet scented solvent which applied to men and women’s body were people first thought about it. Nowadays, many people use perfumes during special occasions and even casual days. Why the sweet smell can last for so long? What are the ingredients that made perfumes have such a nice smell? Are the chemicals used to made perfumes will harm our body? Most of the people might not know what are behind of the perfumes.

Figure 1: Branded Perfumes

The word perfume is derives from a Latin words “per fumus” which means through smoke. In ancient times, people used herbs and spices, like almond, coriander, myrtle, conifer resin, bergamot, as well as flowers to make perfumes. The main purpose of the creation of perfumes during ancient times is for women to attract men. But in modern days now, due to great advances in the technology of perfume creation (i.e. compound design and synthesis) as well as the natural development of styles and tastes; new categories have emerged to describe modern scents. Plants, animals, synthetic sources and other natural sources are the major aromatic ingredients of perfumes. The methods used to extract perfume ingredients from their natural sources have changed over time as technology has advanced. Based on the material, expression, distillation, and solvent extraction are the main techniques used to extract the odorant components from a natural source. Synthetic organic chemistry has provided perfumers with pleasantly new ingredients that are cheaper and more stable than many natural materials over the years.

How long can the scent last on our body?

Most of the perfumes are made up of alcohol. The odourless alcohol used in perfumery is ethanol. In fact, most perfumes are engineered to have a three-part smell or also known as three sets of notes, which spread out after apply it to skin. The word note is just a characteristic language of perfumes for an individual smell. The top notes are the first get to smell it. People will get to smell top notes within the first 15 minutes after applying. Top notes consist of small, light molecules that evaporate quickly. These chemicals first evaporate off your skin. Designers often put weird, unpleasant smells in this phase so that they interest people but the smell doesn’t hang around long enough to feel disgusting. After top notes evaporate, Heart notes appear after 3 to 4 hours. The chemicals used to creating these smells evaporate more slowly than top notes from your skin. In this phase, the original smell of perfume will appear. If it is a floral perfume, flowery smells go here. Base notes stick stubbornly to your skin. You smell them within 5 to 8 hours of application. Musky, watery, mossy and woody chemicals often go in the base.

What is in the scent?

Different brands of perfume have their own recipe of making it. The precise formulas of perfumes are kept secret. The basic ingredients of making a perfume are water, alcohol, fragrance oils and chemical compounds. These four ingredients mix together to form the basic structure of a perfume. However the variations of fragrant oils and other chemical additives used in each perfume are never end. In ancient times, people used herbs, spices, oils and flowers to make perfumes. All the ingredients were extracted from natural sources. Nowadays, many natural extracts have been replaced by synthetic compounds and the once alchemic process is now highly industrialized.

Pollution caused by perfumes

Did you know that perfumes are also harmful? A perfume that smells attractively also can damage our health and environment. According to a research, there are roughly over 500 chemicals just in the ingredient "fragrance" in perfumes. Many of these synthetic chemicals are derived from petrochemicals and are proven neurotoxins which can cause damage to nervous system and carcinogens which can lead to cancer. Some of the most common chemicals in perfumes are ethanol, benzaldehyde, benzyl acetate, acetone, benzyl alcohol, ethyl acetate, methylene chloride and limonene. Some of these chemicals are harmless, but most in this ingredient list can cause irritability, mental vagueness, muscle pain, asthma, joint aches, fatigue, sore throat, eye irritation, gastrointestinal problems, headaches, dizziness, coughing, and itching skin irritations.

Synthetic musk, a class of synthetic aroma chemical in perfumes has pleasant in smell and relatively inexpensive. Hence, synthetic musks are often employed in large quantities to cover the unpleasant scent of perfumes. Due to their large scale use, several types of synthetic musks have been found in human fat and milk, as well as in the sediments and waters of lakes. These pollutants may cause additional health and environmental problems when they enter human and animal diets.

Figure 2: Synthetic Musk Blocked The Transporter

Figure 3: Synthetic Musk