Synthesis!

In those days, fragrance compositions consisted solely of natural ingredients, of resins, leaves, peels and blossoms that were treated in a variety of ways to capture their fragrant principles. One well-known technique was to place plant parts in alcohol
to produce so-called tinctures or infusions. If blossoms were placed in animal fat to produce perfumed pomades, the process was called “enfleurage.”

In the mid nineteenth century, modern perfumery evolved with the advent of modern chemistry. Innovative techniques of extraction and distillation supplied highly
fragrant plant extracts – it was even possible to isolate specific fragrance molecules from botanical isolates – and – even more exciting – it was possible to replicate
fragrance molecules in the laboratory – to synthesize them. One of the first molecules of kind was vanillin – in 1874, the principle of vanillin synthesis was patented, and chemists Haarmann and Reimer founded the company of the same name. Further important
molecules were coumarin (woodruff) and ionone (violet). In one fell swoop, the perfumer’s palette became incomparably richer – and for the first time perfumers were not only able to blend fragrances from nature, but also to replicate them, to interpret them, to translate them...