Perfumes and their Preparation
George William Askinson
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Most of us take for granted the sense of smell. It gives pleasure, warning, anticipation and a sense of nostalgia. People have used perfumes since the days of Ancient Persia and Egypt in order to improve their personal smell. In this work, Askinson traces the history of perfumery and gives us an overview of the sources of perfumes and how they are manipulated to enhance our lives. - Summary by Lynne Thompson (10 hr 5 min)
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very interesting
Basquetteur
From the preface: The great progress which the art of perfumery has made during recent times is due to several causes, the chief one of which is fully realized only by the manufacturer on a large scale, who stands, as it were, behind the scenes and has access to facts and information concerning the materials he uses, which are not so easily accessible to the dilettante in perfumery, or remain altogether unknown to the latter. This important factor is the advance in our knowledge of the physical and chemical properties of the several substances used in perfumery, whereby we can better discriminate between the genuine and the spurious, the choicest and the inferior, thus insuring, at the very start, a satisfactory result, instead of being compelled to resort to wasteful experimentation and empiricism.