Lavender Concrète

#### Lavender Concrète. A **Lavender Concrète is **produced by extraction of the freshly cut flowering herb of true lavender, **Lavandula**** ****Officinalis**, with benzene, gasoline, petroleum ether or other hydrocarbon solvent followed by removal of the solvent in vacuum. This extraction is carried out in or close to the growing areas in the south of France. Insignificant quantities are produced in Italy and a few other countries. According to the solvent used, **Lavender Concrète **varies in appearance from waxy solid to viscous liquid. Petroleum ether yields a more liquid concrète. The color is usually dark green, but it appears darker in the liquid products than in the waxy-solid ones, probably due to the microcrystallized myristic acid, etc. in the waxy concrètes. Apart from an inevitable note of the solvent, the odor is generally sweet-herbaceous, somewhat haylike, coumarin-like, but resembling the lavender flowers and stalks very closely. Its poor solubility in alcohol is no drawback for **Lavender Concrète **when this material is used in soap perfumes. The concrète is soluble in most perfume materials, and the waxes, myristic acid, palmitic acid, etc. will only act as fixatives and blenders in such cases. The concrète is readily available at a comparatively low price; a fact, which makes it practical to apply **Lavender Concrète **in soap perfumes of the lavender type, fougères, new-mown-hays, chypres, forest-notes, pine needle fragrances, ambres, "tabac" perfumes *and** *numerous other types. The concrète blends well with bergamot, citrus oils (of the "lighter" type, too), labdanum products, oakmoss products, patchouli, rosemary, sage clary, thyme oils, etc. and with coumarins, nitromusks, cedarwood derivatives, eugenol and isoeugenol, nopylacetate, etc. **Lavender Concrète **is occasionally adulterated. The most common additive is **Lavandin**** ****Concrète**. Exhaust waxes from the production of **Lavender**** ****Absolute**** ****from**** ****Concrète**** **are also used for "cutting" the true lavender concrète. The latter fraud is simply a dilution. A partially Decolorized Lavender Concrète is commercially available, but the author has yet to see (and smell) a decolorized material whose odor has not been affected severely by this process. In the case of lavender, the loss of attractiveness and naturalness of odor is not compensated for by the fact that one has disposed of part of the color problem which exists in the green concrète. The major part of all **Lavender**** ****Concrète**** **produced goes into further processing to the **Absolute.**** **See **Lavender**** ****Absolute.**