Lily of the Valley Absolute

#### Lily of the Valley. Laymen or people outside the perfumery profession are often very surprised when they are told that lily of the valley is not one of the important raw materials. In fact, it is hardly commercially available as a natural perfume oil. There are various reasons for this: The cultivated **Convallaria Majalis **is considerably less fragrant than its wild growing relatives. The small, decorative plant grows wild in nearly all parts of Europe, and is found plentiful even in England and Scandinavia. However, the collection of individual flowers (which are very small), would demand a tremendous volume of hand labor which is not available at low cost in Europe. The yield of absolute by the conventional two-step extraction is not exactly low, but the product does not present to the perfumer either any strikingly unique notes, or a true-to-nature fragrance. As a matter of fact, in most cases, he can create an artificial lily-of-the-valley perfume base which is technically superior to the natural absolute, i.e. it performs better in a product than does the natural oil. Incidentally, next to rose, jasmin and lilac, the creation of a lily-of-the-valley perfume type is one of the first problems presented to the advanced apprentice-perfumer. The author admits, with much regret, that he may never have been faced with a true, uncut absolute of the lily-of-the- valley flower. The odors of the samples and products with which the author has had an opportunity to work were all very far from the natural flower odor. At their best, these absolutes were very pleasantly fragrant, with a delicate floral quality and a distinct touch of greenness, surrounded by a fresh, rosy-lemony body note. **Butaflor Muguet **is one such commercially available product. The above described notes are all quite natural, and probably belong in the absolute, but the entire "picture" of this bouquet was far from that of the live flower and far inferior. It seems to be common practise in France to extract the entire inflorescence of the lily-of-the-valley and not only the individual flowers. The absolute will inevitably show a high percentage of "green- stalk" extract which affects the odor perceptibly. If improved extraction techniques cannot present the perfumers with an absolute of "muguet" or "lily-of-the-valley" which is powerful, rich and superior to the artificial muguet bases, there is little or no future for **Muguet Absolute**. Among a great number of fashionable perfumes which are based mainly or entirely upon the "muguet" theme as a floral bodynote, are "Diorissimo", "Muguet des Bois", etc. The former is one of the most expensive perfumes on the market.