Spiraea Oil

#### Spiraea Oil. The wild growing plant or cultivated garden shrub, **Spiraea**** ****Ulmaria**** **(or **Filipendula**** ****Ulmaria**), also known as "**Meadow Sweet**" or "**Meadow Goat's Beard**", etc., is well known in most temperate and cold-temperate countries for its wealth of tiny cream-colored flowers which exhale a very strong odor; the odor is to some people quite repulsive in its sickly sweetness. Quite obviously, an essential oil has been distilled from the flowers by steam, but the oil has never attained any importance in perfumery, mainly because of the fact that its main odor principles are readily available and low-cost, synthetic chemicals: **Salicylic**** ****Aldehyde**, methyl salicylate, heliotropine, etc. The oil of **Spiraea**** ****Ulmaria**** **is briefly mentioned here, mainly to report that little or no true essential oil from this plant is produced or commercially available today. Various oils, sold under the name of **Spirea **(or **Spiraea**) **Oil, **are merely mixtures of the above synthetic chemicals and other perfume materials. In view of the skin-irritating effect of salicylic aldehyde, it is conceivable that also the artificial spiraea oils will disappear entirely from the perfume market. The odor type of the artificial oil also limits the application to certain technical preparations, masking odors, etc. since its sharpness and harshness is difficult to blend into ordinary perfume types. Minute additions of salicylic aldehyde, etc. could be useful in lily, ylang-ylang, lilac, new mown hay, fougère, etc., but the aldehyde is unstable in soaps and, as mentioned, it is skinirritating. Acetophenone, methyl acetophenone, methyl benzoate, benzaldehyde, etc. have replaced spiraea oil in the rare places where it was ever used.