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BY HARPREET KAUR
 During
ancient times when people wanted to freshen or
liven up their rooms or wanted a soft lingering
fragrance around them, they collected fresh
sweet-smelling flowers in a basket and kept them
in rooms, bathed in them or wore them in their
hair or on their shoulder with a pin. Even now,
some people keep dried flowers in cupboards and
spices like kali mirchi, lavang etc tied in
a small packet, to give clothes a fragrance of
their own. Even barks of trees and leaves are
placed in cupboards.
The art of
extracting oil to create perfumes was acquired
later. These attars are in great demand
today, extracted from various oils and mixed with
others to get wonderful smelling non alcohol-based
perfumes. They come in sprays, roll-ons, or just
dab-ons and are priced between Rs 50 to 10,000 for
a mere 10 gm attar bottle.
Attar is a
Persian word meaning fragrance, or essence, and is
used to describe both the manufacture and
application of these oils. Perfume describes a
range of products that contain alcohol, heavily
diluted with synthetic additives.
Attars are
derived from plant extracts and have a range of
rich scents. Although attars are simply individual
oils, others may be composed of careful blends of
various oils, resins and concentrates (two or
more) and placed in a natural base oil.
Attar was
first produced by the great Persian physician
Hakim Ibn Sena (Avicenna in English). He was
regarded as the greatest physician of his times,
and used these for medicinal purposes. Attars
include some individual essential oils,
suitable for fragrance such as sandalwood, amber
and patchouli. Sandalwood is both - an attar
(used for its smell) and an essential oil.
Attars can be blends of multiple oils,
sometimes as many as 30 or 40 are blended together
(a secret that many Attar-making families
hold dear).
Process
 Traditional
attars of India are rarely found in their
pure form today. Often, they are adulterated with
synthetic chemicals or more of the base oil to
give it a distinct smell. Often, they are
stretched with liquid paraffin and other
substances. In the traditional process, various
flowers, roots, herbs, spices, etc are
hydro-distilled in copper vessels into a receiving
vessel containing sandalwood oil.
A certain
proportion of flowers or other aromatic plants are
put into a copper vessel containing water, sealed
and heated. Their aromatic vapours rise through
bamboo pipes and pass into another copper vessel
containing sandalwood oil, sitting below the
larger distilling one.
Sandalwood oil is
the base with which each extracted oil has to be
mixed to give a distinct smell and whiff. These
vapours condense, and after days of distillation,
the water and oil separate, allowing most of the
aromatic molecules to become adsorbed into the
sandalwood oil.
The water is
decanted and added back to the distilling vessel
for the next day’s distillation. The process, in
the case of flowers like rose, jasmin, kewda,
raat rani (night queen), is repeated for a
minimum of 15 days until the sandalwood becomes
totally saturated with the perfume of that
particular flower. The process for making heena
and amber is much more sophisticated and requires
numerous other steps and as many as 60 natural
ingredients go into their production, which takes
months.
Great care is
taken in maintaining the proper heat and pressure,
so that the floral material suspended in water
does not burn. As the proper pressure is reached,
the flowers begin to release their aromatic
chemicals and these pass along with the steam into
the receiving copper vessel. As it gets warm, the
water is changed in the water bath, since it is
critical that it should stay cool for condensation
to occur.
After four hours
when the condensed material and sandalwood have
filled the receiver, a new one is fixed and the
process continues for another four hours. At the
end of it, the process is stopped for the day and
the two receivers are allowed to cool overnight
before the oil and water. Once this occurs, the
water is siphoned off and added to the cauldron
for the distillation to take place.
The most expensive
attar is rooh gulab, which said to
have been discovered by Noorjehan, wife of Emperor
Jehangir of the Mughal era. The story goes that
she went for a morning bath and was delighted with
the fragrance of the oily layer on the water which
had been left overnight to cool. When distilled,
it turned out to be rose attar. Old texts
mention that the floral group primarily used for
attar manufacture was rose, bela,
jasmine, champa, molesari and tuberose,
along with roots like vetiver and ginger. Sandal,
cinnamon and aloe bark were also used. Heavy
odours like musk, myrrh and ambergris, were also
used with khus. Sandalwood oil forms the
base as, during distillation, the original smell
of sandalwood vanishes and the oil captures the
fragrance of the flower.
Uses of attars
Place
one drop of essential oil on a tissue and inhale
(to ensure that you do not have a reaction to the
oil.)
Use the steam
inhalation and use up to 10 drops of oil. You can
use a diffuser or lamp scent ring.
Add a few drops of
oil to your laundry wash, drain, vacuum bag
filter, or on a tissue for placement in your
drawers.
You can add up to
20 drops to almond oil for a massage. Keep away
from sensitive areas. (Do not apply essential oils
to the skin without first diluting them).
Add them to your
bath water and come out smelling lovely.
These oils can be
used to make home-made lotions, facial toners,
shampoos, perfumes, soaps, shower gels, and other
natural products.
These essential
oils come in very small bottles, commonly sold in
5ml, 10ml and 15ml sizes. The more expensive oils
are common in sizes starting at 2ml and 1 dram
sizes.
Although essential
oils do not become rancid, they can deteriorate
and lose their therapeutic benefit over time. Oils
such as the citrus oils will oxidize and begin to
lose their aroma and therapeutic properties. Some
oils such as patchouli and sandalwood improve with
the passage of time.
Avoid
deterioration and protect the aromatic and
therapeutic properties of your oils by keeping
them in amber or cobalt blue bottles. Dark glass
helps to keep out sunlight which can hasten
deterioration. Essential oils should also be
stored in a cool, dark place.
Some of the well
known perfumers available in India are from Nemat
Enterprises, AA Attarwala and Habib International.
BY HARPREET KAUR |
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