390 PLANTS AND MAN 



which render them useful in medical practice, and still others 

 are used industrially as solvents for paints and varnishes and in 

 the manufacture of plastics. 



Perfumes have been in use for as long a time as man's 

 civilization has record. In ancient times perfumes were widely 

 used for religious purposes, as well as for personal enhancement. 

 They were lavishly employed as a disguise for lack of personal 

 cleanliness, at a period when the beneficial effects of soap on the 

 human body and its clothing were unknown. The finer perfumes 

 of the present day do not consist merely of one essential oil in a 

 solvent, but more often are blends of several perfume oils with 

 some heavier substance or fixative which retards evaporation of 

 the essential oils and makes them last longer. 



Rose oil, or attar of roses, is one of the principal perfume 

 oils and has been used as such alone or in combination with other 

 oils for a long time. Only a few of the many kinds of roses are 

 used as a source of attar of roses, the damask rose of Bulgaria 

 supplying most of the oil today. Thousands of acres on the south- 

 ern slopes of the Balkans are devoted to the cultivation of this 

 plant whose flowers, picked in the early morning and distilled as 

 soon thereafter as possible, yield an essence said to be worth 

 about $200 per pound. The common rose water used in hand 

 lotions and other toilet preparations consists of the water left 

 after distillation, or else is made up by adding a few drops of 

 rose attar to a quantity of water. 



Geranium oil is distilled from the leaves of several kinds of 

 geraniums, especially the strongly aromatic rose geranium. 

 These are extensively cultivated in southwestern Europe and 

 northern Africa, and have been grown experimentally in the 

 warm parts of the United States where they may prove a valuable 

 addition to our small list of cultivated volatile oil plants. The 

 chief use of geranium oil is as a substitute and adulterant for 

 attar of roses in the making of soaps and perfumes. 



Cananga oil is distilled from the fully opened blossoms of the 

 ylang-ylang tree of the Philippines and southeastern Asia. This 

 delicately fragrant oil is used in the manufacture of almost all 



