ON THE PERFUMERY TRADE. 175 



The manufacture of perfumes, cosmetics, and toilet soaps is carried on 

 in the principal cities of Europe, but especially in London and Paris, 

 which may be called the head-quarters of perfumery, and whence those 

 products are exported to all parts of the world. Perfumes comprise 

 toilet waters and vinegars, and scents for the handkerchief, the whole 

 composed with an alcoholic basis. The most universally known of 

 toilet waters is eau-de-Cologne, so called because it was invented by an 

 apothecary in that town, in the last century. It consists of a mixture of 

 alcohol and various essential oils, mostly of the citrine family, such as 

 bergamot, orange, lemon, neroli extracted from the flowers of the citrus 

 bigarradia, and petit-grain obtained from the leaves of the same tree, 

 thus forming a very harmonious compound. Lavender-water was for- 

 merly distilled from the flowers with alcohol, but this process has been 

 abandoned as too costly, and it is now simply a mixture of alcohol and 

 essential oil of lavender, the best being made from English oiL Toilet 

 vinegar contains somewhat the same ingredients as eau-de-Cologne, with 

 the addition of a little acetic acid, which gives it greater pungency. 

 Perfumes for the handkerchief are composed in various ways ; the best 

 are made by treating with alcohol the pomades and oils obtained from 

 flowers by maceration or absorption : this alcoholate possesses the true 

 scent of the flower, entirely free from the empyreumatic smell inherent 

 in all essential oils : as, however, there are but six or seven flowers 

 which yield pomades or oils, the perfumer has to blend those together, 

 and by studying affinities and resemblances to imitate all other flowers 

 from which no extracts are made. Those artificial extracts, when suc- 

 cessfully achieved, constitute the truly artistic part of perfumery. Com- 

 mon perfumes are made simply by mixing alcohol with various essential 

 oils and infusions, but they never possess the fine and delicate odour of 

 the others. 



Cosmetics embrace pomatums, lotions, w r ashes, and dentifrices, and 

 other preparations for the toilet, which are, however, too numerous and 

 too uninteresting to be described at full length. 



Toilet soaps being now in universal use have become one of the most 

 important branches of the perfumer's trade. There are four kinds of 

 soaps made for toilet purposes : hard soap by the hot process, hard soap 

 by the cold process/ soft soap, and transparent soap. The first, which is 

 also called the large-boiler process, because it is generally made in consi- 

 derable quantities, consists in boiling grease or oil, and sometimes a 

 small proportion of rosin, with an excess of soda-lees. The lees are 

 drawn or pumped out when exhausted of their alkali, and fresh ones 

 added until the whole mass becomes saponified. In foreign countries 

 they perfume the soap thus made when poured into the frame where it 

 is placed to cool ; but in England it is customary to remelt it and per- 

 fume it then, which no doubt improves the quality. The second way of 

 manufacturing hard soap is by the cold process, which is also called the 

 small-boiler process, it being necessary to make it in vessels of small 



