Science and St. Valentines Day - Living Flowers

February

Science and St. Valentines Day - Living Flowers

This is part 4 of our 7 day countdown to Valentine’s Day.

Love and The Living Flower

living flower Call us corny, but The Beauty Brains still think flowers are a classic Valentines Day gift. Perfume is wonderful, but nothing smells quite as nice as a fresh cut flower. Or does it? Is it possible that modern science can make a perfume that smells just like a real flower?

The answer is yes! Scientists at International Flavors and Fragrance (IFF) one of the world`s largest fragrance companies, have developed a new technology that allows them to reproduce the EXACT sent of a living flower - without even having to pick it.

Floral fragrance ingredients were originally created by picking a flower and processing it to extract the chemical components responsible for its aroma. While this process did isolate some of the chemicals responsible for the flower`s smell, it did not capture the EXACT same scent molecules that were released by the flower and picked up by your nose. That`s because a living flower releases different chemicals than a dead, cut flower. Therefore, it was really impossible to replicate the exact scent of fresh flowers.

But IFF`s new Living Flower head-space analysis technology changes all that. No, head-space analysis does not refer to some kind of psychoanalytical technique. It`s a way of collecting the scent of a living, growing flower instead of just extracting chemicals from a dead flower. It works like this: a large glass globe is placed around the living flower to capture the scent it releases. This globe is connected to a sophisticated Gas Chromatograph that analyzes the exact composition of the scent.

Chemists then use this analysis as a road map to create a synthetic chemical that smells exactly like the original. (This same technique can be applied to fruits as well as flowers.) So instead of chopping up dead flowers, scientists can now create more natural smelling perfumes from living plants. (Hmmm, we wonder if natural perfumes like Le Bijou, Jimmyjane, and Apothena use this technology.) It’s another great example of better living (and loving!) through chemistry.

One Response to “Science and St. Valentines Day - Living Flowers”

thebeautybrains.com » Science and St. Valentines Day - Self Cleaning Lingerie Says:

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