The Art of Making Natural Perfumes

Posted by Saroj Mishra on June 20th, 2022

Every one of us has used perfumes, which is now an essential item for everyone around the world. Spraying the best fragrance after the shower so that we smell great and feel fresh all the time. But one thing we forget here is that they are full of chemicals. 

The Problem with Synthetic Perfumes

Yes! That’s where the problem starts, the problem with the most perfumes on the market is that they are synthetic. You might not see, that the fragrance chemical they use is not one single chemical, it is a mix of many and those are not even mentioned in the packaging. You don’t even know what you are wearing.

That’s where we need to go back a little back in history, the time when nature has all the solutions. And there is still a city in India, which makes perfumes from only natural things. They know the art to extract the fragrance from a flower. These are called Attars.

How Attars are better?

Attars are natural fragrance oils that are extracted directly from flowers, spices, or herbs. There are many of those, one with the fruity fragrance Jasmine, one with the spicy aroma of Saffron, and so on. But the most famous Indian attars out there are Mitti and Shamama Attar.

Mitti Attar captures the same scent we get from nature after the first drizzle. It is made from baked clay collected from the ground during the rainy season. Then there is Shamama Attar which is very different. It is made from hot spices and has a very strong spicy scent. 

While both these attars are once only known in South Asia, they are now gaining popularity in the western world. Many folks from the USA and Canada are moving back to eco-friendly products and when they are looking for natural perfumes, Attar is the first thing that they see on Google.

How are Attar Perfumes made?

Now, it is also important to understand how attars are actually made. This is important to understand the difference between Attars and Perfumes.

The art of attar making starts with collecting flowers from the nearby gardens. Then you will need two things: Deg and Bhapka. Deg is a big copper container and Bhapka is a small vessel. That is why this method is called the ‘Deg and Bhapka’ process. In scientific words, it is called ‘Steam Distillation’.

The next steps are like this:

1. The ingredients are put in the Deg with water.

2. The Deg is connected to Bhapka via a bamboo pipe.

3. Deg is heated from the bottom.

4. The steam is passed through the pipe to the Bhapka.

5. Bhapka contains a solvent.

6. The solvent in the bhapka absorbs the steam.

7. The solvent now contains the fragrance from the ingredients.

As you can see, the whole process doesn’t need big machines. There is even no electricity involved. Even the heating is done by burning the cow dung. That’s why there is nothing that can be automated. What it really needs is a person who has experience with all this.

This is why there are only a few people in the world who knows how to make attars. They are doing it for many others. They know what quantity of the ingredients is required in one batch, how much heating is required, and how many hours to distill it. This is the art of Attar making.

And we need to preserve it. The world needs to understand that nature has all answers. In the end, the important thing you also need to know is that they smell better than other perfumes also.