Enfleurage is a method used to extract essence and aroma from whole plants or plant parts.
Developed in the 19th century in France, enfleurage is especially used for very fragile plant parts – typically flower petals or whole flowers – that cannot withstand the high temperatures used in steam distillation.
The process of enfleurage is that the plant or plant parts release their essence and aroma in fat. The entire process takes place at room temperature, but can be either ‘cold' or ‘hot'.
In this article:
Cold enfleurage
A large glass plate called a “chassis” is lubricated with a layer of animal fat (usually either lard or beef fat).
The entire greasy side of the plate is then covered with the desired plant parts, which release their essence and aroma into the fat over 1-3 days.
The process is then repeated with new plant parts until the grease has reached the desired scent strength.
Cold enfleurage is shown here
Hot enfleurage
In hot enfleurage, the fat is heated and then plant parts are added. Once the plant parts have released their essence, they are removed from the fat and replaced with new plant parts. This process continues until the desired fragrance strength is achieved.
This method is considered the oldest known method of extracting or preserving fragrances from plants.
Enfleurage pomade
Both of the above methods result in a fat saturated with fragrances; this fat is called “enfleurage pomade” and is the starting point for the production of a so-called “absolute”:
- The enfleurage pomade is rinsed with alcohol, which draws in the fragrance molecules.
- The alcohol is separated from the fat (the fat is used in soap as it still smells strong)
- The alcohol evaporates and leaves an absolute
An absolute is not the same as an essential oil, as it is based on animal fat and extracted using alcohol, where an essential oil is a pure plant oil or a blend of different plant oils.
An expensive extraction method
Enfleurage is the most expensive of all extraction methods, as it requires a fair amount of manual labor and is essentially quite inefficient.
Oils made from flower petals – such as jasmine oil – are also particularly costly because many petals are needed to produce relatively small amounts of oil (in enfleurage). All of this, of course, increases the price of the finished oil.
Today, enfleurage has been almost completely replaced by various chemical extraction methods, which are both cheaper and more efficient. In practice, virtually only jasmine oil and tuberose oil are currently extracted by enfleurage (and they can also be extracted chemically).