Perfumers in Paris were using aliphatic aldehydes before they knew them exactly and their introduction in fragrances happened gradually until the genius of Ernest Beaux. In fact, some of those aldehydes appeared in the synthetic version of some essential oils but it was much later that many perfumers realized what they had under their nose for almost a decade. In Paris, since 1903, aldehydes were like captives today, used first only by a famous house. Synthetic oils based on the research, the new molecules discovered, were often a mixture natural - synthetic. They were used by perfumers to cut the price of expensive extracts. Some time oils were adulterated and perfumers became used with some specific notes. In that period the research on the purity of an oil was much harder than today and like today, there were many types of perfumery, based on price.
C8-C10 aldehydes appeared gradually on the market since 1902 but I think they were available in the labs several years before. Their official birth certificate is 1903-1904 (Blaise for C8-C12L and Darzens for C12 MNA, with 2 synthetic methods) but German documents present a different story. They were introduced by Schimmel, the number one of natural research, based in Miltitz Germany, through several oil reconstitutions. I made a short review of the patents where the use of a specific aldehyde is claimed and the introduction year of that synthetic oil on the market through their catalogue.
C9 aldehyde in synthetic rose oil DRP 126736 Schimmel 1900 on sale in 1902
C10 aldehyde in synthetic cassie oil DRP 109635 & 150170 - Schimmel 1902 on sale in 1903 or 1904
C9 and C8 aldehyde in synthetic lemon oil DRP 134738 - Heine 1902
C10 aldehyde in artificial Schimmel neroli oil in 1904
C9 and C10 in synthetic orris oil and later C12 (also in tuberose but I'm not sure about the year).
Gradually, these aldehydes became known alone in Paris, but not to all perfumers as they were not on sale. Through the works of professor Darzens C12 MNA and the lower aldehydes became available and were included in some very special perfumes, alone and not through bases . In several cases they were quite overdosed.
When the war started in 1914 almost all perfumers had met the odor of aldehydes, though maybe not all were aware about their name and use.
Something terrible happened with the Balkan Wars (1912-1913) and later with WWI. There was very little rose oil available from Bulgaria and Turkey (both allied to Prussia). This small crisis of the rose oil has started several years before - the production was in decline but also the commercial contacts with Bulgaria or Turkey were broken because both were on the "wrong" side. The synthetic rose oil started to play an important role.
Schimmel was an important supplier of natural and synthetic oils but when WWI has started it was much complicated for the French to have them. Many French producers were actually reselling Schimmel's products or used them for their own products. The study of synthetic replacements became a necessity in 1914. French production was in decline and the commercial contacts with their German partners was very complicated. I have the numbers of production but I will not insist on that.
By that time Antoine Chiris was one of the major producers who supplied many houses but also markets were much cheaper perfumes were required. Antoine Chiris is intimately related to both Rallet and Coty. It is very possible that what was once just a new odor (the aldehydes) became a necessity in the recreation of several oils as the markets of Chiris almost collapsed during WWI (the Russian market but also the supply chain). It is hard to estimate now how the perfumers at Antoine Chiris actually worked with the aldehydes but those notes were no more a curiosity or an aesthetic choice. The perfumers became used to those notes, their effect and they learned how to use the aldehydes in higher concentration.
By 1914 the following oils contained aldehydes in their synthetic version: orange, lemon, mandarin, neroli, rose, cassie, orris. The presence of aldehydes in bases used as creative elements in parisian creations is hard to appreciate today because we lack most of them.
In the early Schimmel reconstitutions each aldehyde, already present in the natural product, is used in a higher dosage and it gives power, impact. So, if aldehydes were like a booster to those oils, why not using them alone to boost a specific ingredient?
Looking back at the original formula of No5 the aldehydes do not seem an accident. It's pure scent engineering and each of them has a purpose to explode a note.
Once Ernest Beaux said something like he wanted to overcome the fatty odor of natural extracts. In fact, if you mix many absolutes you'll have something flat that cannot "breathe" very well because it is too dense. The aldehydes "extract" the main notes from the background and expose them in the sky like a reflection. They act like sharp knife that reveals the facets (neroli, orris-cassie, rose, jasmine). One should note that aldehydes did not enter all the perfumes of the period, but they entered first those that were not very expensive and based on synthetic oils (and less 100% expensive floral absolutes).
What was new with Ernest Beaux was the use of aldehydes and expensive naturals, both in high concentration and it happened almost 20 years after their discovery and first use. Previously it was different - cheap products with aldehydes (though not being aldehydic already) or expensive products with aldehydes in trace or aldehydes used as a bizarre note. He did an expensive perfume with an aldehyde overdose. They were used both for their effect and for their note and that was his genius in Chanel No5. Later, aldehydes will be used like a building block.
We can imagine that the fresh natural scent Coco met once in her youth was in fact a rose perfume with C9 aldehyde because the purest rose oil, as used in L'Idéal (Houbigant 1900 a great success and very much copied perfume) was in fact too expensive. More than 50 years ago, a perfumer wrote in his notebook that Chanel No5 and l'Idéal had some common points. Try to copy the luxurious Idéal (with its sweet coumarine /eugenol note) using a synthetic C9-C10 rose and you'll have a nice surprise. Add to that the ylang-jasmine-lilac-C12 from Quelques Fleurs and you'll be even more surprised. Then, replace eugenol with isoeugenol having in mind the accord ylang-ylang / Dianthine.
The raw material crisis did not end with WWI but continued in the following 2-3 years. But this time with a new molecule - jasmine aldehyde A or jasmonal A (a different type of aldehyde, not aliphatic).
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Fragrance is the 8th Art - Octavian Coifan - Le Parfum est le 8ème Art