Frangipani Absolute, India

Frangipani (Plumeria) absolute

Solid, and difficult to work with, this absolute is a must for the perfumer's cabinet. The more in dicultion, the more the scent becomes recognizable

Product Information

Plumeria alba

Southern India

This is a "traditional" hexane absolute, extracted in Tamil Nadu, southern India. A huge rich and roundly aromatic absolute, this frangipani absolute is made from a combination of wild and cultivated Plumeria flowers. I was told that in one of the main plumeria gathering areas, the pickers have been known to spend the night perched in adjacent trees, as wild elephants will also come to the same forest, and stay the entire night.

Plumeria trees are the ones you see in every tropical or even hot city, from Honolulu to Hanoi, Miami to Muscat. They explode with increasing flowers the hotter it gets.  Even a Persian Gulf summer is taken in stride by these lovely trees.

Arctander says  (this is 1960)

"Its flowers are creamy white, with a fine shading towards the yellowish-orange in the center of the five petals. They emit such a powerful fragrance that one cannot have cut branches with flowers overnight in ones room. Like so many other fragrant tropical flowers, they exhale more fragrance at night than in the daytime. The odor is reminiscent of neroli and gardenia, tremendously sweet, yet fresh and suave, but tenacious beyond measure.

"In China (!) The Plumeria rubra has lately been treated with volatile solvents to yield a concrete from the flowers. An absolute is produced from the concrete by alcohol washing. The absolute finds use in finer perfumery as a powerful and versital ingredient for honeysuckle, gardenia, tuberose, lilac, muguet, etc or in various fantasy-bouquets, heavy-Oriental florals etc.

"The absolute of Plumeria rubra is, however, not yet regularly available to the outside world. If the perfumers find interest in this material, it may very likely be produced  in a number of other areas, closer to the big consumers, and become more regularly available. "

I would take this with a grain of salt and I reproduce his entry only because it's Arctander and I want to preserve continuity throughout the website. 1960 was the middle of Mao's Great Leap Forward. Hardly the time to be cavorting with frangipani blossoms.

You can read about it here. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Leap_Forward

It's quite jarring, to juxtapose the two

Plumeria Blossom

Would that I were Plumeria

Would that I were plumeria,
A flower clean and spotless,
In the day would bask in the sun,
At night ply with beams of the moon.
I would have neither religion,
Nor tongue, nor sect, nor customs,
Would that I were not from descendants,
Of Cain: the conspirators against lands
Waters and airs, they are polluters of minds.
Would that I were a gift for the untainted eyes,
Free of chauvinism, patriotism and prejudice,
Being crown of the creation,
Instead of becoming a cause
Of turmoil on the gorgeous planet,
Would that I were an innocuous plumeria,
The creation which enriches beauty of the world,
Imparts happiness, satisfaction, sparkle,
And inscribing a poem on the palm of breeze
Vanishes away forever from the world.

Written by Naina Adil
Translated By Muhammad Shanazar