Making Scents for Sachets

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXIII, Issue 7979, 9 December 1911, Page 13

Making Scents for Sachets

Sweet Odours and How to Prepare Them FAIB woman, and sweet odours have always been inseparable, and at this moment it is tie fad to put scent bags among all of ber belongings. -Tiny bags are made in the collars of coat Imings, bodices, ekirts and what not, and these ore filled with some delicate powder or other and sewed to the garment. Besides the personal sachets there are huge ones for the backs of wardrobes, nachets for trunk trays, big sachets for the top of the dressers and so on. Everything the fashionable woman puts on must breathe a faint and exquisite odour, .and good taste calls for her adherence to one perfume. For putting with underclothes many ‘ivomen make great square pads, fitting over half a bureau drawer or covering the whole length. The garments are laid between two of these, and it a proper powder is used the garments will catch just enough of the sweet odour to be agreeable. Cotton batting sprinkled with the powder, and a cover of (lowered silkaline or thin satin are the materials used for, the majority of the sachet pads. The little sacks sewed to the clothing may hold a spoonful of the powder or a wisp of pulled-out cotton thickly sprinkled with the scent, but the bag itself must bo very tiny, or i# would ho in the way. A lavender sachet powder which has the refined delicacy required for present Jtasto in odours is made in this way: Dried lavender flowers (powdered) 10 ounces; benzoin Cyprus powder, 6 ounces; oil of lavender (Hicham) 'li drams. -Mix the powders thoroughly and then pour over the oil. A still simpler lavender powder than this may be made with the flowers alone, and if a small quantity of cloves and orris root is put with them such sachets • will have the added ’ virtue of keeping away moths. With euch a powder, too—lavender flowers, orris root and cloves—it is possible to wear natural violets without - a confusion of scents, and since wearing a nosegay on the roat is such 'a charming feature of dress nowadays this particular sachet -powder is one of especial usefulness. ' And now concerning one ingredient in the first formula—Cyprus powder. This ■is made from reindeer moss and it is the basis for most of the sachet powders now used, the moss. _ which has quite a delicate odour iu itself, being (employed for the holding of other scents. Any sweet extract suclr as violet, hyacinth, lily of the valley, etc., may be added in the proportion liked to the cypru.s powder for sachets that would be renewed every now and then, and if tho extract is of triple strength tho powder wifi holdthe scent for a long while. AU perfumes are said to improve with age, and so when making a sachet powder it is well to let it stand a month before using it in order that the various substances may blend and develop the full odour. The powders should bo put ia wide-monthed bottles, closely stop-■pered-to exclude air, and be kept in a temperate atmosphere, in a dark place, until the odour is realised.