Flouve Absolute

#### Flouve Absolute. From the flowering tops of a grass which is known in France as **Flouve Odorante**, various perfume and flavor materials are produced. It is conceivable, but not known to the author from his own experience, that the botanical material is the withering tops including the ripe grass seed, and that this material is dried, perhaps slightly fermented, prior to distillation or extraction. The plant is related to the grass which is used as cattle feed when dried, also called **Hay**. See also **Hay Absolute **and **Hay Oil**. **Flouve**** ****Absolute**** **was for many years produced by only one house in Grasse, France. They originally produced an essential oil, **Flouve Oil **(see following monograph). The product sold today under the name of **Flouve**** ****Absolute**** **is very dependent upon this single producer and supplier. Since it is such a highly interesting and quite unique item, several other producers recently have put a similar material on the market under the same label. **Flouve Absolute **is a viscous, greenish-amber to brownish-yellow liquid, having a very sweet, herbaceous, tobacco-like and coumarinic odor. The odor is so rich and so complex that one can keep on finding notes in it. However, the overall fragrance is a sweet, licorice-like, root-like, somewhat mossy-herbaceous like wet underforest and meadows, of exceptional tenacity and high penetrating power. The author has heard some quite interesting comments on the odor of the absolute or the oil from people when they smell these materials for the first time. The odor is described as being "like the steam from a pot of hot cereal (porridge)",—"bread",—"a beer breery",—"an emptied beer glass", etc. The flavor is similar: very sweet, reminiscent of tobacco, i.e. the flavored shag tobacco or cigarette tobacco. This description may not be a very good one because the absolute (and the oil) is actually used in certain tobacco flavors. Furthermore, **Flouve Absolute **is a fine modifier in maple, licorice, root-beer, licorice-anise, caramel, hazelnut and numerous other flavor types. However, it must be kept in mind that the power of this absolute is very easily underestimated. The **Minimum Perceptible **in a 9% sugar water at 10°C. is about 0.03 to 0.05 mg%. The essential oil (see next monograph) has an even greater flavor power. The absolute has flavor effects in common with **Cyclotene **(2-hydroxy-3-methyl-2- cyclopenten-1-one) and 6-methyl coumarin, but none of these synthetic materials can offer such a rich body and naturalness as that obtained from **Flouve**. In perfumes, **Flouve**** ****Absolute**** **is useful in chypre, fougère, pine, Oriental bases, and in traces as a sweetener for dry-woody notes which can be modified in a very pleasant way with flouve absolute. It blends excellently with oakmoss products, labdanum extracts, pine needle oils or fir needle absolute, chamomile oils, cypress oil, lavandin and lavender oils, petitgrain oils (the terpeneless in particular!), etc. The usual concentration of **Flouve Absolute **in a perfume base should be well below one percent, and effects are often perceptible below the concentration of 0.1% in the perfume oil. Thus, cost is no serious drawback although Flouve belongs to the "medium" priced raw materials (about three to four times the cost of geranium oil). The annual production of flouve absolute fluctuates according to immediate demand, but is usually estimated at less than 200 kilos. The botanical raw material exists in fairly large quantities, and the absolute could be available in larger amounts if needed. Since it is a kind of a "specialty", there is little reason to discuss adulteration. The author is not convinced, however, that this product is derived exclusively from the extraction of one botanical material with no addition whatsoever. Still, it must be noted that **Flouve Absolute **(and **Flouve Oil**) is unquestionably one of the most interesting "natural" perfumery materials which have come up during the past decades.