Poudre à la Maréchale

[Alex F.]

The thread on L'Origan made me curious about the poudre à la maréchale one of the contributors mentioned. So I did some websearching and some experimenting and decided to make a new thread about it to share the results. Some of the powder I'll keep to see how it develops, some of it I'll tincture. Progress will be reported. If you're doing experiments around the maréchale-theme, I'd love to hear about them.

I don't really want to go into the development of the type of scent associated with "à la maréchale". But for those looking for a bit of background info, here's a short overview of what I've found, originally posted in the Origan-thread:

Poudre à la maréchale, attributed to Cathérine, maréchale d'Aumont, 17th century. First used to scent hair and face powders, later also used in alcohol-based perfumery. Said to have a long-lasting smell and fixative properties.

1) Barbe, Simon: Le parfumeur françois, 1696. P. 16: Poudre fine à la Mareschalle propre à faire des pastes pour des Chaplets. [Oldest version with oakmoss and worm-eaten/rotten oakwood.]

2) Déjean, M.: Traité des odeurs, 1777. P. 400: Poudre à la Maréchale. [Using ambrette seed, "bois de girofle" = Dicypellium caryophyllatum?, coustadou = costus doux?, ... Quoted by Poucher, 1950, vol. 2, p. 67. His books contain a modern version too, in the 1950 ed. it's called "no. 1161", in the 1974 ed. it's "Bouquet a la Maréchale, no. 1120".]

3) Bertrand, C.F.: Le parfumeur impérial, 1809. P. 145: Poudre à la maréchale, ou odeur de maréchale de composition pour parfumer la poudre blanche. [Complex version with orris root.]
- Celnart, Mme. (Élisabeth-Félicie Bayle-Mouillard): Nouveau manuel complet du parfumeur, 1845. P. 85: Corps de poudre à la maréchale. [Version with the old livres/onces and the metric system.)
- Pradal, M. P.: Nouveau manuel complet du parfumeur, Paris 1873. P. 129: Corps de poudre à la maréchale. [Version using only the metric system of measurement.]

A French article on the topic, written by an "E. G., bibliophile from Champagne": "Poudre à la Maréchale", La parfumerie moderne, vol. 7, 1914/15. Pp. 46-48.

For contrast, English formulas for an eau, an extrait and a bouquet, and a German formula for a pomade.
- Cooley, Arnold: The toilet and cosmetic arts in ancient and modern times, 1866. P. 569: Eau de la Maréchale. P. 600: Extrait de Maréchale.
- Askinson, G.W.: Perfumes and Their Preparation, 1892. P. 186: Bouquet à la maréchale.
- Mierzinski, Stanislaus: Die Riechstoffe, 1888. P. 179: Pommade à la maréchale.

On to the practical part. There are different recipes - I think recipe is more appropriate here than formula. The one that I found most quoted is number 3 above, from Le Parfumeur Impérial. It's quoted in several books on perfumery over the 19th century, and I've found it in some from the 20th century - Gattefossé and Winter - too.
So this is what I set out to recreate. Here's the recipe as found in Pradal 1873: p. 129, and my interpretation of it. I had most of the ingredients at home, food grade, except for the resins. What I had to buy was sandalwood - ground Indonesian sandalwood from a local incense shop. I'm not sure about the quality, but it should do for a first trial. (I had a bit more than 5g of orris root left, so 5g of orris is what I based my target amounts on. The comma is used as the decimal separator.)

original	trial	g	percent	g target	g actual
Iris	orris root	1000	24,612355402412	5	5
Roses de Provins	rose buds, dry, Iran	250	6,153088850603	1,25	1,246
Bois de Rhodes	rosewood	500	12,306177701206	2,5
Graine d'ambrette	ambrette seeds	750	18,459266551809	3,75	3,754
Girofle	clove	60	1,47674132414472	0,3	0,3
Canelle fine	cinnamon, Ceylon	250	6,153088850603	1,25	1,25
Benjoin	benzoin, Siam	125	3,0765444253015	0,625	0,629
Storax	styrax	250	6,153088850603	1,25
Coriandre	coriander seeds	250	6,153088850603	1,25	1,247
Ecorce de bergamote ou de petits orangeons	sweet orange peel, dry	125	3,0765444253015	0,625	0,625
Fleurs d'oranger sèches	orange flower, dry, Iran	125	3,0765444253015	0,625	0,625
Badiane	star anise	60	1,47674132414472	0,3	0,3
Racines d'angélique	angelica root, Angelica archangelica	125	3,0765444253015	0,625	0,628
Santal citrin	sandalwood, ground, Indonesia	125	3,0765444253015	0,625	0,625
Souchet	nutgrass, Cyperus rotundus, Senegal	60	1,47674132414472	0,3	0,3
Musc	musk	8	0,196898843219296	0,04
		4063	100	20,315

I ground everything up, except for a few problematic materials. It's too coarse for a powder, but for a tincture/infusion, it'll do. The result is a heady, floral-spicy masala with a bit too much cinnamon for my taste.


What I don't have is bois de rhodes, which is said to be rosewood. I plan on replacing it with a small amount of rosewood EO. What I also don't have is deer musk which I may skip or replace with castoreum. The old books mention a solid styrax type, but the only "solid" styrax of either Liquidambar orientalis or L. styraciflua I've seen is coal or wood chips infused with liquid styrax. I'll be using liquid styrax (Liquidambar styraciflua from Honduras).

 

[jfrater]

Very nicely put together post! Are you going to make an infusion from the resulting powder?

 

[Emanuel76]

Thank you!

=====

I hoped that being part of the same genus they would share similar olfactory profiles. But it turns out that this is not the case at all.

Cyperus Rotundus (Nutgrass):
woody acacia boronia violet tea mossy balsamic

Cyperus Scariosus (Cypriol/Nagarmotha):
woody earthy dry spicy patchouli vetiver

 

[Alex F.]

Thank you!

=====

I hoped that being part of the same genus they would share similar olfactory profiles. But it turns out that this is not the case at all.

Cyperus Rotundus (Nutgrass):
woody acacia boronia violet tea mossy balsamic

Cyperus Scariosus (Cypriol/Nagarmotha):
woody earthy dry spicy patchouli vetiver

Those are the descriptions on TGSC. I don't agree with the one for the C. rotundus. My tubers don't smell too different from the nagarmotha/cypriol essential oils that I have: camphoraceous, earthy, woody, patchouli. Maybe the TGSC description refers to a special chemotype.

 

[Alex F.]

Very nicely put together post! Are you going to make an infusion from the resulting powder?

Thank you! I plan to macerate it in alcohol. As far as I know, that's what "infusion" means in this case. But I'm not sure about the strength yet. Pradal (1873) suggests a ratio of 1 kg of powder to 6 litres of alcohol, or 1 to 4.8 by weight if you use 96% ABV - which would be something like 17%. I'll probably go for 20%.

 

[Alex F.]

This is looking more and more like cooking, but it's still about recreating a historical perfume. And I love it when my two favourite pastimes overlap:

I wasn't happy with my decision to use dried orange peel, so I went and bought some ripe, yellow bergamots from the Aspromonte region. After a 20 min. bath in warm water with some baking soda and rubbing the fruits clean, I peeled the zest off one with a newly sharpened knife. The small bits are going into a box with some nice broken Assam tea to dry. The bigger ones I'll dry in the open, then add some to my maréchale-experiment.

A wonderful fruit, by the way. The smell of the fresh peel is great, and the juice is tasty too, less sour than lemon, less bitter than grapefruit. The centre looks like this particular one is past its prime, but there are no off-notes. So the €5.30 I paid for the three fruits are acceptable. It's not something I'm going to buy every day, after all. Maybe I'll use the rest for cocktails and liqueurs, or for a marmelade.

 

[ScentAle]

This is looking more and more like cooking, but it's still about recreating a historical perfume. And I love it when my two favourite pastimes overlap:

I wasn't happy with my decision to use dried orange peel, so I went and bought some ripe, yellow bergamots from the Aspromonte region. After a 20 min. bath in warm water with some baking soda and rubbing the fruits clean, I peeled the zest off one with a newly sharpened knife. The small bits are going into a box with some nice broken Assam tea to dry. The bigger ones I'll dry in the open, then add some to my maréchale-experiment.

A wonderful fruit, by the way. The smell of the fresh peel is great, and the juice is tasty too, less sour than lemon, less bitter than grapefruit. The centre looks like this particular one is past its prime, but there are no off-notes. So the €5.30 I paid for the three fruits are acceptable. It's not something I'm going to buy every day, after all. Maybe I'll use the rest for cocktails and liqueurs, or for a marmelade.

View attachment 331296

Oh in italy cost of three of that is less than 2 euros, we lucky for agrumes eheh

 

[Casper_grassy]

The most mind blowing thing about this post is that you have a store where you can buy actual bergamot.

 

[Alex F.]

The most mind blowing thing about this post is that you have a store where you can buy actual bergamot.

Living in a big city has its perks. Some things I've searched the net for for a long time, annoyed by the shipping costs and pondering over which supplier looked less shady, only to find out a while later, by some curious happenstance, that there's a shop selling them a couple of tram stops away.

 

[Casper_grassy]

Living in a big city has its perks. Some things I've searched the net for for a long time, annoyed by the shipping costs and pondering over which supplier looked less shady, only to find out a while later, by some curious happenstance, that there's a shop selling them a couple of tram stops away.

Dude I live in NYC and have never seen one in person.

You got lucky as hell.

 

[Alex F.]

I think it's time for an evaluation of my maréchale infusion experiment. Six weeks, the book said.

The problems I ran into:

Finding the right ingredients.
- Bois de Rhodes, or lignum rhodium in Latin, is, according to the sources I've consulted, a wood/plant that smells of roses - but there doesn't seem to be a clear consensus on the identity of this wood. I don't have any rosewood (Aniba rosaeodora), only an essential oil. I thought about using roseroot (Rhodiola rosea) instead, because it has a wonderful scent that's much closer to roses than rosewood. But because of the uncertainty, I left it out entirely. Adding a touch of rosewood EO afterwards to a part of the finished tincture did not significantly improve the result.
- I'm not sure what type of styrax the recipe calls for.

Using the right method of extraction.
- As far as I know, an "infusion" requires heat. I did not use heat. I just tinctured the powder in alcohol at room temperature.

The result:
- The powder smelled floral-spicy, not expecially well-balanced in my opinion, and with too much cinnamon for my taste. It wasn't particularly finely ground, so I decided to tincture the lot of it to avoid any additional inaccuracy.
- The tincture smells fatty, floral, spicy. There's a gingerbread-like spiciness (owing mostly to the cinnamon and coriander seeds, I'd say) to it that I don't really like, and after a while, the smell develops a note that reminds me of wet wipes. It doesn't really smell nice, it doesn't smell balanced, either. I'm sure it could be used as a sort of "blender" in perfumery, but I don't really see a good reason for using this particular version in my creations. I'm not sure it works as a fixative, by the way - the tenacity's OK on paper, but on skin, it fades rather quickly.

My takeaway:
- If I wanted to use something like this in my perfumery experiments, I'd make a new formula. - But there's an obvious hiccup: I have no idea what the bouquet à la marechale is supposed to smell like.
I think tinctures are a great addition to perfumes, modern perfumes as well. I already have a lot of single-material tinctures. So I'd make tinctures of every ingredient, try different blends until I found one I liked, and calculate the approximate amount of raw materials needed for the powder from that. But I think I'll stick with my single-material tinctures. Orris, dried rosebuds, dried orange flower petals, benzoin and a sandalwood-replacer are among my favourite and most used tinctures anyway.

 

[pkiler]

As for the "rose smelling wood", Rosewood eo I am fairly certain is the answer, but does not smell like Roses, particularly. It is more than 90% linalool, went by name in France as Bois de Rose, and was extremely commonly used on fragrance of the period. I feel fairly safe in recommending/ telling you that rosewood eo is what this is.

 

[Alex F.]

As for the "rose smelling wood", Rosewood eo I am fairly certain is the answer, but does not smell like Roses, particularly. It is more than 90% linalool, went by name in France as Bois de Rose, and was extremely commonly used on fragrance of the period. I feel fairly safe in recommending/ telling you that rosewood eo is what this is.

I thought so, too, but what is generally called "rosewood" now, the linalool-rich Aniba rosaeodora, isn't necessarily the same as what was meant by "rosewood" more than a century ago. Pradal identifies bois de Rhodes with a type of bindweed, Convolvulus scoparius. Arctander has an article on it in his book on natural materials, see "rhodium wood oil"; but even back then, it was in scarce supply and often adulterated or completely faked. Judging by old descriptions, it smells more like roses than the rosewood of today, so I thought that roseroot would have been the better alternative.

 

[jfrater]

I have a wonderful Marechal poudre infusion but it won't be ready for a while still. It is soft, spicy (clove and cinnamon), powdery (orris), woody (sandalwood), and floral (rose, orange flowers). When you smell it you understand why it was in L'Origan (the odour profiles have much in common). It is a wonderful fixative that is very versatile.

 

[Alex F.]

I have a wonderful Marechal poudre infusion but it won't be ready for a while still. It is soft, spicy (clove and cinnamon), powdery (orris), woody (sandalwood), and floral (rose, orange flowers). When you smell it you understand why it was in L'Origan (the odour profiles have much in common). It is a wonderful fixative that is very versatile.

If it smells wonderful, then I take it you used a different recipe/formula. 😁

 

[jfrater]

If it smells wonderful, then I take it you used a different recipe/formula. 😁

Heh yes I think so

 

[parker25mv]

Pradal identifies bois de Rhodes with a type of bindweed, Convolvulus scoparius. Arctander has an article on it in his book on natural materials, see "rhodium wood oil"; but even back then, it was in scarce supply and often adulterated or completely faked. Judging by old descriptions, it smells more like roses than the rosewood of today, so I thought that roseroot would have been the better alternative.

TGSC describes Convolvulus scoparius as "reminiscent of nerol, nerolidol, rhodinol and linalool".
I'd imagine it is particularly high in the desirable enantiomers laevo-citronellol and laevo-linalool.
(meaning much more softer rose-like, rather than citronella-like; and more rosewood and lavender-like, respectively)

Oftentimes these naturals are far superior in olfactory quality to generic aroma-chemical counterparts.

 

[RomanB]

Here is a more convenient version, should be used as 1/62 part of dry ingredients' weight to be tinctured:

Ingredient	CAS	ppt
Main composition:
Rose essential oil	8007-01-0	5
Cypriol essential oil	68916-60-9	6
Muscone laevo	541-91-3	7
Irone alpha	79-69-6	8
Angelica root essential oil	8015-64-3	9
Neroli essential oil	8016-38-4	11
Coriander seed essential oil	8008-52-4	17
Ambrette seeds absolute	8015-62-1	38
Star anise essential oil	68952-43-2	51
Cinnamon bark essential oil	8007-80-5	126
Sandalwood Indian essential oil	8006-87-9	132
Bergamot essential oil	8007-75-8	177
Clove buds CO2 extract	8000-34-8	202
Rosewood essential oil	8015-77-8	211
Total parts of main composition:		1000
Additionally:
Benzoin Siam resinoid	119-53-9	2107
Liquidambar resinoid	8046-19-3	4241

So, if you want to make an analogue of 1 kg of 20% tincture of the powder, mix 3.23 grams of the main composition (1/62 from 200 grams), add 6.8 grams of Benzoin Siam resinoid and 13.7 grams of liquidambar resinoid. Rest is ethanol.
This calculation is based on typical yields of essential oils and absolutes for each of ingredients used.

 

[Alex F.]

Here is a more convenient version, should be used as 1/62 part of dry ingredients' weight to be tinctured:

Ingredient	CAS	ppt
Main composition:
Rose essential oil	8007-01-0	5
Cypriol essential oil	68916-60-9	6
Muscone laevo	541-91-3	7
Irone alpha	79-69-6	8
Angelica root essential oil	8015-64-3	9
Neroli essential oil	8016-38-4	11
Coriander seed essential oil	8008-52-4	17
Ambrette seeds absolute	8015-62-1	38
Star anise essential oil	68952-43-2	51
Cinnamon bark essential oil	8007-80-5	126
Sandalwood Indian essential oil	8006-87-9	132
Bergamot essential oil	8007-75-8	177
Clove buds CO2 extract	8000-34-8	202
Rosewood essential oil	8015-77-8	211
Total parts of main composition:		1000
Additionally:
Benzoin Siam resinoid	119-53-9	2107
Liquidambar resinoid	8046-19-3	4241

So, if you want to make an analogue of 1 kg of 20% tincture of the powder, mix 3.23 grams of the main composition (1/62 from 200 grams), add 6.8 grams of Benzoin Siam resinoid and 13.7 grams of liquidambar resinoid. Rest is ethanol.
This calculation is based on typical yields of essential oils and absolutes for each of ingredients used.

Thanks. But I'm not sure simple calculations are of much worth when it comes to translating tinctures into EO/AC-formulas. One would need to experiment. Anyway, the point of this particular experiment here was to make a powder according to an old recipe and see what a tincture of it would smell like. Unfortunately, I didn't like it much. Of course, my choice of ingredients may be to blame for that, at least partially, but I also think that the old recipe I used wasn't great to begin with. I was thinking about trying Poucher's simple formula (no. 1120, link in the first post) to see what an EO/AC-version of the bouquet smells like.

Edit: I was in the process of editing, when I saw the notification that you had "liked" my post. I hope I didn't add anything you'd object to.

 

[RomanB]

Thanks. But the point of the experiment was to make a powder according to an old recipe and see what a tincture of it would smell like. I was thinking about trying Poucher's simple formula (no. 1120, link in the first post) to see what an EO/AC-version of the bouquet smells like.

I like your experiment, my list is for a case if someone will want to get the similar effect without making an actual tincture. As an accord in a composition, for example.