13. Colin Slingshott
(2004) “Vibrational Medicine - Lily of the Valley” Today’s
Therapist Issue 30 Sept/Oct 2004 p7.
Copyright
©Tony
Burfield Sept 2004.
Even in this short, half-page article, a
considerable amount of bollocks occurs. Lily-of-the-valley (muguet) is a major
odour concept in perfumery, but is unimportant in CAM, including aromatherapy.
But perhaps its just better to list the errors in the above article:
Slingshott states that Convallaria majalis
is “the single species of the genus Convallaria.” In fact the genus
consists of 2 or even 3 species (Mabberley 1998) including the Japanese Lily of
the Valley Convallaria keikusei Miq. (Boelens et al. 1980).
Slingshott further states that different lilies
exhale slightly different odours that in general may be described as
“delicate, elusive and sweet as honey”. Slingshott doesn’t define what he
means by lilies – does he mean the one hundred or so Lilium species, or
does he include those plants also called lilies, of which Mabberley lists more
than seventy? And do they all have odours that are delicate, elusive and sweet
as honey? No. Ginger lily (Hedychium coronarium) for example is heady,
vibrantly sweet spicy-floral tuberose-like, and with a green aspect (Burfield
2000).
Sligshott maintains that a natural perfume is
extracted from C. majalis by means of volatile solvents. The real
position is that since steam distillation destroys the delicate odour compounds
in the headspace odour, attempts have been made to obtain a concrete via solvent
extraction, but if this is done, an extract is obtained which does not resemble
the true odour of the flower. Consequently neither a true oil or an absolute has
ever been commercially available, although at one time Robertet et Cie
used to produce a butane extract in their Butaflor series, and anther Grassoise
concern offered Muguet de Mai obtained from freesias (Boelens et al.
1980). Charabot currently produce a commercial product called Lily of the Vallet
324, a construct of natural and synthetic materials simulating the headspace of
Lily of the Valley flowers.
A large number of synthetic muguet fragrance chemicals are marketed,
reflecting the importance if this fragrance note in mainstream, for example
hydroxycitronellal (useage now restricted) bourgeonal®, lilial® (useage now
restricted), lyral® (usage now restricted) dupical® etc.
Surburg
& Guntert (1991) report that up to ten times the amount of the major
olfactory components such as dihydrofarnesol, dihydrofarnesal, farnesol, phenyl
acetaldoxime, geraniol and phenylacetonitrile are contained in the vacuum
headspace concentrate compared with the dynamically enriched headspace, and
Brunke (1996) describes the components which give five sensory aspects of the
vacuum headspace odour: floral- rosy- citrus, green (grass), green (pea),
fatty-waxy aldehydic and fruity-raspberry.
It
should also be noted that the flowers of Convallaria majalis are toxic to
humans, due to the presence of azetidine 2-carboxylic acid, which interferes
with proline metabolism and can be incorporated into protein synthesis.
References:
Boelens
M, Wobben HJ & Heydel J (1980) Perf & Flav. 5(6)
pp1-8.
Brunke
E-J. (1996) “New data on trace cvomponents with sensory relevance in flower
scents” Dragoco Report (1996) 1,
5-21
Burfield
T. (2000) Natural Aromatic Materials – Odours & Origins pub AIA,
Tampa USA.
Mabberley
(1998) The Plant Book Cambridge Univ Press 1998 revised edn.
Surburg,
M. & Guntert, H (1991) H&R Contact
No. 51, p14.