Author : Vennie Chou



Plants - we cannot live without them 

They are everywhere on this planet and are often taken for granted. They have lived on Earth for millions of years and have adapted to variable environmental conditions. They are survivors and we need them to survive. We also need to learn more about plants to benefits our health and becoming survivors like them.

My first fascination with plants was in my elementary years. I loved to eat watermelon when I was a child. I asked the farmer how he grew his watermelons. He told me that watermelons grow best on sandy soil. Until now, I still wonder where the melons get the water from. Similarly, how does Aloe Vera know to produce healing juice when living in scorching hot desert? In school, we also learned that plants take the carbon dioxide that we breathe out and convert it to oxygen that we need to breathe. Plants have created an environment that we depend on.

Plants cannot talk but they can communicate through our senses. They have scents that we can smell and affect our endocrine system, which in turn, affecting our emotions. They have tastes that we learn to like or dislike. They have colours that tell us what they are, what nutrients that they have and even a change of seasons.  There is so much knowledge hidden in the colours of plants. We need to know how to read and understand the colours to fully benefit from them.

Colours of four seasons                                                                                                                                                     

Spring 

Green dominates as new leaves sprout from branches of trees and ground. Green is the colour of Chlorophyll.  Interacting with sunlight, Chlorophyll converts carbon dioxide to oxygen through a process called “Photosynthesis”.  As there is more sun light and warmth in spring, animals wake up from hibernation and people become more active. We can use more oxygen. Green plants are often consumed for cleansing and detox purposes. For example, drinking green tea helps to clean our digestive system. Consuming green food is especially important after winter, a long inactive and high fat diet season.

Summer 

This is the season filled with vibrant red, blue and purple colours. These colours have a common pigment called “Anthocyanin”.  Bright colours attract insects and animals to aid in pollination.  These colourful plants contain numerous nutrients to keep us active during the summer months. For example, red fruits and vegetables are usually rich in iron.  Blue and purple foods are rich in antioxidant. Anthocyanin has shown to act as “sunscreen” to protect the plant from sun damage by absorbing blue-green ultraviolet light.

Winter 
In general, a season when grounds are covered with white snow and with limited vegetation. The prominent plants are white root vegetables, such as garlics, ginger, turnips, white cabbages and onions. These white color foods contain Anthoxanthins, a type of flavonoid pigment. Anthoxanthins are antioxidants and immune boosters, which we need in the winter months to fight off colds and flu.

Autumn 
This is the season when day light becomes shorter; there is not enough light for photosynthesis. Plants start to lose the green colour (Chlorophyll) , thus we see the red, yellow and orange colours masked by the green chlorophyll. Plants change colour in preparation for the colder and darker months ahead. Yellow, orange and red foods are rich in Carotenoids.  These foods include pumpkin, winter squashes and yam. In autumn, days become shorter, nights become longer and temperature starts to drop. Pigments from Carotenoids are fat soluble pigments. Benefits of Carotenoids include protecting and improving our eyes, boosting our immune system by stimulating the production of certain white blood cells, and protecting the fats in our blood from free radicals (anti-oxidant). Thus, eating foods rich in Carotenoids prepares our bodies for the coming cold, dark, less active and higher fat- diet winter months.

Being a lab technologist and a textile enthusiast, I have learned that most plant colors can be transferred from plants to protein fibers (wool and silk) and cellulose fibers (cotton and linens). 
Historically, people have been dying textiles using plants and insects for thousands of years. Through dying with natural materials, I have learnt even more beneficial features of plants. After natural fabrics (eg: cotton or silk) are dyed with plants, such as indigo and madder, the fabrics possess more UV protection for our skin. In addition, naturally dyed fabrics repel insects. I come to realize the reasons why many farmers in Asia in the past wore blue indigo dyed cotton when working in the field.

Plants are nature’s chemist, nutritionist, pharmacist, aroma therapist, fashion inspirations and countless roles in our lives. It is almost impossible to fully understand all of the plant chemistry.  Every living plant is unique.  Therefore, the products made from plants are almost unpredictable. The unpredictability makes every product into a unique art piece. By using our senses, observations, creativity and experiences, we can explore and incorporate natural materials into our material world to benefit the environment and health.

Vennie Chou

Louis XV

Louis XV orders that his apartments are each day impregnated with a new perfume. Any object of ornament should be sprinkled by it.
Of course, perfume is not only used to seduce the opposite sex, but also to mask the bad smells.
Indeed, the lack of hygiene and the lack of sewers release strongly nauseous odours as well inside as outside the dwellings. Versailles, is not saved by it, far from there.
In Vincennes and Sevres, one makes set up bronze perfume fountains, decorated with statues and bouquets of flower to scent the city.
The medical college highly recommends perfume for disinfecting and cleaning.

This invaluable and refined culture has completely forgot the bases of personal hygiene.  One still regards bathing as unhealthy.  The toilet of a king consists in rubbing the hands and the face with a little sweet almond oil before sprinkling perfume copiously.
During the “Lace War”, to mask bad smells, men of sword called “Servants of the Scents” for the “Flowered Guard” regiment, wash themselves with perfumes.

Perfume Deletes Dirtiness.
At the 18th Century, Cleanliness is
To Powder with Preparations made with 
Rose or Jonquil,
To Carry Scent Bags in its Doublet,
To Rub with Angel's Water with Bergamot…

Marquise de Pompadour

Louis XV, although married with the Duchess of Chateauroux, gives up his sceptre in the hands of Marquise de Pompadour.
Very intelligent, she shows an activity and of a remarkable energy, so much so that any business of State is discussed and stopped under its direction; ministers, ambassadors, marshals, come to hold council in its boudoir.
She is the dispenser of all royal favours and everything could be obtained under her influence.
Moreover, she protects all arts and has an invaluable taste.  She is surrounded by the best artists of her time, by the greatest minds of her time: Boucher, La Tour, Voltaire…
Each new thought born in France finds an asylum certain near her.
Whereas the Queen, of Polish origin hardly appreciates perfumes, Marquise de Pompadour, consumes some with such a prodigality that she spends in only one year the sum of almost a million francs.
She founds the porcelain factory of Sevres and gives to France a lucrative industry.
In 1736, Pompadour launches the fashion of famous “Eau de Cologne” of Jean Marie Farina.
In 1740, she launches the aromatized vinegar.

The 18th century is one very important period in the history of perfume.
The competition between the glovers perfumers is getting so important that one orders to them to sell only their own production and exclusively in their shops.
It is at that time that one sees appearing the first great names of perfumers.


Liste de la Corporation des Marchands Gantiers-Parfumeur Publiée en 1776


Adam, M., founder of "La Reine des Fleurs", 82 Division des Lombards (next to Passage Molière)
Beauiard, rue St Honoré
Chardin Hadancourt at Pont Saint Michel
Gervais, rue Saint Martin
Lugier, rue Bourg L'abbé
Raibaud, rue St Honoré
Fargeon, rue de Roule
J.H. Fargeon very early becomes the Official Glover-Perfumer of Roy Louis XV and his Court. He has the favours of the Roy and his business is flourishing.  All Louis XV's Court; from duchesses to knights, everyone buys his pomades,  powders, make-ups and perfumes.
Fargeon goes bankrupt in 1778, when the Roy and its scented Court owes him a very important sum.  With the death of Louis XV, he will never be paid.

At the end of the 18th century, the first great perfumeries grassoises are founded by famous perfumers like Chiris, Roure, Charabot…
They put an end to the small Art of Perfumery craft and change the small town in a true industrial and commercial empire.
Marquise de Pompadour does not reign only on fashion, she is its incarnation and she carries to the firmament the sensual and refined culture of Versailles.

She Knows How to Amuse the King and one says that to Play She is Hiding on Her Scents Bottles 
Louis XV has to Look for Them 

The Pompadour and the du Barry launch the modes at the Court.  Perfumes are spread in all the women places of the city and are quickly adopted by any gallant knight who, as for the powder, adopts the colors and the fragrances of his beloved one.
It is not for nothing that the Court of Roy Louis XV is baptised the “Scented Court”: men and women compete of taste for scents.

Aristocrats, middle-class, legal, finances, letters and sword men, everyone scents themselves.
In second half of the XVIII ème century, the vogue of perfumes still develops. The Spanish Leather, scented fans and  gloves, perfume bottles and scents coffers remain the prerogative of the Court.
In 1746, smelling bags originating in England replace burning pastilles and suffocating smoke
The malicious gossip allots sometimes to the perfume sprayed on the body, fainding, languors and vapors caused by the too tight dresses.
Salts and vinegars, which are presented in tiny bottles or small boxes, also called vinaigrettes, allow to vanished women to get back their mind.

By 1750, certain perfume houses decorate their bottles with beautiful gilded labels. (Butterfly 1760/Prud' hon 1795).
It is the time when the first large French crystal manufactures appear: St Louis which was a glassmaking since 1586 becomes crystal manufacture in 1781. The Baccarat glassmaking is born in 1764 and will become crystal manufacture only in 1817.