From San Francisco, at the spring national meeting of the American Chemical Society
Perfumers struggle to make every bottle of scent smell just as rosy as the last. After a struggle of their own, scientists have now discovered an important clue to the way nature makes the chemicals that give rose oil—an ingredient in many perfumes—its sweet smell.
Chemists suspected that roses make some of their major scent chemicals by breaking down carotenoids, the compounds in petals that give red roses their hue. However, scientists had never caught the flowers in the act.