News has been seeping into the U.S. perfume trade that sounds too good to be true. And so it isexcept as a Good Neighborly prayer for the future. The news: as substitutes for the rare essential oils and flower "absolutes" of Europe and Asia, Latin American flowers may come to the rescue of the $15,000,000 U.S. perfume industry.
For years the Department of Agriculture's Tropical Station in Puerto Rico has experimented with home-grown smells. Its pretty chemist, black-eyed Noemi Garcia Arrilaga, specializes in extracting the .essence of the coffee flower. Some months ago, Senorita Arrilaga thought she had it. was further...