Enfleurage - the oldest extraction process - involved the use of cold fat . Today it has been almost completely abandoned. It was used to extract the oils from fragile flowers such as orange blossoms, jasmin or tuberose.
The hand-picked petals were deposited in a single layer on a pane of glass called "chassis", that was covered with a film of animal fat.
After 24 or 48 hours ( 72 hours for the tuberose), the spent petals were carefully removed. This process was repeated several times, until the fat was saturated with floral oils. Once the enfleurage process was completed, the fatty pomade - saturated with odors - was scraped off and washed with wine spirits. The resulting substance was an infusion.