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If you remember the '60s, chances are you remember the scent of patchouli. We typed this exotic-sounding word into the search box and slogged through listings from vendors of candles, bed linens, perfumes, and aromatherapy products, scanning the results for sites where the descriptive text seemed more factual than sales-oriented. We learned that the essential oil made from the patchouli plant has a "pungent, powerful, mossy, musty" fragrance. The viscous, orangey-amber oil is extracted from the leaves of a two to three foot perennial bush with purple-tinged white flowers, native to tropical Asia. From the pages of Botanical.com, an herbal resource
first published in 1931, we learned that patchouli, or Pogostemon patchouli, is a tropical member of the mint family, grown in the East and West Indies. Leaves are harvested several times a year, dried, and exported for distillation of the oil, although the highest quality oil is usually produced from fresh leaves, distilled close to the plantation. The oil is thought to improve with age, and is used with camphor to give India ink its characteristic odor. In the 19th century, the fragrance was used to scent fabrics manufactured in India for export to Europe. A page from Celestial Touch, a commercial aromatherapy site, describes the various properties
of and uses for the fragrance. You may notice that these diverse web resources are informative, entertaining, and sometimes offer conflicting information. For best results when doing research on the Web, consider the Ten C's for Evaluating Internet Resources or use similar guidelines to evaluate the quality and accuracy of online information.
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