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So, if you want to dabble in nostalgia, quite literally, and not get all your hopes pinned on Mother Nature to provide you with the musky smell of wet earth anytime soon, Kannauj's Mitti Attar is your solution.
MAKING OF MITTI ATTAR SKIN
The attar concentrate enters the semi-permeable skin while the moisture evaporates. Research has just begun and it might take two years to complete it," he told Homegrown.Īs for the packaging, these attars come in a small leather bottle, which, according to Shukla, is a natural de-moisturiser, like the human skin. We can make it more green and environment friendly while making it easier to operate. We want to modify this process and electrify it. Right now the original method uses firewood and coal and is marred with safety issues. At FFDC, we are working on a project that can replace this ancient method.
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The geo-climatic conditions of the region make it favourable for the industry to grow. We have received a geographical indication status. The deg and bhapka are connected with a hollow bamboo pipe that carries the fragrant vapors from the simmering pot into their sandalwood oil base." She then goes on to describe how the clay is broken into disks and placed in this apparatus for baking.Īccording to Homegrown, the more the clay bakes in the summer, the better it is. They light a wood or cow-dung fire underneath, then fill the receiver with sandalwood oil-which serves as a base for the scents-and sink it into the trough. When a fresh supply of flowers comes in, the craftsmen put pounds of rose or jasmine or other petals into each deg, cover the deg with water, hammer a lid down on top, and seal it with mud. Each still consisted of the copper deg built atop its own oven and beside its own trough of water-and a bulbous condenser called a bhapka (receiver) that looked like a giant butternut squash. The ingredients used to make mitti shamama attar can vary depending on the recipe and the perfumers preferences, but they typically include a combination of. Have you ever experienced the fragrance of sun-baked earth when the first few drops of rain fall on it Indian perfumers of this town have perfected the art of capturing this exquisite smell. To put things simply-Kannauj extracts the Mitti Attar through a long process that involves cultivating the clay, baking it, distilling it and capturing the steam it lets off when contained in the deg bhapkas.Įnvironmental journalist Cynthia Barnett, in an article for The Atlantic, describes the process as: "The ancient, painstakingly slow distillation practiced in Kannauj is called deg-bhapka. The story of how the ethereal Mitti Attar, which captures the scent of wet earth, is prepared in Kannauj, the perfume capital of the country.
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