If your wife will settle for Lavender perfume you (or your wife) can extract the Lavender fragrance in an alcohol solution. The process is known as enfleurage and is the classic technique for making perfume. It is a simple procedure and the equipment should be easy to jury-rig from your scrap box.
The essential oils are extracted into melted animal fat and then into an alcohol solution. The alcohol solution is separated from the animal fat by distillation.
Melted lard will absorb the oils from about 3 times its weight in flower petals.
You will need lard, un-denatured ethyl alcohol, and your source material. I know flower petals, Mint leaves, Bayberries, Cinnamon, Cedar and Juniper work well. I cannot see any reason Lavender would not work.
Melt the lard in a double boiler
Shred the Lavender (or whatever)
mix 1/3 of the lavender with melted lard let stand for about an hour in a warm place
Reheat and drain the lard
Mix the lard with the second third of the lavender and let sit for an hour
Reheat and drain the lard
Mix the lard with the third third of the lavender and let sit for an hour
Reheat
Add 100 proof vodka (a source of un-denatured ethyl alcohol) and mix for 5 minutes
Place the lard-vodka mixture in a bottle with a single outlet, connect a simple condenser (a foot or two of metal tube coiled) and place the bottle in boiling water.
The alcohol with the fragrance will drip out the condenser.
For ¾ pound of flower petals use ¼ pond lard and 1 oz Vodka.
You will change the resulting perfume by changing the time extracting the fragrence from the Lavender into the lard and also the time extracting the fragrence from the lard into the alcohol.
The result is a strong perfume. To make Cologne dilute the perfume with alcohol as needed.
Edmund Scientific has a kit with the bottle and condenser.
http://www.edmundscientific.com/Products/DisplayProduct.cfm?productid=648
The kit price is less than any of my three point attachments but you might have everything you need in your junk box.
Ed
