CR5 Issue 157 June 2018

History
How We Fell in Love with Perfume By Catherine Rose
The word perfume is derived from
the Latin per fumum, meaning
‘through smoke’.
This is possibly because the
perfumes of ancient civilisations
were often incense-based – a dried
paste made from herbs, spices,
essential oils and fragrant tree
resins (including the biblical
frankincense and myrrh), which
was made to be burned.
Today, true perfumes are a distillation
of a certain percentage of
oils in alcohol, with eau de toilette
and eau de cologne being diluted
versions.
The perfume-making process was
described by Pliny the Elder, a
well-known Roman philosopher
who was born around twenty
years after the death of Christ. But
although the Romans were wellknown
to be very fastidious in their
toilet habits, perfume very much
pre-dates them. Used significantly
across Asian cultures, it is believed
perfume may have originated in
Arabia – still sometimes described
as ‘the land of perfumes’. The
perfume formulas of a female
Mesopotamian chemist known as
Tapputi-Bellatekalim have been
translated from a three-thousandyear-old
tablet written in ancient
cuneiform script.
In the ancient world, perfumes
were much more than just pleasant
smells – they were also revered.
The Bible refers to a sacred perfume,
only allowed to be used by
priests, that was made from myrrh,
cinnamon, cassia and sweet cane,
and the ancient Egyptians believed
perfume was ‘the sweat of the
gods’.
Ancient Hindu Ayurvedic texts
dating back to 3000 BC refer to
perfume’s distillation. In India, a
variety of fragrances were used
in tantric rituals where women
would be spiritually anointed with
different oils for every part of their
body.
In 2004, the oldest evidence of
perfume was discovered with the
remains of a Bronze Age perfume
‘factory’ unearthed in Cyprus.
It is thought that 13th century
Crusaders brought back perfume
from Palestine, and its use was eagerly
taken up by Europe’s nobility.
The Sun King Louis XIV, who ruled
France from 1643-1715, loved
perfume so much that his palace
became known as ‘the perfume
court’. This might have had something
to do with the fact that, like
most of the nobility at that time,
he was loathe to take baths, believing
(quite understandably) that
water made you ill.
King Louis had a different perfume
for every day and installed a pavilion
that he kept filled with flowers
and would visit with his mistresses.
He insisted on dousing every
palace visitor with scent and the
most important had their own
signature perfumes.
One of his favourite perfumes,
used to fragrance his shirts, was
called Aqua Angeli (‘water of
angels’) and consisted of, amongst
other ingredients, nutmeg, cloves,
jasmine, orange flowers, musk and
aloe wood, all boiled in rose petal
water.
During this time, France became a
force in Europe for the manufacture
and supply of fine perfumes,
and Grasse in southern France,
renowned for its natural variety of
flowers, was a leading supplier.
In England, where sanitation was
also abysmal and disease rife,
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perfumes were not only worn; they
were also kept inside jewellery and
the heads of canes to be inhaled by
the wearer for health-giving properties
and to ward off illness.
As well as essential oils from
flowers and plants, ingredients for
perfume were also derived from
animal excretions. Castor was
extracted from beavers, musk
from male deer and ambergris
from the sperm whale.
In the 1800s, synthetic fragrances
made an appearance, their less
expensive ingredients allowing
for the first mass marketing of
perfumes, thus launching famous
companies that are still around
today such as Coty and Guerlain.
It was discovered, for example,
that a mixture of nitric acid and
benzene gave off a scent like
almonds, so this was consequently
used in soap. It is not possible to
obtain essential oils from some
flowers, lily of the valley for
instance, so the development of
synthetic scents proved ideal to
replicate them.
With mass marketing, perfume
bottle design became increasingly
important and the Art Nouveau
period saw the launch of many
beautiful styles, some of them
designed by the artisans of the era
such as Rene Lalique.
Then in 1921, Chanel created her
signature scent, Chanel No. 5, with
the help of Grasse parfumier Ernest
Beaux who had made perfumes for
the Russian royal family. Under her
direction, he gave her numbered
samples to choose from – the rest
is history.
Today our love of perfume remains
undiminished and fragrances are
popular with both men and
women. But one thing hasn’t
changed in that, even used daily,
perfume is still viewed as a
gloriously indulgent and luxury
item – pure olfactory pleasure in
a bottle.