The recent movie “Perfume” set in 19th century Paris has sparked a lot of curiosity in the history and making of perfume fragrance, That history is long and decorated with the evocative names of famous scents and their creators stretching back all the way to Egypt and Mesopotamia in the second millennium BC.
The Early days of Perfume Fragrance
The first recorded maker of perfume fragrances was a lady chemist called Tapputi, who worked for a Mesopotamian royal family. She made her perfume fragrances from fresh picked flowers, brought swiftly into her laboratory each morning, before the dew left the ground. Peeping into her busy factory, you would see huge vats heating water to capture the essence of ingredients like cypress, myrrh, and balsam that she mixed with the distilled flower scents to create some of the earliest perfume fragrances known to man.
Perfume Fragrances in 18th Century France
Perfume fragrance production became a big business in France in the 18th century, as the Grasse region planted fields of flowers just to male it. With regular bathing still some decades away, citizens in 18th Paris were in need of as many bottles of perfume fragrances as they could get their hands on. Anyone producing a good new scent which covered the nasty street smells when applied to a hanky and held to the nose was instantly famous and could become very rich from it. Perfumers worked in studies surrounded by high shelves housing a fascinating collection of bottles of all shapes, colours and sizes. These held the basic ingredients of perfume fragrances, the flowers, woods, chemical compounds and resins that were blended drop by drop then used to fill hand blown glass bottles.
The Early 20th Century
English lavender was one of the most popular perfume fragrances in the early 20th century. It was more valuable than that grown in France because of its rather delicate scent. Surrey, Suffolk and Kent all had huge fields, some of which were converted to grow food during the war. Lavender was the perfume fragrance of choice for ordinary folks who loved its fresh, soothing scent, along with its ability to calm fevers and banish headaches.
During the war, perfume fragrances became part of the black market economy in Europe as luxury goods were scare and commanded huge prices. Along with chocolate, nylons and cigarettes, perfume fragrances were more easily available to US troops stationed in the UK who used them to impress and influence local girls hungry for a touch of luxury in those bleak days.
Perfume Fragrance Today
From the stars of the perfume fragrance business, like Channel No.5 to the latest offerings from Revlon, available in high street shops, there is a perfume fragrance that suits every individual and occasion. The technological advances in production of perfume fragrances have brought even the most exotic scents within the reach of everybody. Men and women alike have a huge range of perfume fragrance to choose from, with scents following the latest fashion trends.
