Journey to the Perfume History

Jan 20
17:53

2011

Jimmy C. Albas

Jimmy C. Albas

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People have used perfumes for virtually all of recorded history. Although hygiene standards have varied over the centuries (Queen Isabella of Spain, the 1400s, boasts that she'd only had 2 baths in her whole life), people have always wanted to have a fragrant odor. And they've turned to perfume.

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What is Perfume?

People have decided to use perfumes for just about all of recorded history. Although hygiene standards have varied over the centuries (Queen Isabella of Spain,Journey to the Perfume History Articles the 1400s, boasts that she'd only had 2 baths in her entire life), people have always had an ambition to smell nice. And they've turned to perfume.

So what exactly is perfume? Have individuals usually understood it to be scented liquids in little glass bottles, as we comprehend it these days? Well, oddly enough, a few of the earliest perfumes had been retained small glass bottles…. As the French say, the much more things change, the much more things stay the exact same. So let us check perfume through the ages, and see what we encounter.

We see perfume now as liquids, which we can dab or mist on ourselves to give an enjoyable scent. The term modern word perfume, nonetheless, comes from the Latin phrase per fumus, meaning "through smoke," and that gives a hint to the origin of perfume. The earliest perfumes had been the smokes emitted by burning incense.

Incense and Ancient History

Incense is one of humanities oldest inventions; records of it can go back to ancient Egypt, much more than 3500 years ago. It was utilized to scent the air, and was mainly a "luxury" product: the wealthy used it in their homes, and the priests utilized it in religious rituals. Ordinary folks had to handle smells of ordinary life.

Incense was a luxury item owing to the tremendous effort that went into producing it. Then, as now, the much more tough it is to make something, the much more it will cost. To get a thought of ancient incense preparation, just attempt to powder various barks, twigs, leaves, and flowers with a mortar and pestle. Now do it sufficient to create a barrel of incense.

And this takes us to an additional point: just where to perfumes come from? For the most part, perfumes and incenses are manufactured from plant products. Many woods, like cedar or mesquite, are fairly aromatic, and we all know that flowers give off scent, as to numerous leaves. Other substances, such as oils and wines, can be added to these in numerous combinations, to produce the desired scent. Generally, in today's terminology, if the origin of the fragrance is a solid, than it's an incense; if the origin is really a fluid, it is a perfume.

The ancient Egyptians knew about fluid scents, also. They utilized various oils and flower extracts on themselves, and the use of fragrances spread via their entire society. Perfuming was part of bathing, and bathing was frequent. As a side note, the public baths of Greece and Rome probably owe something of their nature to Egyptian precursors.

The Egyptians also paid attention to the bottles and jars the utilized to keep perfumes. By and large, these had been ceramic or pottery, but they likewise used glass, just as we do today.

Bringing Perfume to the West

Egyptian culture might have disappeared, but the practice of perfuming lived on. The Greeks and Romans did not use incense as extensively, but they did take up the practice of utilizing scented oils as part of bathing. Olive oil was frequently employed a base for men's fragrances. These perfumed oils actually served a dual purpose. They smelled great, obviously, but within the hot Mediterranean climate they also protected the skin from the sun.

So, for much of history, perfumes had been manufactured by crushing flowers, barks, woods, or leaves, and then infusing them into various oils or burning them as incense. Things began to change within the Middle Ages, when Arab chemists developed a procedure to extract oils from flowers. Today we call these oils volatile oils, not because they are important to the fragrance industry ( they are), but because they are the "essence" of the scent.

Perfume Enters Modern History

Arab traders introduced volatile oils to Europe in the Renaissance period, and perfume makers quickly recognized them as superior for the production of scented perfumes, especially liquid ones.

Perfume, as a way of masking the unpleasant odors of life, quickly became well-liked throughout Europe. In France it became particularly popular, partly by royal imprimatur… The court of Louis XV was called the "perfumed court" as a result of the prevalence of scent. It was in France that the practice of daubing women's scent on the wrist joints originated.

It wasn't just the royal courtiers who had been perfumed, though. The gloves and wigs that had been the type of the day had been frequently perfumed. If you've ever seen portraits from colonial the US, notice the wigs that Washington and also the other gentlemen are wearing; they're white, not from age, but from the perfumed powder that was put on to them.

Heading Toward the 20th Century

The practice of creating fragrances from aromatic oils, primarily from floral sources, remains with us today. The greatest distinction between women's fragrances now, and also the women's fragrances available in the 1700s, is the bottles.

Modern glass perfume bottles, as little bits of artwork, had been the brainchild of Francois Coty, the French-Corsican perfume maker, who, in the 1890s and 1900s, developed a marvelous reputation as parfumier, or perfume maker. He also had an eye for marketing, and recognized that not everybody had the 'nose of Coty.' His insight was to trade his perfumes in small, attractive glass bottles. He partnered with a glass maker, and everyone knows the rest of the story….

YourDiscountPerfume.com

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What you will see are the best perfumes for women and men, at the best prices available, with shipping instantly to you. So check us out, and discover how easy it's to find the correct perfume.