The Origins of Perfume

Perfume is poetic mastery of some of the most exotic scents in the world and the artful combination of each in just the right quantities. So, its a little bit of this and a little bit of that to produce the desired aroma and even though the ingredients in a bottle of Channel No.5 are identical, the responses that it invokes in individuals is by no means the same

Most people are under the impression that perfume originated in France, after all Paris is the  City of Love. But not true (to the perfume part anyway). The Egyptians beat them to it thousands of years before and their perfumes were used for religious ceremonies, burial rites and (most likely) to hide obnoxious smells eminating from the Hoi polloi. A big favourite among all the fragrances was from the Lily plant. They even had a God of Perfume called Nefertum, (“He Who is Beautiful” and the “Water-Lily of the Sun”) who wafted about the universe, wearing Blue Lotus blossoms on his head and very little else

Also, the richer you were, the more perfume you could afford to wear on your person and on your head. So that acted as a status symbol and elevated you within the ranks of high society. The whole perfumed cone thing is a bit peculiar. These cones were made of perfumed wax, oils or fat, which the Egyptians would wear on top of their hair pieces and wigs to parties, feasts and a couple of sacrifices thrown in for good measure. During the hot summer nights the wax would melt and release wonderful aromas and the moisturising oils from the actual wax. The oil in the hair bit was relevantly healthy (as we are still doing it today) but I cannot imagine warm sticky oil dripping down from anybody’s forehead as particularly desirable

It was only after the Greeks and more so the Romans who were out on their conquering sprees that encountered perfume from the Egyptian and Persian lands (where it also enjoyed quite a following) and when they started mass producing it, the ingredients and quantities became standard, so one bottle of Opium smelled exactly the same as another bottle of Opium and not like pig trotters. A perfume factory located in Cypress dating from 2,000 BC seemed to have specialised in the production of scents like coriander, laurel, myrtle, lavender, and rosemary (which is a personal favourite, right up there with Bergamot, which by the way, used to be the main ingredient of all perfumes, but more on that in another post)

From then onward, perfume started spreading around the world via traders (and probably a couple of Pirates too), but it was only in 1190 that perfume began to be commercially produced in France and and as they say, the rest is history