News
Why were fragrances so desirable in ancient times?
Fragrances were extracted from hard to catch animals and rare plants, woods, herbs and spices especially from the Middle East and lands Far East. This made them even more valuable and precious and that is one big reason why people offered them to gods, tyrants and emperors. How did we stumble upon them when they were far off in the East? We at Perfumora.com like to call it Crusade for Fragrance. Religious wars (1100-1300) that were seen as a way to get rid the Holy Land from Muslim control became a route for their discovery. Many spices and bath ointments reached the European nations through these paths. Venice and Naples were the two spots that for the next 200 years witnessed the bloom of the perfume industry. Plants like jasmine, tuberose, cloves from India and Persia found suitable climate in this country. The demand for unusual scents and fragrant extracts ran wild.
Learn more
How did our ancestors contain and store perfumes?
Interesting question and what evolved with these perfumes were their bottles. They were all the more interesting too and often were as gorgeous, exotic and elaborate as the fragrant oils they contained. The earliest crafted perfume bottles are believed to be as old as 1000 B.C. People in ancient Egypt used glass bottles largely to hold perfumes. The art of crafting of perfume bottles came to Europe and was practiced most extensively in Venice in the 18th century. Here glass containers assumed incredible shapes of small animals and some even sported rustic landscapes. Today our perfume bottles are designed mostly by manufacturers and highly reflect the nature of the fragrance inside. Till today France and Italy remain the center of the European perfume design & trade. What started as a way to mask body odor of the wealthy and unbathing between the 16th and 17th centuries gave way to a highly developed perfume industry of the modern day.
Learn more
When and by whom were perfumes synthesized for the first time?
As the obsession over fragrances intensified in Europe, England started containing aromatics in lockets and hollow heads of canes that were later sniffed by the owner. The late 1800s saw the use of synthetic chemicals to mass market perfumes for the first time. Nitrobenzene; the first chemical perfume was made from nitric acid & benzene. This synthetic mixture was used to scent soaps as it gave off an almond smell. It was the year 1868 when William Perkin, an Englishman synthesized Coumarin, a fragrance that smelled like freshly sown hay from the South American tonka bean. Synthetic violet and vanilla were formulated by Ferdinand Tiemann of the University of Berlin. Meanwhile Francis Despard Dodge was working in the United States to create Citronellol. He experimented with citronella, derived from citronella oil with a lemon-like odor. The result was a perfume that imitated the scent of rose. This synthetic compound resembles the aroma of sweet pea, narcissus, lily of the valley and hyacinth in different variations.
Learn more
Where does the origin of perfumes lie?
It was the year 2004 to 2005 when archaeologists discovered in Pyrgos and Cyprus what many argue to be the world's oldest surviving perfumes that date back to more than 4000 years. Ancient perfumeries existed that made use of stills, mixing bowls and funnels and bottles to extract scents from flowers like jasmine, herbs like coriander, myrtle, bergamot and nuts like almonds and the like. In the 9th century an Arab chemist named Al-Kindi wrote the Book of the Chemistry of Perfume and Distillations. It has more than 100 recipes for formulating fragrant oils, salves and aromatic waters. Similarly a Persian chemist Ibn Sina used to extract oils from flowers through distillation.
Learn more
Fragrance and royalty, how are they connected?
European royal families were not new to the art of perfumery either. It existed there since as early as 1221. In the year 1370 at the behest of Queen Elizabeth of Hungary scented oils and alcohol solutions were combined to produce the famous Hungary Water. This fragrant art prospered in Renaissance Italy and the then personal perfumer to Catherine de’ Medici, Rene the Florentine took it to France. Today this country is among the leading European centers that manufacture perfume and cosmetics. South of France became a major region for cultivation of flowers for their essence in the 14th century. What is known today as the eau de cologne was first formulated in 1693 by an Italian barber Giovanni Paolo Feminis. Its original name was Aqua Admirabilis. It was in the 17th century that Europeans discovered that fragrances could heal. Doctors would mask themselves with leather pouches containing pungent spices such as cloves and cinnamon to prevent them from falling prey to infection from plague victims.
Learn more
ALL ABOUT FRAGRANCE
Fragrance, you can feel it in the air. You know something stirs but you can’t really put a finger on it. A presence hovers and lingers about or maybe you are just imagining things! It’s probably all in your head or something in the drink. A fragrance does no talking but it screams out pure bliss to your senses. May be it is that French guy that stole a look at you as he entered or perhaps it is that Mexican singer at the party that is going around spreading her pheromones. It can be anything; it is the pale yet distinct aroma of cinnamon that does it for me and nothing makes me feel more at home. But that is just my memories talking. I have my heart set on Black Saffron these days but my favorites keep on changing. There has to be a best perfume that you are into, an aroma that means you; a fragrance that tells people of your arrival. What is Fragrance? If one talks about fragrances or perfumes, they go back to the ancient Chinese and Egyptians that made use of scented oils and extracts from flowers or spices to make these exotic smelling concoctions. From the gum and sap of hard to reach trees to the oils and liquids tapped from rare plants; everything made for a distinct aroma. It wasn’t until the 19th century that the perfume industry as we know it today became apparent. Aromatic liquids that were being produced in small bottles at home were now being manufactured in larger batches with advancements in chemistry. A fragrance is a smell often characterized by pleasant molecules that sweetly effervesce in the air and travel deep up in our minds to elevate our mood. The bitter sweet presence of coffee is its fragrance and the cool and sweet feeling that a rose gives off is its fragrance.
Learn more
What is Perfumery and where did it begin?
The art of making perfumes is called Perfumery which is believed to have begun in ancient Mesopotamia and Egypt. Later refined by the Romans and Persians, it has also been mentioned in one of the earliest Hindu Ayurvedic texts, Charaka Samhita and Sushutra Samhita. Where does the word come from? The word, “perfume” is derived from the Latin word, “perfumare,” which means "to smoke through". When and by whom was the first perfume created? Well, if studies are to be heeded, the first recorded perfume chemist was a Mesopotamian woman named Tapputi who introduced the world to the art of perfume making through distilling flowers, oil and calamus with certain other aromatics. Experts also believe that perfume and perfumery existed as early as 3300 BC in the Indus valley civilization in India.
Learn more