History

HISTORY OF PERFUME

Perfume is thousands of years old.

Evidence of the first perfumes dating back to Ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia and Cyprus. The English word “perfume” comes from the Latin per fume, meaning “through smoke.”

The oldest perfumes ever found were discovered by archaeologists in Cyprus. They were more than four thousand years old. A cuneiform tablet from Mesopotamia, dating back more than three thousand years, identifies a woman named Tapputi as the first recorded perfume maker. Stories about her have been found on a clay tablet from Mesopotamia, dating back to the second millennium BC.

The Ancient Egyptians were the first to incorporate perfume into their culture, followed by the ancient Chinese, Hindus, Israelites, Carthaginians, Arabs, Greeks, and Romans.

Perfume was an expensive and important commodity throughout Ancient Egypt. In fact, Egyptian mythology even notes the god Nefertem as being the lord of perfume. He is often depicted carrying water lilies, which were a common ingredient in ancient perfume.

Egyptians made perfume by distilling natural ingredients with non-scented oils. The most popular scents were derived from local flowers, fruits and aromatic woods. Incense was also used ceremonially and the trade of incense and myrrh played a large part in Egyptian international relations.

< Egyptian perfume sprinkler (12th-13th c.)

It’s said that great Egyptian leaders like Queen Cleopatra and Queen Hatshepsut used fragrances to scent their bodies, quarters, baths and even took perfume with them to the grave.

Upper-class Ancient Egyptians used a variety of methods to create perfume to improve their scent. For example, they buried clay pots filled with whatever scent they desired and added oil and water. Once the water evaporated and the oil was heated by the hot desert sand, all that remained was a mixture of the scent and the oil.

Limestone sculpture of Hatshepsut

The Ancient Egyptians also invented glass and used it to manufacture the first glass perfume bottles, which made it easy to transport and sell scented oils. The Ancient Egyptians commonly traded perfumes with their neighbors, making exotic scents a commodity.

Egyptian queens used fragrances to scent their bodies, quarters, baths & even took perfume with them to the grave.

Perfumes were part of daily life for the Ancient Romans . Unlike in Egypt, the use of perfume was not limited to the rich. Instead, most people in Ancient Rome used perfume to mask the unpleasant scents of living in a tightly packed city. People who worked in theaters sprinkled rose-scented water on the audience to make sure the theater continued to smell nice.

While modern perfumes are liquids, people in Ancient Rome used unguents, thick, greasy mixtures that they spread on their skin. Often made from fats and oils, unguents were easy to manufacture, simple to apply, and could preserve a powerful scent for a long period of time.

Torso of a Dancing Faun > (1st century)

The Ancient Romans sometimes used physical objects, such as flower petals, roots, and other plant parts, to imbue their unguents with fragrance. The ancient cult of Aphrodite, goddess of love, used perfumes and scents in their temples and in their worship services. However, perfume was not only used for religious purposes. It was a large part of Rome’s transformation from a small farming village to a global epicenter.

Portrait of Pope Adrian VI by Cristofano dell’Altissimo (ca. 1568)

Mary therefore took a pound of expensive ointment made from pure nard, & anointed the feet of Jesus & wiped his feet with her hair. The house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume. - John 12:3

As Christianity came to power throughout Europe, the use of perfume was limited to priests who used it during religious ceremonies. However, the traditions pioneered by the Ancient Egyptians and the Ancient Romans were kept alive by fragrance enthusiasts in the Middle East.

The rise of Christianity, however, saw a decline in the use of perfume for much of the Dark Ages. It was the Muslim world that kept the traditions of perfume alive during this time—and helped trigger its revival with the onset of international trade.

While Europeans turned their backs on perfumes for some time, other cultures enjoyed them regularly. For instance, perfume was at the heart of sacred Indian Tantric rituals, used in ceremonies and in their temples.

The ancient Chinese infused many daily items with perfume such as the ink they wrote with and the stationary they wrote on. They also used perfume in particular spaces such as homes and places of worship.

The Chinese also used perfume for disinfection and purity as they believed that perfume could help rid a room of disease. In general, they focused less on anointing their bodies with fragrance and more on using it to scent the world around them.

During the Sui and Song dynasties, noble Chinese began to use personal perfumes, importing ingredients via the Silk Road. By the Yuan, Ming and Qing dynasties, fragrance use had begun to spread among the public. Oriental fragrances focused heavily on herbs and spices, many of which were also used for food and medicine.

By the 14th century A.D., Italians had almost perfected the perfumemaking process and liquid perfumes began to replace solid ones. Marco Polo and his teams brought many unique aromatics back from their travels which turned Venice into a major fragrance trading post.

< Chinese Perfume receptacle Made with Jade Qing dynasty (1644-1911)

Portrait of a Woman at a Harpsichord by François Dumont, 18th C.

The 16th century saw the popularity of perfume explode in France, especially among the upper classes and nobles. With help from “the perfume court,” the court of Louis XV, everything got perfumed: Furniture, gloves, and other clothing. Excessive use of perfume, including spraying it on furniture and articles of clothing, came to be viewed as a sign of opulence.

Catherine de Medici, a wealthy Italian who married the French king in 1519, is often credited with bringing perfume to the rest of Europe. Her Italian perfumer, Rene le Florentin, created a signature scent for her out of orange blossom and bergamot. Other nobles such as Queen Elizabeth of Hungary helped spread perfume’s popularity across Europe.

This is when perfume started to become a fashion accessory. European men and women would wear perfume on their bodies, clothing and wigs. People began incorporating more complex ingredients such as ambergris, civet and musk derived from animals. Since bathing regularly was still an unpopular practice, these scents were used to cover up the scent of body odors. The smell of perfume was in vogue because it helped distinguish the upper classes.