The word ‘perfume’ comes from the Latin per fumum or “through smoke’, while for the Ancient Greeks the same word meant ‘scent’ and ‘offering to the gods’. The first perfumes were meant for religious rituals.
- In the early Middle Ages the Arabs would mix musk with the mortar used to build new mosques and palaces in order to make them scented.
- Medieval royalty fed their courtesans with pure musk so that they sweated a sensual fragrance. We definitely have it easier!
- Indian jasmine, which is one of the fragrance world’s most popular flowers, belongs to the olive family? Today, it is found in 83 per cent of all women’s fragrances and about 33 per cent of all the men’s versions. And 8,000 flowers yield only one gram of absolute.
- Guerlain’s Shalimar, introduced in 1925, is considered to be the first modern oriental.
- The first fashion designer to marry clothes with perfume was Paul Poiret. The couturier would give his clients little bottles of perfumes as gifts and later began to sell perfume to clients within his store.
- Jean Patou’s Joy, introduced in 1935, was voted the Scent of the 20th Century by the Fragrance Foundation in 2000.
- Van Cleef & Arpel’s First, released in 1976, was the first perfume created by a jewellery house.
- Grasse, in the South of France, is now the perfume capital of the world. It produces over two-thirds of France’s natural aromas for perfume and food flavourings.
