There has always been a
trade in scents and by the year 2002 perfume had become a
$10 billion industry. Today women have fragrance wardrobes
of at least six different perfumes, rather than a single
signature perfume, keeping one special perfume for occasion
moments.
People have used perfume,
oils and unguents on their bodies for thousands of years in
lesser or greater amounts dependant on fashion whims. The
early Egyptians used perfumed balms as part of religious
ceremonies and later as part of pre love making
preparations. Myrrh and Frankincense were exuded gums from
trees used to scent the atmosphere in rituals. Other plants
such as rose and peppermint were steeped in oils until a
perfumed unguent formed. The unguent was then rubbed into
the skin. It's interesting to note that perfume has come
full circle today as more and more of us seek out high
quality aromatherapy perfumed oils to use in exactly the
same way as our ancestors did.
Products that enhance
the feel of skin and the smell of the body have been highly
valued in every culture. Trade routes introduced spices to
other parts of the world and a wider range of scents could
be made. In the past people often mixed their own potions
using home methods creating their own aromatherapy products.
Many homes had a still room where essences were steeped out
of flowers and herbs.
Left - Lavender field in Grasse France.
Perfume fell out of use
during early Christianity, but was revived in the medieval
period. By the 1600s scents were applied to objects such as
furniture, gloves and fans. In the Georgian Era non greasy
eau de cologne was developed and it had many uses from bath
essence to mouthwash.
The late 19th
century was the first real era of perfume as we know it when
new scents were created because of advances in organic
chemistry knowledge. Synthetic perfume products were used
in place of certain hard to find or expensive ingredients.
At the same time a similar chemical knowledge development
happened in textile printing dyes.
Grasse in Provence,
France became a centre for flower and herb growing for the
perfume industry. The men who treated leathers in the same
area found the smells so bad they perfumed themselves and
the leathers. They were knowledgeable about making the
botanical essences and were the early perfume noses. But it
was only in the C20th that scents and designer
perfumes were really mass produced. Before that, the few
trade names that existed were Coty and Yardley who made
fairly light scents with familiar smells.
Perfume is made from about
78% to 95% of specially denatured ethyl alcohol and a
remainder of essential oils.
Perfume
is the costliest form of fragrance with 22% of essential
oils.
Eau de Parfum
(EDP), comes next with between 15
and 22% essential oils.
That's followed by Eau
de Toilette (EDT) with 8 to 15% oils.
The weaker Eau de
Cologne has just 4% essential oils.
For those who crave super
subtlety Eau Fraiche with 1 to 3% essential oils, is
the lightest dilution of fragrance.
Many new perfumes are
promoted as EDPs and an EDT is not always produced as there
has been a vogue for Eau de Parfum as individuals want a
more lasting signature.
There
are major fragrance categories - Floral, Oriental,
Floriental, Chypre, Green Marine and Fruit. Typical plant
products include anise, bay leaf, bergamot, cardamom, cedar
wood, eucalyptus, frankincense, gardenia, geranium, iris,
jasmine, lavender, lemon, lilac, lily, lily of the valley,
magnolia, moss, neroli, orange, orris, patchouli, pine,
raspberry, rose, sage, sandalwood, tuberose, vanilla, violet
and ylang-ylang.
The memory of a scent
left by violets.
Typical animal products
used in perfume include musk from the male musk deer,
ambergris from sperm whales, castoreum a secretion of the
beaver and civet from the civet cat. All are used as
fixatives and add an indefinable mystery to the smell at the
same time.
When you apply perfumes
apply them to pulse points such as the folds in the crook of
your elbow and back of knees, wrist, neck and cleavage.
Make sure you do not rub wrists together as this crushes the
smell. Spraying a little into the air is also good if you
walk straight into the perfume. This helps to diffuse it
over your body. Do not simply apply to the neck always work
up the body as the scent rises. Also consider wearing in
your bra a small ball of perfume impregnated cotton wool.
Consider layering perfumes.
Use all the same perfume in various products. Begin with
shower or bath gel and then rub in body lotion or spray with
a matching after bath spray. Finally apply the scent
preferably as perfume or EDP. I find that the use of body
lotion makes you feel really scented and it is probably to
do with starting at the feet and applying the scent all over
allowing the scent to rise. It also makes you feel extra
special and very pampered.
Keep bottles tightly
stopped, away from direct heat and out of sunlight. You
will certainly know when they have gone off as you'll notice
that you do not get that lovely boost of heavenly scent when
you spray or dab and the fragrance will look darker in the
bottle. Some perfumes come in blue or opaque bottles and
these store perfume well.
Try to choose perfumes that
suit you, not your friends or family. Test a perfume in a
store and then walk around for a minimum of ten minutes.
Some perfumes take more like half an hour or an hour to
truly develop. For example, Boudoir by Vivienne Westwood,
Jicky by Guerlain and Must de Cartier are all ones I love
after an hour, but am not convinced on first sniff.
Put a few drops of perfume
onto an oil burner to scent your bedroom. At Christmas use
musky oriental room fragrances in the form of perfumed
incense sticks, candle or sprays to enhance the familiar
associated yuletide seasonal smells of cinnamon, orange oil,
pine, frankincense and myrrh.
Ernest
Beaux created Chanel No. 5 for Coco Chanel in 1921.
It has a floral top note of ylang-ylang and neroli, with a
heart of blends of jasmine and rose all above a woody base
of sandalwood and vetiver. Chanel believed women should
wear perfume wherever they hoped to be kissed. Today Chanel
No.5 sells a bottle every 30 seconds.
In recent years Chanel No.
5 has been marketed as a spray with two refills in an
effort to have it recognised as an essential everyday
finishing touch rather than a precious scent to be used
sparingly.
Right - The hypnotic
scent of roses.
One of my favourites is
Guerlain's Shalimar launched first in 1925 and relaunched in
2001. It's a refined oriental feminine fragrance with iris,
vanilla, and rose. It has the wonderful Guerlain quality
that never dates and always gets compliments. I still think
it's one of the very best Guerlain perfumes. They are all
particularly wonderful and each seems to develop with the
individual. Maybe it really is because the secret ingredient
called Guerlinade the X factor that is added to every new
perfume bearing the Guerlain name, makes it smell like a
truly sense hitting perfume unlike later unisex creations.
In 1932 Dana made the
exotic Tabu, Worth made the memorable Je Reviens which
remained popular in the 50s and 60s and in 1934 Elizabeth
Arden developed Blue Grass. All are still sold today. Later
Molyneux and Schiaparelli and other designers produced
exotic perfumes in direct competition with Chanel. Jean
Patou launched Joy in 1935 and it was voted Scent of the 20th
Century at the Fragrance Foundation FiFi awards 2000.
1944 saw the introduction
of Femme by Rochas. After the war lighter fresher perfumes
by Dior and Balmain which could be worn easily by day became
more and more popular with the middle classes. In 1947 Dior
launched the ever popular Miss Dior. I still love these
older perfumes such as Miss Dior and the wonderful lily
Diorissimo.
At this time the working
classes still rarely used anything more exotic than the very
early scents or the new perfumes produced by cosmetic houses
rather than fashion design house couturiers.
Some of the less costly
perfumes had quite pleasing scents, but they had none of the
cachet of Couture house names. Everyday prices meant that
the ordinary person could afford to buy a perfume gift from
ranges by Coty, Yardley, Max Factor and Revlon and not break
the bank.
Max Factor's
Hypnotique and Primitif were very popular in the 1950s as
was Tweed by Lentheric, and Coty's L'Aimant. Revlon scored
great success with Intimate and Aquamarine. Intimate is
still available on some Internet sites. Yardley's Lily of
the Valley or French Fern bath salts and talc were always to
be found in the Christmas stockings of the masses of working
folk.
Goya also produced scents
in a price conscious range. Goya's Black Rose and Here's My
Heart featured regularly in full page adverts. Many people
still used 4711 Eau de Cologne, with its clean fresh smell.
A 4711 roll on stick was
especially popular for summer heat perspiration before air
conditioning.
From Woolworth's
young teenagers bought Soir de Paris by Bourjois in its
small blue bottle. They delighted in translating the French
into Evening in Paris.
Right - The ever popular rose and lilies of the valley.
Throughout the 1960s
ordinary people began to buy perfume in quantity. People
who had never been abroad before began to spend time
browsing in perfume stores and buy perfume in duty free
shops. They came home with bottles of Madame Rochas, Worth's
Je Reviens, Carven's Ma Griffe, Arpège by Lanvin, Houbigant's
Chantilly, Guerlain's Mitsouko and L'Heure Bleu, Calèche by
Hermes, Sortilege, Ecusson and Estee Lauder's Youth Dew.
Yves St. Laurent launched Y
in 1964, Rive Gauche in 1968. Guy Laroche presented Fidji in
1966. Those old favourites Chanel No.5 and Miss Dior were
still best sellers with considerable competition from
products like Avon's perfume's such as Topaze, Coty's
Imprevu and in total contrast, Faberge's earthy daytime
Woodhue. TO
TOP OF PAGE
By 1977 Yves St. Laurent
had put 'Opium' perfume into production and it was a huge
huge success with women everywhere. It was definitely a
perfume for sultry evenings. By contrast women enjoyed
wearing perfumes like Nina Ricci's L'Air du Temps and Nina
Ricci's orange based Bigarade was popular for a while. Ô de
Lancôme, Lauder's Cinnabar, and Anais Anais by Cacharel in
1978 (the latter beloved by schoolgirls) were all well
received.
Revlon's Charlie was a top
seller and the trouser wearing woman who wore it was
portrayed as a woman at ease with herself at work and play.
Avon perfumes were also popular as they were affordable, but
interesting coming in huge sprays to dainty containers for
perfumed wrist creams. Max Factor's Maxi was in a similar
affordable everyday price range.
Various musk based oils and
scents at quite low prices flooded chemists shops. Aviance
Night Musk by Prince Matchabelli was popular and affordable.
New designer scents were
marketed fiercely in the 80s and for the first time ever,
blatant erotic advertising which generated enormous
attention from the media led to the success of the 1985
Obsession campaign from Calvin Klein. Obsession with its
heavy smell of vanilla was dominant in the market.
It was equally
impossible to open a magazine or Sunday supplement without
being overwhelmed by the scent of Giorgio Beverley Hills on
a yellow and white striped sample strip. Eventually Giorgio
was banned from restaurants because the smell was too
dominant over food aromas.
Image and a gimmick
were a specialty of the 1980s and Jean Paul Gaultier put a
perfume in a glass torso in a tin and continued to produce
limited editions and variations of the designer package.
Vanderbilt a refined oriental of carnation, rose and mimosa
was put on the market in 1982 and was one of the more
affordable attractive perfumes. Lou Lou launched in 1987
was a refreshing subtle change from the more oppressive
oriental scents.
Right - The intoxication of the heavy scent of lilies.
Some scents of the era like
Yves St Laurent's wonderful rose with violets in Paris have
become true classics. Sultry sirens found Givenchy's Ysatis
and Guerlain's 1989 Samsara hard to beat. Champagne the
perfume caused a court case in the champagne making industry
and was eventually taken off the market under that name. It
is now sold in similar packaging, but as Yvresse.
The 1990s saw a whole new
range of cleaner sharper scents which probably began with
Estee Lauder's White Linen from the 1980s. Perfumes such as
L'Eau d'Issey by Issey Miyake in 1992, Eternity and Dazzling
all have a crisper scent. One refreshing oriental fragrance
was Sun Moon Stars by Lagerfeld in 1994 and the earlier 1990
Safari by Ralph Lauren was set in one of the prettiest
bottles to grace a dressing table. Organza by Givenchy in a
great bottle, launched in 1996 has the smell of a long lost
much loved scent and was in competition with the now very
popular Allure from Chanel launched the same year.
The century ended with
softer scents such as Cristobal by Balenciaga or unisex
perfumes such as CK One popular with urban fashion
followers. In 1999 Cacharel launched Noa Noa. Now renamed
simply Noa it is a rounded floral oriental that smells
divine. New perfumes of the millennium include the lovely
Kenzo Flower, Guerlain's Mahora, Calvin Klein's Truth,
Rossellini's Manifesto, Lancôme's Miracle, Boucheron's
Initial, YSL's Nu, Michaels Kor's Michael, Nina Ricci's
Premier Jour and Vivienne Westwood's exotic tempting
Boudoir.
A great deal of snobbery
surrounds perfumes and they are often only considered
worthwhile initially if expensive and very exclusive. But
the consumer is not stupid however much the hype. If a
scent smells unattractive on the individual the consumer
will not buy it. The selection of perfumes that do smell
wonderful is so great that no one has to wear the latest
designer perfume if they hate the smell. Whilst many
perfumes do succeed, just as many do not. The perfume has
to be good and marketed properly to recoup initial
development costs. Launching a new perfume costs between a
half and a million pounds, so the scent has to match the
mood of the era.
The $10 billion market
place is so overcrowded that to keep up with the consumer's
desire for new scents and still keep mystique and a measure
of exclusivity, design houses such as Dior, Guerlain and
Lancôme are now producing limited edition perfumes for a few
months only with bottles destined to become designer items.
In 2001 Dior's limited edition perfume was called Remember
Me, a lily fragrance.
There is already a bottle
collectors Internet trade for scent bottles with or without
perfume.
A great many individuals
are now seeking out classic perfumes or specially blended
oils. A classic is a perfume that has lasted a minimum of
ten years and grown to be much loved.
Some people also find that
they sneeze quite violently when they wear modern perfumes.
I include myself in this category and I've found that
wearing the older perfumes designed more than 50 years ago
seems to reduce the sneezing. It's also wonderful to
rediscover some of the older perfumes and sense their depth,
special individual quality and difference from the scents of
today. If only manufacturers would stop tinkering with old
favourites.
This may be why many have
gone back to purchasing 100% alcohol free perfume oils and
mixing their own scents. You can get high quality oils from
All Natural
Perfume Oils online.
There is quite a bit of
Internet activity of web surfers seeking perfumes either no
longer in production or not sold in some countries. It is
hard for the consumer to understand why manufacturers remove
perfumes without warning, but their reason for being is
profit. If the profit margin does not meet their ideal they
ditch a perfume regardless of diehard fans.
Lancôme's wonderful
original version of Magie was called Magie Mist. How I wish
they would bring the original Magie Mist back, so much more
feminine, pretty, softer, rounder and more memorable than
the revamped version called Magie Noir that makes me sneeze.
But manufacturers are in
the game of making profits and if sales are slowing they
either withdraw the item or relaunch it as a new formula
thought to be more in keeping with the mood of an era. Two
recent examples of this are Ô de Lancôme and Yves St Laurent's
Opium, both of which have been updated in 2000-1. If you
want the old versions get a stock in now. Venezia and
Cacharel's Lou Lou have also been withdrawn not so long ago,
so if you see it and like it, get it in.
Always buy perfumes from
reputable dealers when using the Internet for your
purchases. One site with a 20 year sales background in the
UK is directcosmetics.com which sells skincare, hair and
perfume products. You can get many famous perfume brands
from there at heavily reduced prices.
Perfume is often sold in
the run up to Christmas as a coffret set at a good price.
So it's often possible to buy at an eau de parfum price and
get a body lotion and a shower gel in pared down size thrown
in for good measure all in one box. This is the ideal way
to try a new fragrance without breaking the bank as you get
to try the main products. Aware of the popularity of
cocooning, some manufacturers are also adding matching
candles.
If you can bear to wait
until January you will often find similar great offers at
even lower prices. Always check the sell by date. Always
ask the assistant if they have fragrance samples in the run
up to Christmas or whenever you buy fragrance as that's when
they are most likely to give them to you.
A word of caution - some of
us now think that some of these specially produced coffret
products are not as good as they used to be and that the
perfume smell is often less desirable a smell to our
nostrils than the regular stock. Why do we think this -
well we have had samples and bought the coffret and then
found that the smell was nothing like as wonderful as the
sample. Let us know if you have experienced this too, we
are curious to know if perfume as opposed to butter
mountains are being moved at Christmas!
Ernest
Beaux created Chanel No. 5 for Coco Chanel in 1921.
It has a floral top note of ylang-ylang and neroli, with a
heart of blends of jasmine and rose all above a woody base
of sandalwood and vetiver. Chanel believed women should
wear perfume wherever they hoped to be kissed. Today Chanel
No.5 sells a bottle every 30 seconds. 
