What Goes Into A Great Perfume? An Introduction To Fragrances

The use of perfume as a cosmetic dates back centuries upon centuries, with the term “perfume” originating from the Latin word, “per fumus”, which means “through smoke.” This refers to the earliest use of perfume, incense, which was employed by ancient cultures in Mesopotamia and Egypt at religious ceremonies, and eventually evolved into the practice of extracting essential oils for use on the body.

Nowadays, the perfume industry has exploded into a multi-million-dollar business. Smelling good is a prime concern in our society; and with the thousands of perfumes available, it’s also become an important method of self-expression and individuality.  It is difficult to avoid fragrance even if one wishes to do so: Aside from perfumes and colognes proper, essential oil blends are used to distinguish a wide variety of cosmetics and bath essentials.

Amid all this variety, it’s easy to get confused choosing a scent—and it’s also easy to forget that the perfumes you are testing were created via a process that is considered a bona fide art. Let’s break down the (surprisingly elaborate) process of what is inside those beautiful glass bottles.
Notes Create Melody In Fragrance, Too

You may have heard that perfumes have three basic elements, or “notes,” which put together compose their overall makeup. What exactly does this mean, however?

The three notes are called top note, middle note, and base note, and are achieved by the unique mixture of essential oils (yes, the same idea as those oils that were used thousands of years ago!) that goes into the perfume’s “recipe.”

When you pick up a bottle of perfume and give it that first spray, the initial scent you experience is called the top note.  Top notes are taken from essential oils that tend to be intense, but light, and don’t last very long. Their purpose is to introduce and entice you as well as lead you smoothly into the depths of the perfume. Common top notes include citrus, fruits, eucalyptus, mint, and herbs.

After the perfume has been on your skin for a short while, the top notes evaporate and the heart of the fragrance comes out. This is called the middle note, which tends to be more stable and lasts longer. It’s not quite as grounding as the base note (which we’ll explain shortly), but it’s robust and well-rounded. You’ll often find such scents as stronger florals (rose, geranium, jasmine), spices (cinnamon, nutmeg, cardamom), lemongrass, rosemary, and others.

Finally, after you’ve been wearing the scent for at least an hour and it has become good and warm from your body temperature, the base note will emerge.  These scents are rich, full-bodied, and heavy; they are the slowest to evaporate and leave the most lingering effect. The base notes combined with the middle notes make up the true essence of the perfume. When you have worn the perfume long enough that all you can smell are base notes, this is referred to as the “dry down period.”

If this all sounds complex, it is. It’s also the reason why you may love wearing a perfume initially, but find yourself completely turned off by it as time passes. The best way to determine if a perfume is right for you or not is to simply wear it for a while. When testing perfumes at the store, spritz them onto paper wands (usually provided), and when you find an attractive one, go ahead and apply some to your wrist or inner elbow. Then sit with it for a few hours to see how it develops.

The Cost of Smelling Sweet

You may be surprised at how much your favorite perfume costs. Just as there is a tremendous range of products in the fragrance industry, so is there a diverse spectrum of price points. It’s possible to pick up a perfume for a very reasonable price, but many of the popular brands can cost $100 and up—with some rare blends going into the thousands of dollars per ounce!

There is a good reason to pay more, however, if you find a particular perfume attractive. For the most part, you will likely be spending extra dollars for the sake of quality ingredients. Costlier perfumes use rarer, stronger, and more complex note blends. Many users tend to think they last longer.

However, there are a couple other factors to keep in mind when weighing the cost of a perfume. Packaging is a huge expense in the perfume industry, and much of the budget required to create a new luxury scent goes into making sure it’s in an attractive, eye-catching, and quality bottle. If this matters to you—and keep in mind, perfume bottles have been long collected as decorative objects!—you can justify this particular expense easily.

But, finally, do keep in mind that marketing is also another, less artistic, aspect that comes into play when tallying up the final cost of a perfume. The more high-profile the marketing campaign, the more the cost will be transferred to the consumer.

Whether you choose a simple, inexpensive scent or a lushly complex and costly one to complete your everyday ensemble, only you know which perfume is the one that is most uniquely “you.” Don’t forget to take heart—you’re wearing a true work of art!

105

SHARES

Facebook

Twitter

Pinterest

Linkedin

Mail

The long and storied history of perfume spans thousands of years, with the earliest remnants of perfume making practices hailing from ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia, and Cyprus. The English word “perfume” is derived from the Latin “per fume,” meaning “through smoke.” It is widely believed that the ancient Egyptians were the first to introduce perfume into daily life, followed by the ancient Chinese, Indians, Israelites, Carthaginians, Arabs, Greeks, and Romans. Archaeologists in Cyprus have discovered some of the oldest perfumes known to exist, thought to be over 4000 years old. A cuneiform tablet from Mesopotamia, dating back more than 3000 years, identifies a woman named Tapputi-Belatekallim as the first recorded perfume maker. But perfumes could also be found in India at a similar time. One of the first documented distillations of attar, an essential oil derived from botanical or other natural sources, was mentioned in the Hindu Ayurvedic texts Charaka Samhita and Sushruta Samhita.

Perfume bottle in the shape of a hes-vase inlaid with the figure of a princess, Egypt. ca. 1353–1336 B.C. Photo: The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Along with perfume, the Egyptians are also credited as the inventors of glass, and perfume bottles were one of the first common uses for the material. Persian and Arab chemists helped systemise the production of perfume and its use spread throughout the world of classical antiquity. The Arabian polymath Ibn Sina, known in the West as Avicenna, is attributed with developing the method of distillation that led to the creation of liquid perfume. Islamic cultures contributed significantly to the development of Middle Eastern perfumery in two major areas — refining the extraction of fragrances through steam distillation and introducing new raw materials. Both have greatly influenced Western perfumery and scientific developments. Islamic nations advanced perfume production and continued to use perfumes in daily life and in practicing religion, utilising oud, roses and amber, among other materials. As prolific traders, Islamic cultures such as the Arabs and Persians had wider access to an assortment of spices, resins, herbs, precious woods and animal fragrance materials such as ambergris and musk.

Avicenna – The Persian Galen. About 980-1037 A.D. Photo: The National Library of Medicine

In addition to trading, many of the flowers and herbs used in perfumery were cultivated by Muslim communities, for example, rose and jasmine were native to the region, and many other plants such as bitter orange and other citrus trees imported from China and southeast Asia could be cultivated in the Middle East, and are to this day vital ingredients in perfumery. It was the Muslim world that critically helped catalyse the international trade of perfume. Fragrance and fashion were palpably allied in Grasse, France, when 13th century glove makers were looking for a solution to deal with the unpleasant smell of the urine-tanned leather they worked with. Local perfumers came to the rescue of the tanners and scented gloves became popular in European society. The 16th century saw the popularity of perfume grow exponentially in France, particularly among the upper classes and nobles. With the influence of the court of Louis XV, everything became perfumed; they used it in their bathwater, in poultices, to scent books and garments, and even ingested it with wine or dropped on sugar crystals.

Damask roses during the extraction process, Grasse, France. Photo: Pinterest

With the 18th century invention of eau de Cologne, referring to a family of fresh fragrances distilled using extracts from citrus, floral, and woody ingredients supposedly first developed in Cologne, Germany, the perfume industry continued to flourish, slowly becoming accessible to a wider market. Akin to fashion, fragrance has long provided an opportunity to present individuality and social status, as well as capturing and establishing feelings of well-being. Not much has changed in the processing of perfume ingredients over the centuries. Diverse botanicals are picked and collected by hand, and distillation, in which steam draws the essential oils from the plants, remains one of the prime methods for extraction. Today, perhaps the biggest shift that has occurred in the perfume industry is the laboratories’ dependence on computer technology, not only to ascertain and maintain quality and consistency, but also offering perfumers new ways to communicate and develop original formulas with greater precision.



Feature image: Glass aryballos (perfume bottles), Greece. Late 6th–5th century B.C. Photo: The Metropolitan Museum of Art