Page 31 - Sphere No.14 (Jul 2005)

FEW THINGS ARE AS EVOCATIVE or as
personal as fragrance. Anyone who has
been transported to a distant time or place
by the merest whiff of a familiar scent,
knows the power of perfume. Its origins
are humble and date back thousands of
years, but today the fragrance industry is
worth more than US$10 billion annually
and the market is crowded with more
than 20,000 scents. Designer and celebrity
scents dominate, with million dollar cam-
paigns rolling out a new fragrance on a
regular basis. With all this activity, it is not
surprising that while our mothers’ genera-
tion wore a “signature” scent, women
today have a “fragrance wardrobe” of at
least six scents for different occasions.
The first form of fragrance was incense,
dating from around 4,000 years ago. It was
highly valued in Biblical times. In the New
Testament, the three wise men offered gifts
of gold, frankincense and myrrh to the
infant Jesus. The Romans used perfumes
lavishly, applying fragrances to their bod-
ies up to three times a day, animals were
perfumed, at feasts scented birds were
released into the air. The Greeks
researched essential oils and their plant
origins, discussing the effect of various
scents on our moods and thinking.
Linking the past and the present of the
fragrance industry are the Arabs who
perfected the process of distillation, the
art of extracting oils from flowers. Until
this discovery liquid perfumes were a
mixture of oil and crushed herbs, or
petals which made a strong blend. The
first distilled perfume was probably rose
water, which quickly became popular.
Today’s marketplace is more complex.
The most concentrated form of fragrance
oil (and the most expensive) is known as
perfume. The longest-lasting of fragrance
forms, perfume may contain several hun-
dred ingredients and is approximately 20-
50% perfume compound. Eau de parfum
is an alcoholic perfume solution contain-
ing 10-15% perfume compound, while
eau de toilette is a light form of a fra-
grance, with a 3-8% concentration of per-
fume compound in an alcohol water base.
Cologne is even less concentrated, created
with approximately 4% of fragrance oil.
The original eau de cologne was created
in the 18th century. Although the word
cologne is a French name given to the
German city of Köln, the origins of
cologne lie with an Italian. Created by
Paolo Feminis in 1709 and called Aqua
Admirabilis, it was a refreshing blend of
rosemary, neroli, bergamot and lemon
used in a multitude of ways – in bath
water, mixed with wine, eaten on a sugar
lump, as a mouthwash, a poultice… One
of Feminis’ descendents eventually sold
the formula to a perfumer who opened a
factory at 4711 Glockengasse. Today the
traditional fragrance known as Eau de
Cologne is still sold under the name 4711
and is the world’s oldest and most contin-
uously produced fragrance.
Perfume really came into its own in
France in the 18th century. Louis XV’s
court was known as “le cour parfumée”
and the king demanded a different scent
for his apartment every day. So popular
were fragrances in France that the town of
Grasse, with its jasmine, rose and orange-
growing trades, quickly established itself as
the centre for raw materials for the fra-
grance industry. The men who treated
leathers in the area found the smells so bad
that they perfumed themselves and the
leathers. They were extremely knowledge-
able about making botanical essences and
were perhaps the earliest perfume ‘Noses’.
Today, Noses, creators of fragrance, are
held in the highest esteem in the industry.
They generally serve an apprenticeship of at
least six years before they move up the
SPHERE 29
The sweet smell of
the fragrance industry
By Vivien Jones