Perfume and its history

The use of perfume in one form or another is probably as old as the human race. Actually the word “perfume” comes from the Latin word fumus, meaning “smoke.” So it’s likely that in the early days people made a pleasant odor by burning certain nice-smelling woods, gums, and leaves. We know that the Egyptians used perfume more than 5,000 years ago. But the first people to use rose petals to make rose water were the Arabians, about 1,300 years ago. They not only used it as a perfume, but as a medicine. One of the earliest true perfumes made was attar of rose, which means “essential oil of rose”. Half a hectare of roses will yield 1 tone of rose petals. And from these petals half a kilogram of attar is produced. No wonder this essence is very expensive. Flowers such as roses, violets, jasmine, orange blossoms, and jonquils are the source of some of our greatest perfumes. But perfume essences are obtained from other materials as well.

Did you know that perfume also comes from woods such as cedarwood and sandalwood, from leaves such as lavender, peppermint, and geranium, and even from certain roots such as orris and ginger? The earliest way to make perfume from flowers was to distill the petals with water. The French use a process called enfleurage, which means “en flowering.” Sheets of glass in wooden frames and coated with purified lard are covered with flower petals and stacked one above another. The flower petals are replaced at intervals until the pomode, as the purified lard is called, has absorbed the desired amount of perfume. A more modern method uses a very pure solvent obtained from petroleum. This solvent is circulated through fresh petals until it is saturated with perfume. The solvent is then removed by distillation and the perfume purified with alcohol. Nowadays, chemistry competes with nature in producing perfume essence. The chemist makes synthetic perfume fragrances from coal tar and turpentine and from hundreds of other substances, and you can’t tell them from the natural essence! In fact, a perfume chemist can actually produce certain “flower perfumes” which would be impossible to extract from the real flowers themselves.