Perfume has evolved over millennia and is considered to have originated in pre-historic times with incense. Significantly, the word ‘perfume’ derives from Latin, ‘through smoke’, and ancient burials have yielded traces of incense – aromatic barks, gums and herbs burnt to purify and sweeten the smell of decay. Later, incense was burnt by priests in religious rituals and is still employed in some church ceremonies.

Meanwhile a parallel strand of the story of perfume extends back to the Pharaonic Egyptians, Mesopotamians, Greeks and other advanced civilizations of the ancient world, who practised bathing using fragrant oils and unguents to moisturise, condition and scent the hair, face and body. These sophisticated customs were continued by the Romans, who wore perfume socially and introduced many of today’s modern ideas about grooming and personal adornment into Britain.

During the early Christian era, such worldly vanities were condemned as immoral, but by the tenth century, as a newly-unified England emerged from the so-called Dark Ages and re-entered the European stage, luxury Continental perfumes were arriving as diplomatic gifts at the Anglo-Saxon court of King Athelstan (925-939). Around this time a new word also evolved – Old English stenc, meaning a (pleasant or unpleasant) odour and still recognisable as ‘stench’.

Medieval times
During the 11th century, the Christian military expedition to the Holy Lands known as the First Crusade brought western nations into renewed contact with distant countries and unfamiliar customs. Over the next 200 years, further crusades strengthened trade links. Returning knights and their retinues brought home beauty preparations and heavy, exotic perfumes, as worn by the women of Byzantium and the Middle East. Additionally, Jewish merchants, who occupied a unique position in international trade during the hostile era of the Crusades, often became specialised dealers in rare and valuable aromatic spices such as musk, camphor and cinnamon from the Near East and Eastern Mediterranean, bringing these to European markets.

Early scents were oil- or fat-based but perfume manufacture was transformed when the technique of distillation was widely adopted. The first significant advances in the distillation of plant extracts were made in the Arab world, although Hungary Water, reputedly made for a queen of Hungary c1370, is generally credited as the first ‘modern’ perfume – an alcoholic distillation of rosemary and other aromatic ingredients. Being both a fragrance and, theoretically, a cure-all remedy, users were advised both to drink and to wash with Hungary Water. Eau de Chypre was also popular in the 14th and 15th centuries, as was the variation known as Carmelite Water containing lemon balm, formulated by Carmelite nuns. These and other sweet-smelling waters were used as tonics and as a form of deodorant: when combined with ingredients such as myrrh and mint, they also provided effective mouthwashes, helping to combat the bad breath resulting from poor dental hygiene.

Pleasant odours were welcomed both on the person and in the home. Certain herbs used in fragrant waters, such as rosemary and thyme (now understood to be anti-bacterial agents) were brewed and used to scrub household surfaces to keep sickness at bay. Grasses and herbs – some having vermin-repellent properties – were also strewn on bare earthen floors. Larger medieval houses had a spicery (called the ‘still room’ by Tudor times) for storing spices and herbs, and here ladies and servants prepared scented infusions and salves. Women throughout society made their own fragrant herbal or floral infusions and cosmetic and medicinal preparations using home-grown ingredients or items bought from the apothecary. From the 1600s onwards, literate gentlewomen recorded and passed down hand-written recipes in household ‘receipt books’ – precious volumes that guided successive generations of women within a family. A significant number have survived, such as Mary Doggett’s Book of Recipes (1682), which advised on making fragrant items such as pomanders and perfumed sweetbags – linen or silk bags filled with bruised rose petals, citrus peel and spices, to place in drawers, hang on chair backs or secrete in dress bodices.

Early modern era
Some historians describe the 16th-18th centuries as the most perfumed yet the least hygienic of any documented historical period. Refreshing scented waters helped disguise the smell of unwashed bodies and, as the use of perfume and fragrant preparations advanced, the affluent classes bathed ostentatiously in flower waters, while the less privileged used scent-soaked sponges to mask bodily odours.

Fashionable Elizabethans and Jacobeans also admired the spicy animal scents of civet, ambergris and musk, which were seldom applied directly to the skin but were used, along with heady flowers like gillyflowers and pinks, to perfume bedding and clothes. Luxury-scented leather gloves were given as favours and even leather-bound books were perfumed. Fragrant pomanders were also popular from the Middle Ages through to the 17th century, their name deriving from the French for ‘apples and ambergris’. Early pomanders – paste balls of musk or ambergris blended with flower petals, aromatic woods, spices and resins – were contained in a wooden ball with holes, but later pomanders generally comprised an elaborate metal holder suspended from a chain or girdle, simple versions containing oranges pierced with cloves. Carried by men and women, they helped to ward off unpleasant smells in times of unsanitary living conditions and aimed to protect from disease.

Perfume gained increased importance in the 18th century. As scents became more complex and refined, so did their presentation. Previously perfumes were mainly sold in pottery bottles, but now more decorative flacons began to be used, encouraging the fashion for packaging as lavish as the product inside. By the 1700s many perfume flacons were made of sparkling cut lead glass, different manufacturers adopting their own house styles.

The court of Louis XV of France (1715-74) was known as the ‘perfumed court’ and under the patronage of his mistress, Mme de Pompadour, Grasse and Montpelier in Provence became established as major centres of commercial perfume manufacture. At Grasse the art of cold enfleurage (saturating cold oils with the scent of delicate flowers before transferring them to alcohol) was perfected, allowing greater subtlety of fragrance. Some of today’s great perfume names were founded around this time and Eau de Cologne as we know it was launched in 1709 by the Farina brothers of Cologne. Their formula, first named Aqua Admirabilis, was changed to ‘Eau de Cologne’ during the Seven Years’ War (1756-63), when it became popular with soldiers on all sides due to its cooling, refreshing properties.

The 19th century
During the age of the Regency ‘dandy’, fashionable men about town discreetly bought toiletries in Bond Street, a notable favourite being Imperial Water – a heady cologne-type scent combining resins, pine nuts, cloves and frankincense. For much of the Victorian age, delicate toilet waters based on floral scents such as heliotrope, lilac and rose were generally preferred to heavy fragrances. The eminent French perfumer Eugène Rimmel, who opened the House of Rimmel perfumery in London’s Bond Street in 1834, advised in his Book of Perfume (1867): “Above all, avoid strong, coarse perfume.”

Several distinguished perfume houses were established during the 19th century and some still flourish today, such as the House of Guerlain, founded in Paris in 1828, and Penhaligon’s, established in London in 1870. Major perfumers, extending their product ranges, produced various scented goods that were perfect for presents, including perfumed gloves and Christmas crackers. The early-mid Victorian fashion for Kashmir shawls also helped to popularise the scent of patchouli, which lingered on shawls imported from India in bales packed with dried leafy twigs to deter moths; subsequently British-made shawls were often artificially fragranced with patchouli as they sold more quickly. Beauty aids in general became more prominent from the late-1800s and on a late-Victorian and Edwardian lady’s dressing table would be found decorative pots, jars and bottles of cologne and rosewater, with further bottles for decanting toilet waters.

For centuries intoxicating perfumes heavy with animal musk or jasmine were popularly linked with prostitutes or courtesans, while ‘respectable’ ladies favoured the pure essence of garden flowers. However, experimentation with synthetic aromas from the 1880s onwards ushered in a new generation of fragrances that combined traditional natural ingredients with aldehydes (chemical compounds), bringing a great many more wearable perfumes to modern women. Chanel No 5 – a blend of natural ingredients and synthetic floral aldehydes – was the first fragrance created for Parisian couturier Gabrielle (‘Coco’) Chanel, who boldly recommended applying perfume to those areas that the wearer wished to have kissed. Launched in 1921, a sophisticated, romantic scent based on ylang-ylang, rose and jasmine, Chanel No 5 remains a perfume icon today.

In the print edition
Read about women’s beauty routines in the 15th and 16th centuries, and Jayne Shrimpton’s article about unusual Victorian photographs, in Issue 4 of Discover Your Ancestors, available online at www.discoveryourancestors.co.uk