History of Perfumes

Perfume, its one thought itself, makes the whole atmosphere fragrant. Perfumes hold a great history behind them. The history of perfumes is not very confirmed.

It is believed that perfumes began to spread their fragrance in ancient times. Perfume is a Latin word that means “through smoke”. The making of perfumes is known as perfumery.

The ancient Egypt , is the place where perfumes had been first developed. Further refining and development was done by Romans and Arabs.

Up to some extent, Eastern Asia had also supported perfumes and perfumery. No chemicals were used for perfumery at that time. In the beginning, the fragrances were based on insense and essential oils of aromatic plants.

History is evident that the modernization of perfumery began with the ancient Islamic culture. During this period the spices and herbs were used in perfumery.

Scents of other aromatic substances such as citruses and jasmine were adopted for this purpose. Steam distillation process was used to extract the fragrance from the aromatic flowers and plants.

The distillation technology of Islamic culture inspired the western culture communities to raise a step ahead. The western communities especially France further started cultivating these raw materials and became the first to introduce the chemical based perfumes. Although in the history of perfumes, modernization has been accredited to the west, but Islam was the first one to give perfumes the cultural conceptualization.

In the history fragranced and spiced perfumes were used during Renaissance. It was necessary for wealthy and royalty for the notion of odors of body that were related with different sanitary habits. In the history of perfumery, the establishing of perfumery as an industry can be credited to the west. In the history, perfumes were related with the aristocracy.

After eighteenth century, France began to harvest the aromatic plants to provide accommodation in the growing demand of spiced and fragranced perfumes. That was the point in the history after which perfumery made its way to success. France is even now considered as the main center of perfumery. It is famous for world’s best fragranced perfumes.

Almost all the rulers and emperors in the history were fond of perfumes. Cleopatra, one of the major rulers of Egypt was well known for creating and using the perfumes. She was the perfectionist in making different aromatic scents and balms. Perfumes were considered as the product that with spreading bliss of aroma enhanced the feel of the skin and scent of the body. Perfumes were highly valued in history of every culture.