Men’s aftershaves and women’s fragrances are extremely popular gifts at Christmas, and all throughout the year. It may be surprising to note that fragrances for both men and women have been used for a lot longer than the last few decades. In fact, women’s fragrances have been used as far back as the ancient Romans and Egyptians.
The Egyptian queen, Cleopatra, was known for using flower based perfumes when she bathed (in her famous bath of milk).
The Arabians, in East Asia, also used women’s fragrances thousands of years ago when they created perfumes from incense. Different herbs and spices would be blended together to create new women’s fragrances.
It wasn’t until 1370 when the first perfume as we would know it today was created and bottled. This perfume was called ‘Hungary Water’ and was created at the request of the queen of Hungary, Queen Elizabeth. This first bottled perfume used oils and alcohol, blended together to create the very first bottled women’s fragrance.
Modern perfumes are far more complex than the very first attempts, and rather than just using a blend of oils and alcohol, women’s fragrances today can contain anything from 10 different ingredients to over 250. These ingredients are all expertly blended together by someone known as a ‘perfumer’ – a professional perfume maker.
Perfume ingredients are classified by the ‘Fragrance Wheel’, which was invented as recently as 1983. The Fragrance Wheel contains five classifications of ingredients for fragrances, they are:
1. Floral
2. Oriental
3. Woody
4. Fougere
5. Fresh
