Perfumes and their preparation

by George William Askinson

Roman extravagance with perfumes was carried to such an excess that under the consulate of Licinius Crassus a law was passed which restricted the use of perfumery, there being good reason to fear that there would not be enough for the ceremonies in the temples.

With the migration of the almost savage Huns and Goths, the refinement of morals ceased, progress in civilization was retarded for centuries, and at the same time the use of perfumes disappeared entirely in Europe; but it was otherwise in the Orient. As an instance we may mention the prophecy of Mohammed, who promised in the Koran to the faithful in paradise the possession of black-eyed houries whose bodies were composed of the purest musk.

The Arabs, the ancient masters of chemistry, were also the first founders of the art of perfumery. Thus the Arabian physician Avicenna, in the tenth century, taught the art of preparing fragrant waters from leaves, and Sultan Saladin, in 1157, on his triumphal entry, had the walls of the mosque of Omar washed with rose water.

It was the intercourse with the Orient brought about by the Crusades that made Europeans again more familiar with the art of perfumery, and a number of new odors rapidly became known. Italy and France, in those times the representatives of culture, were the countries in which the preparation of perfumes was carried on on a large scale. Thus, for instance, we find the name of a Roman family preserved to the present day because one of its members had combined a sweet-scented powder, called Frangipanni after its inventor, which is still in favor, and because his grandson Mauritius Frangipanni had made the important discovery that by treating this powder with spirit of wine the fragrant substance could be obtained in a fluid form.

The fact has been frequently related and repeated, that Catherine de Medici, the wife of Henry II., had made use of the fashion of perfuming the body for the purpose of ridding herself of objectionable persons, by giving them scented gloves prepared and at the same time poisoned by a Florentine named René (Renato?). We think this tale to be simply a hair-raising fable—modern chemistry knows no substance the mere touch of which could produce the effect of a fatal poison; and it is scarcely credible that such a material had been known at that time and lost sight of since.

In the sixteenth century, especially at the court of Queen Elizabeth, perfumes were used with great extravagance; in fact, were looked upon as one of the necessaries of life. This luxury was carried still farther at the courts of the sumptuous kings of France; Louis XV. went so far as to demand every day a different odor for his apartments. A lady’s lover always used the same kind of perfume she did.

It is well known that among the Oriental nations perfumes are used so largely that even food is flavored with rose water, musk, etc.; and Indian and Chinese goods always possess a peculiar aroma which is so characteristic for certain products that it was considered to be a sign of genuineness; this was the case, for instance, with the patchouly odor which always adheres to Indian shawls.

A shawl-maker of Lyons, who had succeeded in perfectly imitating Indian shawls with reference to design and colors, spent a fabulous sum to obtain possession of the plant used by the Indian weavers for perfuming their wares. Despite the great outlay caused by the search for this plant, the manufacturer is said to have done a flourishing business with his “genuine” Indian shawls.

In more recent times the great extension of trade to the farthest countries of the globe, and still more the progress of chemistry, have made us familiar with a number of new perfumes. More than two hundred different aromatic substances are now known, and still they are far from being exhausted; every year new odoriferous plants become known, from which the chemist extracts perfumes. By this means, as well as by the enormous employment of perfumes in all grades of society, the art of their preparation has risen to a higher plane; out of empiricism, which alone prevailed a few decades ago, into the domain of the chemical sciences.

Since the appearance of the last edition of this book, the art of perfumery has made noteworthy progress both with reference to the knowledge of new aromatic substances and to improvement in the methods of their preparation; by the introduction of glycerin, solid and liquid vaselin, and salicylic acid into perfumery, one of its branches—hygienic cosmetics—has made an important advance.