At the turn of the century, perfume
was a single-flower fragrance. Rose, violet, lilac,
and lily of the valley were in high demand. Floral bouquet
scents were introduced toward the end of the first decade
as compounds were found to aid in binding fragrances
together. Later, abstract fragrances which had no relation
to the single floral or bouquet group were introduced.
This advancement revolutionized the industry. Today,
perfumes are becoming more complex, with many notes
and overtones unheard of before the discovery of aroma
chemicals.
Due
to its jasmine, rose and orange-growing trades, the
town of Grasse in Provence established itself as the
largest production center for raw materials. The statutes
of the perfume-makers of Grasse were passed in 1724.
Paris became the commercial counterpart to Grasse and
the world center of perfume. Perfume houses such as
Houbigant (produces Quelques Fleurs, still very popular
today), Lubin, Roger & Gallet, and Guerlain were
all based in Paris.
Soon
bottling became more important. Perfume maker
Francois Coty formed a partnership with Rene
Lalique. Lalique then produced bottles for Guerlain,
D'Orsay, Lubin, Molinard, Roger & Gallet
and others. Baccarat then joined in, producing
the bottle for Mitsouko (Guerlain), Shalimar
(Guerlain) and others. Brosse glassworks created
the memorable bottle for Jeanne Lanvin's Arpege,
and the famous Chanel No.5.
1921-
Couturier Gabrielle Chanel launches her own brand of
perfume, created by Ernest Beaux, she calls it Chanel
No.5 because it was the fifth in a line of fragrances
Ernest Beaux presented her. Ernest Beaux was the first
to use aldehydes in perfumery. In fact, Chanel No.5
was the first completely synthetic mass-market fragrance.
The 1930's saw the arrival of the leather family of
fragrances, and florals also became quite popular with
the emergence of Worth's Je Reviens (1932), Caron's
Fleurs de Rocaille (1933) and Jean Patou's Joy (1935).
With French perfumery at it's peak in the 1950's, other
designers such as Christian Dior, Jacques Fath, Nina
Ricci, Pierre Balmain.. and so on, started creating
their own scents.
Today's fragrances are crafted by perfumers trained
in the aesthetic traditions of the Renaissance. These
artisans, who spend years in apprenticeship, talk quaintly
of amber notes and white floral accords. By the year
2000, perfumers will speak routinely of musk-receptor
agonists, and the molecular binding affinities of floral-receptor
proteins.
The History
of Cologne
Because the word, cologne, is actually the French name
given to the German city, Köln, it may seem surprising,
then, that the origins of eau de cologne are actually
rooted in Italy. It all started with Gian Paolo Feminis,
a barber from Val Vigezzo, who left his Italian homeland
to seek fortune in Germany. While in Germany, he created
a perfume water which he called Aqua Admirabilis. This
Aqua was made from grape spirits, oil of neroli, bergamot,
lavender and rosemary. When it was released in 1709,
customers swept it off the apothecary shelves of Cologne
with such speed that Gian Paolo recruited his nephew,
Giovanni Maria Farina, to help with the demand. In 1732,
nephew Giovanni took over the business and marketed
the product as a consumable cure-all for a variety of
ailments, ranging from stomach aches to bleeding gums.
Word of this "Admirable Water" spread during
the Seven Years' War, a war during the mid-18th century,
in which Prussia and Britain fought against an alliance
that included France, Austria and Russia. Prussia and
Britain may have won the battle, but Farina won a few
new French, Austrian and Russian customers. These soldiers
brought bottles back to their homelands and voilà!-an
instant global market was created. The French were the
ones who dubbed it Eau de Cologne, and it became the
particular favorite of one of Louis XV's mistresses
(there were many!), the Comtesse du Barry.
The
eighteenth century saw a revolutionary advance in perfumery
with the invention of eau de Cologne. This refreshing
blend of rosemary, neroli, bergamot and lemon was used
in a multitude of different ways: diluted in bath water,
mixed with wine, eaten on a sugar lump, as a mouthwash,
an enema or an ingredient for a poultice, injected directly...
and so on. The variety of eighteenth-century perfume
containers was as wide as that of the fragrances and
their uses. Sponges soaked in scented vinaigres de toilette
were kept in gilded metal vinaigrettes. Liquid perfumes
came in beautiful Louis XIV-style pear-shaped bottles.
Glass became increasingly popular, particularly in France
with the opening of the Baccarat factory in 1765.
Word
of Napoleon's (1769-1821) endorsement of this cologne
(he consumed entire bottles of it each day!) reached
Germany, prompting the Farinas to open a shop in Paris.
Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, however,
and it wasn't long before a number of copycats popped
up in Paris and elsewhere. Some even had the audacity
to adopt the Feminis/Farina names!
The real Farina, Jean-Marie Farina, eventually sold
the formula to Léonce Collas and retired to Italy.
Collas, however, inherited the same problems and in
1862 sold the formula to Roger et Gallet, which today
owns the legal rights to the Parisian Eau de Cologne.
While all of this was going on, a few Farinas and Feminises
had remained in Cologne and continued to market their
wonder water. One of these German descendants, Johann
Maria Farina, later sold (?) the Aqua formula to Perfumer
Wilhelm Mülhens, also of Cologne, Germany. Mülhens
opened his shop in 1792; the address: 4711 Glockengasse.
Today, the traditional fragrance known as Eau de Cologne
is sold under the name 4711, the world's oldest and
most continuously produced fragrance.
