The word perfume is is derived from the Latin, "per fumus", meaning "through smokewhich makes sense as the first perfume was incense. The ancients soaked fragrant woods and resins in water and oil and rubbed it all over themselves. Priests used it in Biblical times (and still do). The frankincense and myrrh presented to Baby Jesus were actually perfumes and reserved for kings and high holy men.
But the smell of their fellow men got the best of them and it was the Egyptians who eventually commanded all citizens to perfume themselves once a week. Soon they discovered that soaking their skin in fragrant oil not only helped fight off the dryness that living in a desert brought about, but it was pleasurable too.
The Romans agreed and conducted lots of their business it the baths. One room was called the "unctuarium" with pots of fragrant oils, and essences. Romans got in the habit of perfuming themselves three times a day. Pet dogs and horses were also perfumed and at feasts, birds were released from their cages to dispense perfume from their wings--a latter-day air freshener. Cleopatra, knew the power of scent. Her arrival to meet Mark Anthony was announced by clouds of perfume before her barge came into view and she greeted him on a ship with perfumed sails. Arabs developed the process of extracting oils from flowers by means of distillation. Avicenna, an Arabian doctor who was also a chemist, first experimented with the rose. Rose water, a delicate scent, immediately became popular.
Catherine de Medici brought her own perfumer, Rene le Florentin from Italy, with her when she ruled France. His laboratory was connected with her apartments by a secret passageway, so that none of his formulas could be stolen en route.
Perfume got very popular during the seventeenth century with perfumed gloves all the rage in France. When Louis XV came to the throne in the 18th century, his court was called "the perfumed court" and he demanded a different fragrance for his apartment everyday. Scents were applied to clothing, fans and furniture. Perfume substituted for soap and water as bathing wasn't considered safe.
Napoleon had two quarts of violet cologne were delivered to him each week, and used sixty bottles of double extract of jasmine every month. His wife, Josephine, was so partial to musk that sixty years after her death the scent still lingered in her boudoir. Perfume reached its peak in England during the reigns of Henry VIII and Queen Elizabeth I. All public places were scented during Queen Elizabeth's rule, since she could not tolerate bad smells. It was said that the sharpness of her nose was equal led only to the slyness of her tongue.
Perfume underwent a profound change in the nineteenth century. Modern chemistry laid the foundations of perfumery as we know it today. 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 and 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.
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, and Pierre Balmain started creating their own scents.
Today's fragrances are crafted by perfumers trained in the aesthetic traditions of the Renaissance. but with modern twists. Believe is thrilled to announce we are now carrying CB Perfumes by Christopher Brosius, one of the most innovative perfumers of the 21st century.
Christopher describes scent as life itself, "Scent is the record of your own special life it's your experience. My mission is to capture that experience. I bottle it so you can have it, use it and love it whenever you wish,he says. "I can give you scent experiences you never dreamed possible. I create perfumes as unique and individual as those who wear them. And I use a great many scents never before thought of as perfume But I know these are just the scents that really hit us where we live they-- the ones we remember and love. To me, this is what the art of perfume is all about.”
Please stop by Believe to experience these life-changing scents and find the one that is as unique as you are. We look forward to helping you discover that perfect scent.