The History of Perfume Trivia Challenge

The History of Perfume Trivia Challenge

How well do you know your fragrances and perfume history? Scent Lodge has compiled a list of challenging questions that will test your scent IQ and hopefully provide some fascinating facts about this wonderful art. The history of perfumery is truly astounding.

Questions:

1 What is the name of the very first recorded perfumer in history?

2 In which country will you find the world’s oldest perfumery? (The answer might surprise you)

3 Where did the word ‘perfume’ come from?

4 What group developed recipes for perfumes in Florence, Italy in 1221?

5 What fashion item in the 17^th century spurred perfume production throughout Europe?

6 How much perfume did Napoleon use each month?

7 What British ruler so hated bad smells that she insisted that all public places be scented with rose oil?

8 What is the most expensive perfume bottle ever created?

9 What famous author wrote the phrase, “Purple the sails, and so perfumed, that the winds were lovesick with them”?

10 In which ancient civilization did citizens wear ‘perfume cones’ on top of their head?

11 Who created the first liquid perfume?

12 Who invented eau de cologne?

13 Where did Canadians buy the latest French perfumes at the turn of the century?

14 Why did Coco Chanel name her signature fragrance No 5?

Answers:

 1 The world’s first recorded perfumer/chemist was a woman by the name of Tapputi whose existence was recorded on a 1200 BC Cuneiform tablet in Babylonian Mesopotamia. She held a powerful role in the Mesopotamian government and religion and as overseer of the Mesopotamian Royal Palace. A brilliant chemist, she developed methods for scent extraction techniques that would lay the basis for perfume making. Her most groundbreaking inventions included methods in using solvents.

2 Cyprus. To date, the oldest known perfumery was discovered on the island of Cyprus. An Italian archaeological team uncovered evidence of an enormous factory that existed 4,000 years ago during the Bronze Age. The size of the building revealed that perfume was produced on an industrial scale and used in trade. They likely used liquid myrrh, fragrant cinnamon, along with floral essences.

3 Latin. The world ‘perfume’ derived from the Latin word ‘per fumus’ which translates to ‘through smoke’. Most of the scents of the time were incense-based and used for religious ceremonies where a perfumed smoke would enhance ceremonies.

4 The monks of Santa Maria Delle Vigne or Santa Maria Novella. These scented bath oils and soaps were created using ingredients sourced around Florence. You can still visit the original location where the monks first blended scents. Many of the original perfumes are still produced including a wonderful bath soap.

5 Perfumed gloves. During the 1600s, leather tanning technology had yet to be invented so skins released a terrible odor. To mask this unpleasant smell, glove makers used perfumes on the inner linings of the gloves. This became so popular that the Guild of Glove and Perfume-Makers was established in 1656 and the connection between fashion and fragrance began. There is a dark aspect to this practice that emerged. Perfumers were recruited to blend poisons for political reasons. In 1572, Jeanne d’Albret, Protestant Queen of Navarre, was supposedly murdered on the instruction of Catherine de Medici, the Catholic Queen of France, when a poison prepared by Catherin’s perfumer, René le Forentin, was rubbed into a pair of perfumed gloves. When they were worn, the substance was slowly absorbed into the victim’s skin.

6 You could say that Napoleon was obsessed with fragrance. He favoured an aromatic cologne that he splashed over his entire body several times per day. Historians report that he went through 60 bottles of this cologne every month and demanded deliveries to his home each week at an exorbitant expense. He is said to have also enjoyed violet and jasmine as well. Josephine, his queen, preferred musk and used so much of the scent that sixty years after her death, the aroma still lingered in her boudoir.

7 Queen Elizabeth 1  She had all public fountains, baths and pools scented with rose oil. As you can imagine, the members of her Royal Court wore fragrances when meeting the monarch.

8 The most precious perfume bottle ever crafted was made by a French company, Morreal Paris. It is called Le Monde Sur Mesure and is made of 18k gold and is encrusted with jewels. The flacon costs $1.8 million US and is for a 5,000 ml bottle of custom-made perfume.

9 Shakespeare. He wrote these words in Antony and Cleopatra, Act II, Scene II. “The barge she sat in, like a burnish’d throne, Burned on the water: the poop was beaten gold; Purple the sails, and so perfumed that the winds were lovesick…”

10 Ancient Egypt. Citizens wore perfume on their heads by placing ‘perfume cones’ – solid conical ornaments made of a mixture of oils, resins and fat on top of their wigs, which would slowly melt from body heat, releasing the fragrance throughout the day. It essentially acted like a solid perfume that gradually diffused around them. Egyptians were also very fond of perfumed baths. They would soak for hours in baths infused with fragrance oils and essences which softened and perfumed the skin.

11 The Ancient Greeks. This civilization can take credit for producing the first liquid perfume but it was the development of distillation by the Arabs that made perfume manufacture viable.

12 An Italian barber, named Giovanni Maria Farina, created the light, fresh fragrance concentration at the beginning of the eighteenth century in the German city of Koln. It was composed of 2% to 4% perfume oils, alcohol and water and was meant to be splashed liberally on the body. Hence the name cologne, the French name for the city. The original name for the concoction was ‘Acqua Admirabilis’ or ‘Admirable Water’ and was sold under the name 4711, the address of the first eau de cologne shop in Koln.

13 Department stores. Canadian consumers would visit department stores such as the Hudson’s Bay Company to discover the latest perfumes from Paris that would arrive via ship. The bottles of perfume would be displayed behind glass counters in the same manner as you’d find in France as to convey the European experience.

14 Yes, French courtier Coco Chanel chose the fifth prototype of the floral-aldehyde fragrance blended by perfumer Ernest Beaux in 1921. But there was a far savvier reason she chose to name the scent simply No 5. Coco knew that few Allied soldiers stationed in France spoke French. And she knew they would be buying French perfume to bring back to their wives and girlfriends after the war ended. By naming the perfume No. 5, soldiers could easily buy the fragrance without having to try to pronounce the French names of her competitors. It worked brilliantly. Soldiers lined up in front of her salon asking for ‘number 5’.

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