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Contrasts of fresh cyclamen with sensual undertones. A day to night fragrance. Pleasure and perfection. In addition, the perfume was used in religious ceremony to purify the body and as a real cosmetic. Unguents, water and perfumed oils were obtained with slow process of maceration and extraction of essences from aromatic plants, woods and resins.
During the period of the ancient Greeks, the perfume leaves its religious rituals and begins to accompany everyday life of common people. While continuing to accompany the sacred rituals and key moments like births, weddings and funeral ceremonies, perfume now also enters the profane sphere. It's linked to the myth of beauty and body care, and is precisely in this sense that it begins to play a fundamental role in everyday life.
Expeditions to the East through the Spice trade will then allow the discovery of new exotic and precious materials, facilitating an intense perfume trade all over the world then known. The Romans gathered the Oriental and Hellenistic heritage, and they keep associating perfumes both to the sacred and the profane sphere.
In Rome, thanks to the continuous conquests and expeditions, they begin to feel the influence of the different cultures and customs that become gradually assimilated. From Etruscans, for example, seems to derive the habit of burning essences in special containers or censers, to spread the perfume during playful moments, dances and funeral rites.
It is especially in the Roman domus that the spread of fragrances begins to accompany daily convivial situations and banquets. But even outside the private context, access to Roman baths allowed anyone to wash and apply perfumed oils and unguents.
One of the most important innovations attributed to the Romans is the use of blown glass containers for perfumes. This material is odorless and easy to shape, so glasses could be made in different shapes and colors and perfect to contain the first cosmetics and scented oils. Perfume continues to play a key role also in the Oriental culture, thanks to the reciprocal influences between Western acquisitions and Arab scientific knowledge.
In particular, amongst the Arabs it is common to use fragrances for personal use, to accompany purification rituals or as an air freshener. Arabs are also the inventors of the alembic and responsible for the diffusion throughout Europe of the ancient art of distillation. From this special and scent land many essential oils come from. The most common oil was rose water, used to perfume the house and to purify people in religious places and to prepare food and drink.
Chemistry and alchemy discoveries allowed Arabs to export valuable raw materials around the world and thus control fragrance and perfume trade for many centuries. The history of perfume involves also the Far East. From these lands, which were for a long time unknown to the western civilizations and provided with an exotic and mysterious charm, derive aromas, spices, silk and other precious goods.
In Chinese culture, those who emanated a good aroma were appreciate, so it was common use to apply pleasing perfumes such as patchouli and the so-called "Chinese Violet" or corded Telosma, which had an intense and very relaxing aroma. In Japan the most popular scents were camellia, cherry blossoms and incense, also used in the West culture to accompany the sacred rituals. Around these aromas, Japanese culture developed elaborate rituals and traditions such as tea ceremonies and incense or Koh-do.
Meanwhile in the West, after the fall of the Roman Empire in the 5th century A. Thanks to the intense trade with the East, the history of perfume continues throughout the dark ages at the beginning of the Middle Ages.
As a consequence of the Crusades, the trade of perfumes thrive again from the East to the West, and the commerce of precious goods in Europe mainly passes from Venice. Flowers, aromatic plants and essential oils were used to scent both water for the bath and the water to wash hands before a meal. Especially in the dining rooms there was a water basins with rose or violet petals, and sage, chamomile or rosemary were also used for infusion.
Upper class ladies used to wear lavender and violet essences or hid fragrant bags under their robes. Another very popular device was the pomander, a small metallic container hung to the neck which spread natural aromas such as nutmeg and lavender.
These were very common objects for any social classes at that time. They were used mainly to try to hide a bad hygiene and also because they had the supposed power to keep away the plague that came to Europe in the 14th century. A cuneiform tablet from Mesopotamia, dating back more than 3, years, identifies a woman named Tapputi as the first recorded perfume maker. But perfumes could also be found in India at the time.
The earliest use of perfume bottles is Egyptian and dates to around B. The Egyptians invented glass, and perfume bottles were one of the first common uses for glass. Persian and Arab chemists helped codify the production of perfume and its use spread throughout the world of classical antiquity. The rise of Christianity, however, saw a decline in the use of perfume for much of the Dark Ages.
It was the Muslim world that kept the traditions of perfume alive during this time—and helped trigger its revival with the onset of international trade. The 16th century saw the popularity of perfume explode in France, especially among the upper classes and nobles.
The 18th-century invention of eau de Cologne helped the perfume industry continue to grow. One of the oldest uses of perfume comes from the burning of incense and aromatic herbs for religious services, often the aromatic gums, frankincense, and myrrh gathered from trees.
With the arrival of eau de Cologne, 18th-century France began using perfume for a broad range of purposes. They used it in their bathwater, in poultices, and enemas, and consumed it in wine or drizzled on a sugar lump. Although niche perfume makers remain to cater to the very rich, perfumes today enjoy widespread use—and not just among women.
The selling of perfume, however, is no longer just the purview of perfume makers. In the 20th century, clothing designers began marketing their own lines of scents, and almost any celebrity with a lifestyle brand can be found hawking a perfume with their name if not smell on it. Actively scan device characteristics for identification. Use precise geolocation data.
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