A perfume is a mixture of fragrant essential oils or aroma compounds, fixatives and solvents in liquid form that is used to give the human body, animals, food, objects and living-spaces an agreeable scent. Its use dates back to ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia as one of the earliest beauty rituals for both men and women.
Perfume is typically composed of three different layers: top notes, heart and base. The top notes are the first smells that hit your nose when you spray on a fragrance. This initial blast of smells lasts for about five minutes. After that the heart notes take over which are the herbal, floral and spicy smells that last for longer. Lastly, the base scents are the ones that linger for the longest and these include woods, amber and musk. These smells last longer than the top and heart notes due to their higher concentration of perfume oils.
Natural scents are the most commonly used raw materials in perfume but there are also a number of synthetic fragrance ingredients that are available to perfumers today. These synthetics are made from natural molecules or through chemical synthesis and can be cheaper than some of the more expensive natural ingredients.
A variety of plants provide the majority of the aromatics for perfume. Seeds, such as those from coriander and dill, as well as flowers like jasmine, ylang ylang and vanilla are major sources of perfume ingredients. Other plant materials include citrus peels, flower petals and leaves as well as herbs like rosemary and thyme. Animal sources can be found in the form of musk (derived from musk deer glands), ylang ylang oil (sourced from the fruit of tropical trees) and ambergris (lumps of oxidized fatty compounds sourced from the secretions of sperm whales).