Fragrance, or perfume, is a combination of chemicals that gives personal care & cleaning products their distinctive smell. It can be made from a mix of more than 3,500 chemicals that can be derived from petroleum or natural raw materials. Companies don’t have to list these fragrance ingredients on product labels, and exposure to some of these can cause a range of health problems.
Fragrances can be expensive because of their rare raw ingredients, deluxe packaging, and brand recognition. In fact, a perfume’s price tag may reflect the cost of the rare raw ingredients as well as the work and creativity put into creating the formula, which will include everything from the formulation to the development of marketing collateral like copy, brand positioning, ad campaigns and endless hours of creative design work. This is especially true of luxury perfumes, whose high prices often reflect the work of in-demand master perfumers like Francis Kurkdjian, who designed Maison Francis Kurkdjian Baccarat Rouge 540 Eau de Parfum.
In the 17th century European royalty started using pomanders (balls of scented spices or herbs) & aphrodisiac oils derived from animals such as musk from beavers & the body oil of civet cats. Soon noblewomen such as Catherine de’ Medici began taking their perfumers with them when traveling, giving a huge upward jolt to the growth of perfumery in places like Grasse, France.
Around the turn of the twentieth century, a few perfumers started experimenting with synthetic ingredients. Fougere Royale by Houbigant & Guerlain’s Jicky were the first examples of mass-produced perfumes containing synthetic compounds, marking the start of modern perfumery.