Perfume is an ephemeral, complex, and highly personal fragrance. It requires a sophisticated blend of ingredients and extraction methods to produce – and it can be quite expensive.
The earliest perfumes were made from natural oils extracted from flowers, grasses, fruits, seeds, trees, roots, woods, gums, resins, spices, and even animal secretions (like musk from deer glands or ambergris from whale vomit). Nowadays perfumes are primarily synthetic but many of the same aromachemicals can be found in nature: the oily, crystalline substances that produce scents like rose oil or jasmine. They can be produced by distillation, expression, enfleurage, maceration, or solvent extraction. They can contain essential oils or a mix of these with other odourants.
Some of the oldest known perfumes are from the Minoan civilization on Crete in the Bronze Age, as well as those used by the ancient Egyptians to prepare their mummification process. Modern perfume production has come a long way since those times, with the ability to mass-produce and bottle a myriad of different aromas in a matter of days.
Whether you wear perfume or not, it’s fascinating to think about the process involved in making it. And if you have any interest in writing, a bit of perfume sprayed on your wrist can be an interesting writing prompt: let the smell waft over you and see what images, moods, words, or feelings it triggers for you. Then write about it. You can wallow in emotions with beautiful pictures and impressions or try an almost scientific analysis of all the individual scent notes and how they relate to each other – it’s your choice.