In the XIXth century the perfume industry knew a considerable growth. The number of perfumes and fragrance types increased from one decade to the next one and the catalogs I have from several famous houses show the variety of their production. In the second part of the century perfume houses advertised not one but at least 10 perfumes in the same small ad, while their current offering included at least 50 perfumes. Before the increasing importance of export and the creation of department stores, the perfumes were usually bought in Paris or London where each house had its own big shop displaying a variety of bottles with perfumes and jars with cosmetics. We might ask ourselves today how did a client select his perfume and what were the conversations inside a perfume shop. Today we are free to smell on a blotter and buy, but in those days the perfume was still presented on the counter. The rich clientele had an enormous impact on the selection because knowing that a certain aristocrat bought a perfume was already a buying reason. But not all rich clients wanted to resemble the other members of the same social class. I believe that in those days, in front of the huge variety of scents, some with names of known plants, some bearing fancy names, the recommendation of perfumes based on personality was born. There was no basic olfactory training nor marketing training like today when brands present their perfumes to SA. A client wouldn't go to smell all the perfumes available in Paris but he would certainly be confused in front of 50 perfumes as we can see in Piesse, Rimmel, Houbigant or Piver shop, all presented in the same bottle.
You can find here 2 texts about the relation between scent and personality and they reflect the questions that a woman started to ask herself in front of a myriad of bottles. In the next century this will be codified by marketing but the question remains open "What perfume is best fitted for me?"
" There is an appropriate odour, to our minds, to each particular character. The spirituelle should affect jasmine; the brilliant and witty, heliotrope; the robust, the more musky odours; and young girls just blooming into womanhood, the rose. The citron-like perfumes are more fitted for the melancholy temperament, and there is a sad minor note in vanille that the young widow should affect. When we study the aesthetics of odours, we shall match nice shades of character with delicate shades of odour. Why should human feeling be expressed better by colours than by perfumes? Meanwhile, we must trust to the perfumer to set the fashion, and to impose upon us his bouquets at his own good will. We are, in fact, the slaves of his nose. All the fashionable world, like the Three Kings of Brentford, but a little while ago were smelling at one nosegay in the celebrated "Ess Perfume" later still, we have had imposed upon us 'Kiss-me-Quick" and now the latest novelty of the season is "Stolen Kisses," with its sequel, "Box his Ears". "
Andrew Wynter, London 1865.
"Le parfum, savez-vous ce que c'est, mon cher ami? C'est tout bonnement de la femme volatilisée. Du moment où il y a des femmes perverses, il existe des parfums pervers. L'Ylang-ylang, l'Opoponax, la Peau d'Espagne, décompositions de courtisanes, sont, conséquence forcée, les préférés des vierges folles parce que nées de chairs saturées d'amour ils l'engendrent à leur tour. Cette remarque est applicable à toutes les odeurs. Le new-mown-hay ne vient nullement du foin, mais bien de la fille des champs, nature robuste, sentant son sui generis. La violette doit son odeur aux vierges timides et modestes, l'héliotrope est de l'évaporation de marquise, le corylopsis nous est donné par la femme qui, sous les tropiques, vit nonchalamment ses jours et sensuellement ses nuits. L'encens, sanctifié par le catholicisme, est le lent éparpillement des prêtresses embaumées des anciennes religions, etc., etc."
Auguste Barrau, Paris 1887.
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Fragrance is the 8th Art - Octavian Coifan - Le Parfum est le 8ème Art
