99 Fun Facts About Perfume

The word 'perfume' comes from Latin words meaning what?

To smoke through: Latin per, 'through', plus fumare, 'to smoke'. The word first named the scented fumes of something burning, such as incense, and only later a liquid scent.

Tapputi, named on a cuneiform tablet as a palace perfumer, is one of the first recorded chemists of which civilisation?

Mesopotamia. Around 1200 BC in the Assyrian city of Assur, Tapputi distilled flowers, oil and calamus, filtered the result and put it back through the still several times.

On which Mediterranean island did archaeologists unearth a 4,000-year-old perfume factory, believed to be the world's oldest?

Cyprus. An earthquake destroyed the Bronze Age perfumery at Pyrgos but also buried its stills and bottles, so scientists could recreate scents from the residues left inside.

Which Persian polymath is credited with first distilling oils from flowers?

Ibn Sina (Avicenna). He is credited with distilling rose petals into both rose oil and rose water, and he used the oil to treat heart conditions.

By legend, Hungary Water, one of Europe's first alcohol-based perfumes, was first made for whom?

The country's queen, Elizabeth. The legend, which scholars doubt, has the rosemary water made to treat her ailments, and in one telling it won her a marriage proposal at 72.

Why is perfume traditionally dabbed on pulse points such as the wrists?

Body heat there diffuses the scent. At pulse points blood vessels run close to the skin, and the extra warmth keeps the fragrance evaporating so it is released steadily.

Which fragrance concentration ranks second in strength, just below pure extrait?

Eau de parfum. It carries more fragrance oil than an eau de toilette or an eau de cologne, which is why it lasts longer on the skin than those lighter waters.

In perfumery, what are the quickly evaporating scents perceived immediately on application called?

Top notes. They are small, light molecules, citrus and mint among them, that evaporate fast, so a perfume's bright opening gives way to its heart and then its longer-lasting base.

Which artist's 1985 prints show the Chanel No. 5 bottle?

Andy Warhol. He had started out drawing magazine advertisements in the 1950s, and his Ads series turned famous ones, Chanel's bottle among them, back into art.

Who composed the formula for Chanel No. 5?

Ernest Beaux. Born in Moscow, he trained at Rallet, perfumer to the Russian imperial court, and after the 1917 revolution closed its Russian business he carried on with the firm's exiles on the Riviera.

Why did Coco Chanel name her perfume No. 5?

She picked the fifth of the numbered sample vials, the story goes, from two sets marked 1 to 5 and 20 to 24, and kept the number for luck because she showed her collections on 5 May.

Which actress famously answered 'Chanel No. 5' when asked what she wore to bed?

Marilyn Monroe. The line ran with her first Life cover story in April 1952, and in 2013 Chanel built a whole campaign around a 1960 recording of her telling the story again.

In 2012, who became the first man to advertise Chanel No. 5?

Brad Pitt. In a black-and-white spot he mused that 'wherever I go, there you are' and ended on one word, 'inevitable', following faces such as Catherine Deneuve and Nicole Kidman.

Which Provençal town is known as the world's perfume capital?

Grasse. It was a leather-tanning town whose glove-makers began scenting their gloves to mask the stink, and the perfume trade that grew from it outlasted the leather.

Eau de Cologne was originally mixed in 1709 by whom?

Johann Maria Farina. An Italian who had settled in the German city, he said the scent recalled a spring morning back in Italy, and he named it in honour of his new home.

The cologne 4711 is named after a house number handed out in 1794, when which country's army occupied Cologne?

France. Every house in the city was numbered as French revolutionary troops moved in, and the shop on Glockengasse drew 4711; the soldier painting it on from horseback was invented for adverts.

Guerlain stayed in family hands from 1828 until 1994, when which luxury group bought it?

LVMH. Bernard Arnault's group bought the family out, but Jean-Paul Guerlain, who had composed the house's perfumes since the 1950s, stayed on to keep creating them.

Guerlain's Jicky, launched in 1889, is often called the first modern perfume because it was among the first to use what?

Synthetic ingredients. Aimé Guerlain blended lab-made vanillin and coumarin with natural essences such as lavender, a marriage of chemistry and nature that modern perfumes still follow.

Guerlain's Shalimar was inspired by the love story of Shah Jahan and which empress?

Mumtaz Mahal. When she died in 1631 Shah Jahan built the Taj Mahal as her tomb, and Jacques Guerlain drew on their story for the perfume.

Ambergris, long prized as a fixative, is produced in the digestive system of which animal?

The sperm whale. Ambergris is thought to form around the sharp squid beaks the whale cannot digest, and lumps that wash ashore after years at sea have been called floating gold.

Natural musk, long used to fix perfumes, comes from a gland of which animal?

The musk deer. Only the male carries the scent pod, and because he was killed to get it, perfumers have largely given up the real thing for imitations.

Oud, or agarwood, forms in Aquilaria trees after what happens to them?

They are infected by a mould. The tree answers the attack with a dark, fragrant resin that soaks its heartwood, wood that is pale and light while the tree is healthy.

Vetiver, a staple base note, is the root of what kind of plant?

A grass. Vetiver is a tall bunchgrass whose fragrant roots grow straight down for three metres or more, so it is also planted in hedges to stop soil washing away.

Which citrus fruit, grown chiefly along the coast of Calabria, is prized by perfumers for the oil in its peel?

Bergamot. Too sour to eat like an orange, it is grown for its peel oil, which freshens classic eau de cologne and gives Earl Grey tea its flavour.

Frankincense and myrrh are both harvested by doing what?

Cutting bark. Boswellia trees give frankincense and thorny Commiphora trees give myrrh: the gum that bleeds from the cuts hardens into lumps called tears, which are then collected.

The traditional technique of enfleurage captures the scent of flowers using what?

Odourless solid fats. Petals are laid on the fat and replaced every day or so until it is saturated with their scent, which alcohol then draws out as a concentrated flower oil.

Labdanum, a sticky shrub resin used in perfume, was gathered in ancient times by combing it from the coats of which animals?

Goats. They browsed on rockrose bushes and the resin stuck to their hair; Herodotus marvelled that so sweet a scent was found in the beards of foul-smelling he-goats.

The fougère family of forest-floor scents takes its name from the French word for which plant?

Fern. Houbigant's Fougère Royale of 1882 named the family, though it copied no real fern: its perfumer built the effect from lavender and coumarin, a note that smells of new-mown hay.

Thierry Mugler's Angel (1992) is considered the first modern example of which fragrance family?

Its notes of praline, vanilla and patchouli made it smell edible; it once outsold No. 5 in France, and the bottle is a star.

Which Yves Saint Laurent perfume of 1977 caused an outcry over its name?

Opium. Critics accused Saint Laurent of glamorising drug use and some demanded a new name, but he kept it and the scent was an immediate bestseller all the same.

Which perfume, launched just after the 1929 Wall Street crash, was marketed as the costliest in the world?

Joy. Jean Patou made it for American clients the crash had ruined and priced it defiantly high: an ounce was said to need some 10,000 jasmine flowers and 28 dozen roses.

Which American designer launched the 1994 hit fragrance that was pitched at men and women alike?

Calvin Klein. CK One came in a plain frosted flask with a screw cap under the slogan 'One for all', and shoppers of both sexes made it one of the decade's bestsellers.

Which men's grooming brand was launched in 1937 as a range of toiletries for women?

Old Spice. It began as Early American Old Spice, soaps and toilet water sold to women in colonial-style boxes; the men's line and its shaving mug with a sailing ship came next and took over.

Perfumers are affectionately known by which nickname?

Noses, or 'nez' in French. Until a school open to the public was founded in 1970, the craft was taught inside the perfume houses, so a nose learned it as an apprentice at a working perfumer's side.

The Osmothèque, a working archive of historic perfumes, is based in which French city?

Versailles. Its perfumers remake discontinued classics from their original formulas, so visitors can still smell scents that vanished from the shops generations ago.

Which French word for a ship's wake do perfume lovers use for the scent trail a wearer leaves behind?

Sillage. Skin changes it: a wearer's own skin scent and dryness alter how a fragrance carries, so the same perfume leaves a different trail on different people.

Which Balkan country's Rose Valley is the best-known source of damask rose oil?

Bulgaria. In the valley around Kazanlak the blooms are picked one by one by hand, and it takes several tonnes of petals to distil a single kilo of oil, which is why it costs so much.

Patrick Süskind's novel Perfume follows Jean-Baptiste Grenouille, whose surname is French for what?

Frog. Grenouille is born amid the stink of a Paris fish market with a superhuman sense of smell yet no scent of his own, and he murders in pursuit of the perfect perfume.

Who plays Grenouille in the 2006 film Perfume: The Story of a Murderer?

Ben Whishaw. After almost a year of searching, director Tom Tykwer watched the little-known actor play Hamlet at London's Old Vic and decided on the spot that he had his Grenouille.

Which singer and actress launched the hit fragrance Glow in 2002?

Jennifer Lopez. A small Los Angeles firm already selling a scent called Glow sued over the name, a judge refused to pull hers from the shelves, and by 2004 her perfumes and fashion were bringing in more than $300 million a year.

Despite its French name, the fragrance giant Givaudan has its headquarters in which country?

Switzerland. Based outside Geneva, Givaudan sells nothing under its own name: its perfumers compose scents that fashion houses bottle as their own, and it perfumes soaps and household cleaners too.

Which family of aroma chemicals, used in a dose no perfumer had tried before, gives Chanel No. 5 its clean sparkle?

Aldehydes. The story goes that an assistant added them at full strength instead of a ten per cent dilution; the 'mistake' stayed in the formula, and aldehydic florals became a family of their own.

A 9th-century perfume book attributed to Al-Kindi describes which still, whose name English took from Arabic?

The alembic. The word is Arabic al-anbiq, 'the still', borrowed in turn from a Greek word for cup, so saying 'the alembic' really says 'the' twice.

In everyday American usage, 'cologne' usually means what?

Perfume marketed to men. Dictionaries still define cologne as a light scent for anyone, named after a German city, but American shops shelve men's fragrances of every strength under the word.

François Coty's 1917 perfume Chypre built a whole family on citrus, labdanum and which base note?

Oakmoss. It is a lichen, not a moss, and because it can irritate skin its use is now tightly restricted, so many classic chypre perfumes have had to be reformulated.

Which designer's fragrances come in bottles shaped like human torsos and are sold inside metal cans?

Jean Paul Gaultier. Classique is a woman's torso in a corset and Le Male a man's in a sailor stripe; Le Male's own perfumer feared a bottle that did not look like a bottle would never sell.

Which ruler had a standing order with his perfumer for 50 bottles of eau de cologne a month?

Napoleon Bonaparte. He doused himself with it after washing, and surviving bills from his perfumer Chardin bear the habit out.

Kyphi, a temple incense blended from honey, wine, raisins and resins, was burned at nightfall in which ancient civilisation?

Egypt. Recipes for kyphi are carved on the temple walls at Edfu and Philae, and Plutarch wrote that its sixteen ingredients loosened the day's cares and eased the body towards sleep.

Which American beauty founder launched Youth-Dew in 1953 as a bath oil that doubled as a perfume?

Estée Lauder. Women then waited to be given perfume but would happily buy themselves a bath oil, so they poured Youth-Dew in by the bottle instead of dabbing it on by the drop.

Elsa Schiaparelli's perfume Shocking came in a bottle modelled on the hourglass torso of which Hollywood star?

Mae West was dressed by Schiaparelli for a 1937 film using a mannequin built to her measurements, and that dummy inspired the bottle, sculpted by the artist Leonor Fini.

Which beauty giant, founded by a door-to-door book salesman, was called the California Perfume Company until 1939?

Avon began in 1886 when David McConnell decided to sell perfumes rather than books; a partner living in California suggested the first name for the state's abundance of flowers.

Which actor won an Oscar as the blind retired colonel who can name a woman's fragrance in Scent of a Woman?

Al Pacino won Best Actor as Frank Slade, who identifies a young woman's soap from her scent in a hotel ballroom and then offers to teach her the tango.

Which French novelist is the namesake of the phenomenon in which an odour suddenly unlocks vivid memories of the past?

Marcel Proust described the taste and smell of a madeleine dipped in linden tea bringing back a flood of recollections in his novel Swann's Way.

Potpourri, the bowl of dried scented petals, takes its name from French words with which literal meaning?

Rotten pot is the literal sense of the French pot-pourri, a name first given to a Spanish stew that throws together many different foods.

Which Hollywood star launched White Diamonds in 1991, a perfume whose sales went on to pass a billion dollars?

Elizabeth Taylor starred in the cinematic television commercial herself, and total sales of the scent had reached US$1.5 billion by 2018.

Nirvana's Smells Like Teen Spirit took its title from a phrase a friend wrote, which referred to what kind of product?

A deodorant named Teen Spirit was what Kathleen Hanna of Bikini Kill had in mind, but Kurt Cobain misread her phrase as a revolutionary slogan.

Which 1960 cinema gimmick released thirty odours from the seats in time with the film Scent of Mystery?

Smell-O-Vision, devised by Hans Laube, was triggered by the film's soundtrack and made its only appearance in that one picture.

Perfumed leather gloves became a fashion at the French court of which queen, whose personal perfumer came from Florence?

Catherine de Medici's perfumer carried Italian refinements north with him, and Huguenot writers later accused her of murdering a rival queen with a pair of poisoned gloves.

Castoreum, used as a tincture in some classic perfumes, comes from scent sacs near the tail of which animal?

The beaver uses castoreum together with urine to scent-mark its territory, and the secretion has also been used, rarely, as a food additive.

Which Australian actress flees through Times Square in Baz Luhrmann's 2004 short film for Chanel No. 5?

Nicole Kidman was paid $3 million for the 180-second film, in which Karl Lagerfeld designed the costumes and made a brief appearance himself.

Which Oscar-winning actress was the face of Dior's J'adore perfume for two decades, starting in 2004?

Charlize Theron took over from the Estonian model Tiiu Kuik and kept the role until Dior announced Rihanna as her replacement in 2024.

Which glass designer, already known as a jeweller, began creating luxury perfume bottles with François Coty in 1907?

René Lalique went on to turn glass into art of every kind, from vases and chandeliers to clocks and car hood ornaments.

Florence's perfumery Santa Maria Novella, recognised as the world's oldest pharmacy, was begun by friars of which order?

The Dominicans settled in the city in 1221 and grew medicinal plants inside their convent, though the shop is traditionally said to have opened to the public only in 1612.

Which earthy oil, a signature of the 1960s hippie movement, comes from a leafy plant in the mint family?

Patchouli oil and incense surged in popularity in the US and Europe in the 1960s and 1970s, and the heavy, woody scent is also used in insect repellents.

Vanilla, one of the best-loved sweet smells in perfume, comes from the seed pods of which family of flowering plants?

Orchids of the genus Vanilla must be pollinated to set their pods, and a Belgian botanist pioneered a way of doing it artificially in 1837.

Orris butter, described as the costliest substance in the perfume industry, comes from the root of which garden flower?

The iris gives only about two kilos of the oil from a ton of root, and once prepared its scent is reminiscent of violets.

Neroli oil, named after an Italian princess who scented her gloves with it, is made from the blossom of which tree?

Bitter orange blossom became a fashionable scent at the end of the 17th century thanks to Anne Marie Orsini, princess of Nerola, who also used it in her bath.

Guerlain's Eau de Cologne Impériale came to wide attention in 1853 after it was adopted by which empress?

Eugénie's favour brought Pierre-François Guerlain the coveted title of His Majesty's Official Perfumer.

Which city in Uttar Pradesh, nicknamed India's perfume capital, has distilled flower-based attar for centuries?

Kannauj makes its traditional perfume with attar from the petals of flowers grown nearby, and the product is protected as a geographical indication.

Which pop star's debut perfume, Fame, was a black liquid that sprayed clear and turned invisible in the air?

Lady Gaga launched the scent at New York's Guggenheim Museum in 2012, in a bottle crowned with a gold cap.

Which actor plays the washed-up Italian perfumer Giuseppe Baldini in the film Perfume: The Story of a Murderer?

Dustin Hoffman was director Tom Tykwer's immediate first thought for Baldini, the teacher who shows Grenouille how to capture odours.

Which Dior perfume of 1985 came in an apple-shaped bottle of deep amethyst and was fronted by Isabelle Adjani?

Poison was a name Dior licensed two years ahead of the launch, because the company wanted one that would generate massive publicity.

Amouage, a luxury perfume house founded in 1983 at the request of the ruling sultan, comes from which country?

Oman's Sultan Qaboos asked for the house to be set up in Muscat, and the caps of its women's bottles copy the dome of the Sultan Qaboos Grand Mosque.

Which medical term, widely heard as a symptom of COVID-19, describes the inability to detect odours?

Anosmia can be dangerous as well as dispiriting, because it hinders the detection of gas leaks, fire and spoiled food.

Which word for the earthy scent of rain on dry ground was introduced by two Australian researchers in 1964?

Petrichor joins the Greek words for stone and ichor, the ethereal golden fluid said to run in the veins of the gods.

Which Roman author, killed in the eruption of Vesuvius, described how perfumes were made in his Natural History?

Pliny the Elder set out the basic materials and methods of the craft, following the Greek writer Theophrastus, who had devoted a whole work to odours.

Which pop star's first fragrance, Curious, became the best-selling perfume of 2004 after launching that September?

Britney Spears's scent, created by perfumer Claude Dir, took about $30 million at retail in its first three months and went on to pass $100 million in sales.

Which British house, established in 1770, counts English Lavender, launched in 1873, as its signature scent?

Yardley's lavender caught on in Victorian England and was exported to America in the 1880s, and the firm earned its first Royal Warrant in 1921.

Which couturier became the first French fashion designer to launch a signature fragrance, Parfums de Rosine, in 1911?

Paul Poiret named the line after his daughter and unveiled it at a flamboyant soirée in his palatial home, attended by the cream of Parisian society.

Jeanne Lanvin's 1927 perfume, a thirtieth-birthday gift to her musician daughter, is named after which musical term?

Arpeggio gave Arpège its name, and the original black bottle carried a gold drawing of Lanvin and her daughter by the illustrator Iribe.

Coumarin, a staple of fougère perfumes since 1882, takes its name from a French word for which bean?

Tonka bean extracts first yielded the compound in 1820, and the English chemist William Henry Perkin went on to synthesise it in 1868.

In kōdō, Japan's classical art of appreciating incense, practitioners are said to do what to the fragrance?

To listen to it is the idea behind monkō, the art's own word for enjoying incense: the aroma should infuse body and soul, not merely be smelled.

Which perfumed ball, carried as protection against infection in times of pestilence, has a name meaning apple of amber?

Pomander balls were made with ambergris, the amber of the French name, and were also worn simply to mask bad smells.

Which costly perfumed oil from a Himalayan plant does Mary pour on the feet of Jesus in the Gospel of John?

Spikenard, also called nard, comes from a plant of the honeysuckle family, and in the story Mary then wipes the feet dry with her own hair.

Which biophysicist and perfume writer is known for the theory that the nose detects molecules by their vibrations?

Luca Turin's theory predicts that a compound and its deuterated twin should smell different despite sharing a shape, a claim other scientists have disputed.

Escentric Molecules' 2006 perfume Molecule 01 is made entirely of which single diluted aroma chemical?

Iso E Super was created at International Flavors & Fragrances in 1973 and turns up in a wide variety of commercial products with quite different scents.

Which 1973 Revlon scent, advertised by a woman striding along in a pantsuit, became America's first global bestseller?

Charlie was pitched at an independent, assertive woman, and the print advertisements pointedly showed her with no man in the photo.

François Coty, born Joseph Marie François Spoturno, came from Ajaccio on which Mediterranean island?

Corsica later made Coty one of its senators, though the Senate annulled his 1923 election within a year over bribery claims, and he also served as mayor of Ajaccio, the town of his birth.

Which fashion duo's perfumes include Flowerbomb for women and its later male counterpart, Spicebomb, launched in 2012?

Viktor & Rolf are the Dutch designers Viktor Horsting and Rolf Snoeren, who met as students at the Arnhem Academy of Art and Design in 1988.

Which Pirates of the Caribbean actress was confirmed as the face of Chanel's Coco Mademoiselle perfume in 2006?

Keira Knightley's first campaign photo did not appear until May 2007, and her Chanel television commercials were directed by Joe Wright.

Which Italian fashion house released Light Blue in 2001, a perfume its designers wanted to evoke Sicily?

Dolce & Gabbana hired the perfumer Olivier Cresp, who built the women's scent around a tart Granny Smith apple and Sicilian lemon peel.

Which American designer released his popular Daisy collection of perfumes in 2007 under a deal with Coty?

Marc Jacobs had started out the year before with a line of body-splash fragrances sold in ten-ounce bottles.

Which French perfumer, one of the first prominent women in a trade dominated by men, created Fracas and Bandit?

Germaine Cellier started out as a chemist, and her Bandit of 1944 was one of the first leather chypres, given its intense edge by a dose of isobutyl quinoline.

Which 1980s technique seals a flower under an airtight dome to analyse the odour compounds in the surrounding air?

Headspace technology gives a perfumer the data to recreate a scent, and its pioneer Roman Kaiser used it to record the odours of tropical rainforests.

Which prizes, held in New York every year from 1973, became known as the Oscars of the fragrance industry?

FiFi Awards were the idea of Annette Green, a former president of The Fragrance Foundation, which sponsors the ceremony.

Which Paris perfume house, founded in 1775, went on to launch the landmark scent Fougère Royale in 1882?

Houbigant's own perfumer created the scent, which went on to give its name to a whole family of fragrances.

Which Paris house, founded by three designers at 34 Boulevard Saint-Germain, introduced its scented candles in 1963?

Diptyque began as a shop selling fabric designs and decorative items, and its first eau de toilette, L'Eau, followed in 1968.

Which actress released her own perfume, Lovely, in 2005 and followed its success with Covet two years later?

Sarah Jessica Parker later widened the Lovely collection with a set of three new scents named Dawn, Endless and Twilight.

The beauty chain Sephora, merged with a perfume chain in 1993, is named after the biblical wife of which prophet?

Moses married Zipporah, whose name is Séphora in French; Dominique Mandonnaud folded the business into his own perfume chain and kept the name.