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50 free Perfume trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
Perfume is one of the oldest luxury industries on Earth and one of the least understood: most people who own a bottle could not say what 'eau de toilette' actually means, why the great houses talk about noses, or which animal ambergris comes from. This perfume trivia quiz answers all of that. It covers the history from Tapputi in ancient Assyria and the 4,000-year-old perfumes found in Cyprus through Farina's Cologne, Guerlain's Jicky and Chanel No. 5, the raw materials (jasmine from Grasse, rose from Bulgaria, oud, vetiver, bergamot, musk), the vocabulary of notes and families (chypre, fougère, gourmand) and the famous bottles from Shalimar and Opium to Angel and CK One. There are also questions on the people and places behind the trade: Coco Chanel and Ernest Beaux, Grasse, Cologne, the Osmothèque archive at Versailles, and Patrick Süskind's novel Perfume. Difficulty runs from easy questions about Chanel and Old Spice to expert ones about Iso E Super and who created Joy. Every answer was checked against encyclopaedic reference pages before publishing, and each question carries a citation.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01The word 'perfume' comes from a Latin verb meaning what?
To smoke through
Perfumery itself began in the ancient Near East, Egypt, the Indus Valley and possibly China, long before the Romans.
Q 02Tapputi, one of the world's first recorded chemists, was a perfumer in which ancient civilisation?
Mesopotamia
A cuneiform tablet from around 1200 BC records her distilling flowers, oil, calamus, myrrh and balsam in the city of Assur.
Q 03On which island did archaeologists find the world's oldest surviving perfumes, over 4,000 years old, in 2003?
Cyprus
The finds at Pyrgos also included a perfumery with distillation equipment.
Q 04Which Persian polymath introduced extracting flower oils by distillation?
Ibn Sina (Avicenna)
Both the raw ingredients and the distillation techniques of the Islamic world went on to shape Western perfumery and chemistry.
Q 05Hungary Water, an early alcohol-based perfume made around 1370, was produced at whose behest?
The country's queen, Elizabeth
Two centuries later Catherine de' Medici's personal perfumer, René the Florentine, carried Italian refinements to France.
Q 06Roughly what percentage of aromatic compounds does an eau de toilette contain?
5 to 15%
Eau de parfum runs 15 to 20%, and eau de cologne just 2 to 3%.
Q 07Which of these fragrance concentrations is the strongest?
Parfum or extrait
It carries 15 to 30% perfume oil, typically around 20%.
Q 08In perfumery, what are the quickly evaporating scents perceived immediately on application called?
Top notes
They are also called head notes; the middle or heart notes follow, and the base notes emerge last as the perfume dries down.
Q 09In which year did Coco Chanel launch Chanel No. 5?
1921
The launch was in her rue Cambon boutique on 5 May, the fifth day of the fifth month, which she considered lucky.
Q 10Who composed the formula for Chanel No. 5?
Ernest Beaux
The Moscow-born perfumer presented her with numbered sample vials, and she chose the fifth.
Q 11Why is Chanel No. 5 called No. 5?
She picked the fifth of the numbered sample vials
She was offered vials numbered 1 to 5 and 20 to 24, and said the fifth would 'bring good luck' since she showed her collections on 5 May.
Q 12Which actress famously answered 'Chanel No. 5' when asked what she wore to bed?
Marilyn Monroe
The line appeared in her first Life cover story in April 1952; Chanel built a 2013 campaign around a recording of her saying it.
Q 13In 2012, who became the first man to advertise Chanel No. 5?
Brad Pitt
Q 21The gland secretion that named a whole family of scents originally came from which animal?
The musk deer
Because the animal must be killed, almost all musk in perfumery today is synthetic, sometimes called 'white musk'.
Q 22Oud, or agarwood, forms in Aquilaria trees only after what happens to them?
They are infected by a mould
The tree secretes a defensive resin that saturates the heartwood, turning it dark, dense and fragrant.
Q 23Vetiver, a staple base note, is the root of what kind of plant?
A grass
It is a bunchgrass related to sorghum, and its Tamil name means 'root that is dug up'.
Catherine Deneuve and Nicole Kidman had been earlier faces; Andy Warhol silk-screened the bottle in the 1980s.
Q 14Which town in the south of France is known as the world's perfume capital?
Grasse
It produces more than two-thirds of France's natural aromas; jasmine was brought to the region by the Moors in the 16th century.
Q 15Eau de Cologne was originally mixed in 1709 by whom?
Johann Maria Farina
The Farina firm 'opposite Jülich's Square' is the world's oldest perfume factory; the classic formula is citrus oils in dilute alcohol.
Q 16The famous 4711 fragrance takes its name from what?
The street number of the Mülhens shop
The city numbered every house in 1794 with French troops at the gates; the Mülhens shop on Glockengasse drew 4711.
Q 17Guerlain, one of the oldest perfume houses in the world, was founded in Paris in which year?
1828
The family ran it until 1994, when LVMH bought it; many of its scents share an accord known as the Guerlinade.
Q 18Which Guerlain fragrance, launched in 1889, is the oldest continuously produced perfume in the world?
Jicky
Aimé Guerlain created it; it is often cited as the first modern perfume for its use of synthetics.
Q 19Guerlain's Shalimar was inspired by the love story of Shah Jahan and which empress?
Mumtaz Mahal
Jacques Guerlain composed it in 1921, but a naming dispute meant it was sold as 'No. 90' until its 1925 re-release.
Q 20Ambergris, long prized as a fixative, is produced in the digestive system of which animal?
The sperm whale
It is thought to ease the passage of squid beaks; lumps wash up on beaches, and synthetic ambroxide has largely replaced it.
Q 24Bergamot, a classic cologne top note, is grown on a large scale in which Italian region?
Calabria
The essence also flavours Earl Grey tea; the fruit is a symbol of the city of Reggio.
Q 25Frankincense is a resin obtained from trees of which genus?
Boswellia
Commiphora gives myrrh; the resin is hand-sorted into grades depending on when it is harvested.
Q 26The traditional technique of enfleurage captures the scent of flowers using what?
Odourless solid fats
It can be done cold or hot and was developed around the perfume trade of 17th- and 18th-century France for delicate flowers that do not survive distillation.
Q 27The chypre perfume family is built on citrus, labdanum and which mossy base note?
Oakmoss
The name is French for a Mediterranean island, chosen because the raw materials came mostly from that sea; Coty's original is preserved at the Osmothèque.
Q 28The fougère family takes its name from the French word for what?
Fern
Houbigant's Fougère Royale of 1882 started it, built on lavender and coumarin, which smells of new-mown hay.
Q 29Thierry Mugler's Angel (1992) is considered the first modern example of which fragrance family?
Gourmand
Its notes of praline, vanilla and patchouli made it smell edible; it once outsold No. 5 in France, and the bottle is a star.
Q 30Which Yves Saint Laurent perfume of 1977 drew protests over its name from Chinese-American groups?
Opium
The controversy only boosted sales; Jean Amic and Jean-Louis Sieuzac composed it.