A little bit of perfume history People, by definition, try to disguise their natural-born odor with
nicer scent..
In the bibe, 3 old men visited baby Jesus. They offered something
called kyphi, which is an ancient perfume, as a religious offering.
This only shows the almost "divine" role perfume had over the course of time.
From the ancient Egyptians that made the kyphi, it spread to the
empire of a more modern time like the Romans and the Greeks, and from
there it spreaded into Europe. It is known that the crusaders have
brought it with them after travelling in Palestine and other
middle-east locations. (Circa 13th century)
Perfume ingredients
Natural, Manufactured and Animal ingredients
Most ingredients of fragrances are natural like: flowers, fruit,
vegtable, roots, gums, leaves, spices and grass, as well as oils made
of plants.
Other ingredients include coal, chemicals and coal (or coal tars) and
have been added to perfumes only in modern times.
Other kind of ingredients are castor (beavers), musk (deers) and
ambergis (sperm of whales. I am not kidding).
What is the difference between perfume or Eau de toilette to a cologne
The percentage of alchohol. That's all. Not real major difference in
quality like people tend to think. More to be elaborated on the bottom
of this document.
The actual process
of how perfumes or colognes are made
Collection of the ingredients
The ingredients are brought to the manufactoring center. The plants
are brought from throughout the world, while animal-based products are
extracted "on the spot.
The oils are being made at the same center as well, by boiling plants
with steam.
Some extractions are made by ether and other substances that can dry
them so the oil will be extracted out.
Blending it altogether
The formula of the perfume determines how much of each ingredient
should be put into the combination.
This formula is usually made in a matter of a few years of testing,
and composed of as many as 800 different ingredients.
After the scent (the extract to be precise) is made, it is mixed with
alchohol and water in order to preserve it (for longer time, and for
it to last for a longer period of time on the skin). In colognes it's
usually 3-5% of the scent (in form of oil), 10% water and the rest is
alchohol, in perfumes it's 10-20% scent with alchohol, and in Eau de
toilette it's 2% scent, 20% water and the rest is alchohol. That
doesn't mean much though. More water doesn't mean less quality.
The agings process
Perfumes are aged for months or years after being blended. The maker
of this perfume will test it periodically, to examine whether it
reached the destination (perfect scent).
You can read about some of the finest sexiest perfume for men and sexiest perfume for women in these links.
Quality issues
Since fragrances rely heavily on the harvest of that year (not all
plants were made like) - sometimes it's needed to re-harvest, or even
decide on the very last part of the process (just after the aging)
that the scent is not up to par with what's expected.
Also animal oils become harder and harder to achieve. Peta activites
have managed to stop the animal murder for their oil (or sperm). The
manufactorars found themselves looking for an alternative and found
several substances, but could they compensate for the loss of an
original part of the formula?
That's why it's recomended to use only perfumes made by well known
makers that will have top quality control and prefer not to manufactor
that perfume/cologne without proper solution to a missing ingredient.
Check the
mens sexiest perfume and also the
womens sexiest perfume