HISTORICAL NOTICE OF PERFUMERY.

Nature has implanted in man the instinct of finding the odor accompanying decay and putrefaction insufferable, of fleeing from it, and of going in quest of fragrant odors. Hence, in ancient times, perfume substances were highly esteemed, and an offering of them was considered a sign of the most profound reverence and homage. The early nations of the Orient especially used perfume substances in such profusion that the consumption of them by the finest lady of to-day must be called a comparatively moderate one. This may, however, be readily explained, for, on the one hand, the majority of plants which produce the most agreeable perfumes in larger quantity are indigenous to the Orient; and, on the other, the excessive exhalations from the human body, caused by the hot climate, forced the people to search for means to remove, or at least to cover, the disagreeable odor arising therefrom.

Since fragrant odors were agreeable to human beings, it was believed that they must be welcome also to the gods, and, to honor them, perfume substances were burned upon the altars. Besides, as an offering to the gods, perfume substances were extensively used by many nations, especially by the Egyptians, for embalming the dead, the process employed by the latter having been transmitted to us by the ancient authors Herodotus and Diodorus.

Furthermore, a desire for ornamentation and to give to the face and body as pleasing an appearance as possible, is common to all mankind. To be sure, the ideas of what constitutes beauty in this respect have varied at different times and among the various nations. But, independent of the savage races, who consider painting and tattooing the body and face an embellishment, and taking into consideration only the earliest civilized nations, it is astonishing how many arts of the toilet have been preserved from the most ancient historical times up to the present. "In the most ancient historical times, people perfumed and painted, frizzed, curled, and dyed the hair as at present, and, in fact, the same cosmetics, only slightly augmented, which were in use hundreds, nay, thousands, of years ago are still employed to-day."[1] It is especially woman, who everywhere exercises the arts of the toilet, while, with the exception of perfumes and agents for the hair, man is but seldom referred to as making use of cosmetics. The young girls of ancient Egypt used red and white paints, colored their pale lips, and anointed their hair with sweet-scented oils; they dyed their eyelashes and eyelids black to impart a brighter lustre to the glance of the eye, and the mother of the wife of the first king of Egypt is said to have already composed a receipt for a hair-dye.

From the Egyptians, the practices of the toilet, like many other things, were transmitted to the Jews. In Egypt, the Hebrew woman had known the sweet-scented flower of the henna bush, and, finding it also in Judea, it served her as a perfume. In the Bible the henna flower is called kopher, in Greek kypros, and the Cyprian salve, mentioned by Pliny, was prepared by boiling henna flowers in oil and then expressing them.

Painting the face was also practised by the Hebrew women, reference being made to it in II. Kings ix. 30, and Jeremiah v. 30, while painting of the eyes is mentioned in Ezekiel xxiii. 40.

The number of perfume substances known to the ancient Hebrews was but a limited one, they consisting, besides the above-mentioned henna flower, chiefly of a few gum-resins, especially bdellium, olibanum and myrrh.

In ancient times olibanum was, without doubt, the most important perfume-substance. It was introduced into commerce by the Phoenicians, and, like many other substances, it received from them its name, which was adopted by other nations. Thus, the Hebrews called the tree lebonah, the Arabs, lubah, while the Greeks named it, ??a??? and the resin derived from it, the celebrated frankincense of the ancients, ??a??t??t?, Latin, olibanum. Regarding the mode of gaining the olibanum, some curious ideas prevailed in ancient times. Thus, Herodotus writes: "Arabia is the only country in which olibanum grows, as well as myrrh, cassia, cinnamon and lederum. With the exception of myrrh, the Arabs encounter many difficulties in procuring these products. Olibanum they obtain by burning styrax, for every olibanum tree is guarded by a number of small-sized winged serpents of a variegated appearance, which can be driven away by nothing but styrax vapors." According to Pliny, who gives a very full account of olibanum, Arabia felix received its by-name from the abundance of olibanum and myrrh found there. He states that olibanum grows in no other country besides Arabia, but it is not found in every part of it. About in the centre, upon a high mountain, he continues, is the country of the Atramites, a province of the Sabeans, from which the olibanum region is distant about eight days' journey. It is called Saba and is everywhere rendered inaccessible by mountains, a narrow defile, through which the export is carried on, leading into an adjoining province inhabited by the Mineans. In Saba itself were not more than 300 families, called the saints, who claimed the cultivation of olibanum as a right of heritage. When making the incisions in the trees, and while gathering the olibanum, the men were prohibited from having intercourse with women and from attending funerals. Notwithstanding the fact that the Romans carried on war in Arabia, none of them had ever seen an olibanum tree. When there was less chance of selling the olibanum, it was gathered but once in the year, but since the increase in the demand, it was gathered twice, first in the fall and again in the spring, the incisions in the trees having been made during the winter. The collected olibanum was brought upon camels to Sabota, where one gate was open for its reception; to turn from the road was prohibited under penalty of death. The priests took one-tenth by measure for the god Sabin, sales not being allowed until their claim was satisfied. The olibanum could be exported only through the territory of the Gebanites, whose King also levied tribute.

Pliny further states that the Arabs did not steal one from another, but for fear of loss those employed in the stores of Alexandria were forced to go naked with the exception of a clout which was sealed. A mask and a thick net were thrown over the head.

To us the practice of anointing the entire body, customary among the ancients, appears very singular. Old Egyptian sculptures represent the guests being anointed at the meal. Among the Jews we find a holy oil with which Aaron and his sons were anointed to consecrate them to the priesthood, Moses prescribing for this holy anointing oil, myrrh, cinnamon, calamus, and oil from the olive tree. Other persons were prohibited from imitating or using this holy oil. The anointing of kings was introduced later on. Though it was prohibited to imitate and use the holy oil, this prohibition did not refer to anointing with oil in general.

That the Greeks also set a high value upon anointing with oil is plainly seen from Homer. When Telemachus visited Nestor, Polycaste, Nestor's youngest daughter, bathed him and anointed him with oil, and when he was the guest of Menelaus, the maids of the latter performed the same service for him, while for Ulysses returning as a beggar, the aged Euryclea prepared a foot-bath and anointed him.

By the addition of fragrant substances to the oil, the sweet-scented ointment, myron, originated. While the anointing with simple oil evidently served as a hygienic measure after the bath, and especially for men in the gymnasium, and before a combat, with the Greeks, ointments were an article of luxury. In Socrates' time the use of sweet-scented ointments had reached such an extent, that Xenophon caused him to speak against it, but, as is the case with all such lectures against fashion, without the slightest success. In Athens the luxury was carried so far that the bacchanalians anointed each part of their body with a special ointment. The oil extracted from the palm was thought best adapted to the cheeks and the breasts; the arms were refreshed with balsam-mint; sweet marjoram supplied an oil for the hair and eyebrows; and wild thyme for the knee and neck. Although to us it would be repugnant to have the entire body anointed, in Athens it was considered beautiful to be glossy with ointments. It is said of Demetrius Phalereus, that in order to appear more captivating, he dyed his hair yellow, and anointed the face and the rest of his body.

From the Asiatics and Greeks the Romans also learned the use of ointments. Pliny cannot say at what time they were introduced in Rome, but states that after the conquest of Asia and the defeat of the King, Antiochus, in the year 565, after the building of Rome, the censors issued an edict prohibiting the sale of foreign ointments. However, this edict was of no use, and the practice spread more and more, Pliny speaking very bitterly about it. Regarding this extravagance in ointments, Plutarch says: "Frankincense, cinnamon, spikenard, and Arabian calamus are mixed together with the most careful art and sold for large sums. It is an effeminate pleasure and has spoiled not only the women but also the men, who will not sleep even with their own wives if they do not smell of ointments and powders." Plutarch further mentions an incident which must have created a sensation even in luxurious Rome, as otherwise it would scarcely have been chronicled for the benefit of posterity. Nero one day anointed himself with costly ointments and scattered some of them over Otho. The next day Otho gave Nero a banquet, and laid in all directions gold and silver tubes, which poured forth expensive ointments like water, thoroughly saturating the guests.

Directions for preparing ointments are contained in Theophrastus's work "On Perfumes," in Dioscorides's "Medica materia," and Pliny's "Historia naturalis." Dioscorides's receipts are the fullest. According to Pliny, a distinction was made between the juice and the body, the latter consisting of the fat oils and the former of the sweet-scented substances. In preparing the ointments, the oil together with the perfuming substances were heated in the water-bath. For instance, rose ointment was, according to Dioscorides, prepared by mixing 5½ lbs. of bruised Andropogon Schoenanthus with a little water, then adding 20½ lbs. of oil and heating. After heating the oil was filtered off, and the petals of one thousand roses were thrown into the oil, the hands with which the rose leaves were pressed into the oil being previously coated with honey. When the whole had stood for one night, the oil was strained off and when all impurities had settled, it was brought into another vessel and fresh rose leaves introduced, the operation being several times repeated. However, according to the opinion of the ancient ointment makers, no more odor was absorbed by the oil after the seventh introduction of rose leaves. To fix the odor, resins or gums were added to the ointments.

A process of distilling volatile oils was also known, the odoriferous matter being caught by spreading wool over the heated perfume-substances. The wool was afterwards subjected to pressure. This process, of course, involved great loss and was available only for substances containing much volatile oil.

Dioscorides also gives directions for making animal fats suitable for the reception of perfumes. Beef-tallow, deer-fat, or the marrow of animals was freed from all membranes, melted together with a little salt in an entirely new vessel, and then poured into clean water, where it was washed by rubbing with the hands, the water being frequently renewed. Then it was boiled with equal parts of sweet-scented wine, and after taking it from the fire it was allowed to stand over night. The next day the cold fat was again boiled in a new vessel, with sweet-scented wine, this operation being repeated until the fat had lost every trace of disagreeable odor, when it was brought in contact with the perfumes.

The consumption of perfume-substances by the ancient Romans must have been enormous. The trade of the ointment makers (ungentarii) was so extensive that the large street Seplasia in old Capua was entirely taken up by it, and the business must have paid well since the prices realized were very high. However, in ancient times the business cannot have been very agreeable, at least not in Greece, as shown by a passage in Plutarch's Life of Pericles: "We take pleasure in ointments and purple, but consider the dyers and ointment makers bondsmen and mechanics."

Red and white paints, in the form of powder as well as of paste, were extensively used by the Roman ladies. Chalk and white lead served for white paint, and minium and carmine for red. Lovers preferred white paints, a pale color being more becoming to them:—

For black paints for the eyebrows roasted ant eggs or soot were used.

The Roman ladies paid as much attention to their natural, and also false, hair as the fair ones of to-day. They curled their hair with heated iron instruments, and perfumed them with fragrant oil. If from age, sorrow, or other reasons, the hair was no longer black, it was dyed, and it seems that a considerable number of hair-dyes were known in Rome, amongst them some which are still employed to-day, such as green nutshells and acetate of lead.

After the Romans had seen the blonde German maidens, blonde and red hair became the fashion. To dye the hair blonde sharp alkaline soaps were chiefly used. However, this or some other hair-dye seems to have been very injurious, as it caused the hair to come out. The satirists ridiculed this as well as the wigs, which were worn by men and women to hide baldness, or on account of the color which could not be attained by dyes.

Depilatories were also known to the Romans, the agents employed being called psilothrum and dropax. They were of vegetable origin, but it is not exactly known from which plants they were derived.

For cleaning the teeth the Roman ladies used a dentifrice which does not seem very inviting to us. It consisted of a urine imported from Spain (dens hiberna defricatus urina). To perfume the breath or to hide its bad odor, mouth-washes, perfumed with saffron, roses, etc., were used, or myrrh, mastic from Chios or perfumed pastilles were chewed.

We know but little regarding the use of perfumeries and cosmetics in the Middle Ages. In the wars during the migrations of the nations, but little thought was very likely given to them, but as soon as the nations became again settled and made sufficient progress in culture, the taste for perfumes and other pleasures of life no doubt returned. Our knowledge in this respect is limited to what is contained in the works of physicians of the first centuries. Later on we find receipts for cosmetics in the writings of Arabian physicians, such as Rhazes (end of the 9th to the commencement of the 10th century), Avicenna (end of the 10th to the commencement of the 11th century), and MesuË (11th century). To the 11th century also belong the works of the celebrated Trotula, "De mulierum passionibus," "Practica Trotulae mulieris Salernitanae de curis mulierum," and "Trotula in utilitatem mulierum," all of which contain receipts for cosmetics. In the 14th century the most celebrated surgeon of the Middle Ages, Guy de Chanlios, did not consider it beneath his dignity to devote a section of his "Grande Chirurgie" to cosmetics. However, it was only in the 16th century that perfumes and cosmetics came again into prominent notice in Italy, which at that time was the country of luxury and art. Giovanni Marinello,[2] a physician, in 1562 wrote a work on "Cosmetics for Ladies," which he dedicated to the ladies Victoria and Isabella Palavicini. In the preface the author expresses the opinion that it is only right and pleasing to God to place the gifts bestowed by him in a proper light and to heighten them. He then proceeds to give perfumes for various purposes, aromatic baths to keep the skin young and fresh, means for increasing the stoutness of the entire body and of separate limbs, and others for reducing them. He further recommends certain remedies for making large eyes small, and small ones large. The chapter on the hair is very fully treated. To prevent the hair from coming out, rubbing with oil, and then washing with sorrel and myrobalan is recommended. For promoting the growth of the hair, the use of dried frogs, lizards, etc., rubbed to a powder, is prescribed. Means for making the hair long and soft and curly are also given, and others recommended for eyebrows and eyelashes. As depilatories lime and orpiment are prescribed. Paints are also classed among general cosmetics. Their use became at this time more and more fashionable, and not only the face, but also the breast and neck were painted.

Catherine of Medici and Margaret of Valois introduced these arts of the toilet into France. That country soon became the leader in this respect, and for many years the greatest luxury in perfumes and cosmetics prevailed there. The golden age for these articles lasted from the commencement of the seventeenth to the middle of the eighteenth century, during which time the mouche or beauty patch also flourished. "There were at that time hundreds of pastes, essences, cosmetics, a white balsam, a water to make the face red, another to make a coarse complexion delicate, one to preserve the fine complexion of lean persons and again one to make the face like that of a twenty-year old girl, an Eau pour nourir et laver les teints corrodÉs and Eau de chair admirable pour teints jaunes et bilieux, etc. Then there were Mouchoirs de Venus, further bands impregnated with wax to cleanse and smooth the forehead; gold leaf was even heated in a lemon over a fire in order to obtain a means which should impart to the face a supernatural brightness. For the hair, teeth and nails there were innumerable receipts, ointments, etc. However, of special importance were the paints, chemical white, blue for the veins, but, chief of all, the red or rouge, mineral, vegetable, or cochineal. The application of rouge was at that time no small affair, it was not only to be rouged, but the rouge had also to express something—Le grand point est d'avoir un rouge qui dise quelque chose. The rouge had to characterize its wearer; a lady of rank did not wear the rouge like a lady of the court, and the rouge of the wife of the bourgeois was not like either of them nor like that of the courtesan. At court a more intense rouge was worn, the intensity of which was still increased on the day of presentation, it being then Rouge d'Espagne and Rouge de Portugal en tasse. It may seem incredible, but for eight days a violet paint was used and then for a change Rouge de Serkis. Ladies, when retiring for the night applied a light rouge (un demi rouge), and even small girls wore rouge, such being the decree of fashion. The ladies dyed their eyebrows and eyelashes, and powdered their hair, both natural and false, for, about 1750, they commenced wearing wigs and chignons. Powdering was done partially for the purpose of dying the hair after dressing, and partially for decoration; white, gray, red and fiery red powders were in vogue."

To that time fashion also ordained an ever-varying routine in the employment of perfumes; so that the royal apartments were one day fragrant with the scent of the tuberose and the next with that of amber and cloves; and so on consecutively, each succeeding day bringing a change of the reigning odor. In that luxurious age the personal use of perfumes was not confined to the fair sex, but the effeminate gallants of the day gloried in perfuming themselves with the favorite scents of their mistresses or of prominent belles; so that the allegiance was recognized, not as in more chivalrous times by the knight wearing the colors of the fair one who had enslaved him, but by his smelling of the particular odor which she had consecrated to herself.

Philip Augustus, in 1190, granted a charter to the French perfumers, who had formed a guild. This charter was, in 1357, confirmed by John, and in 1582 by Henry III., and remained in force until 1636. The importance of the craft in France is shown by the fact that under Colbert the perfumers or "parfumeurs-gantiers," as they were called, were granted patents which were registered in Parliament. In the seventeenth century Montpellier was the chief seat of the French perfumery industry; to-day it is Paris, and over fifty millions of francs' worth of perfumery are annually sold there. The parfumeurs-gantiers had the privilege of selling gloves of all possible kinds of material, as well as the leather required for them; they had the further privilege of perfuming gloves and selling all kinds of perfumes. Perfumed leather for gloves, purses, etc., was at that time imported from Spain. This leather was very expensive and fashionable, but on account of its penetrating odor its use for gloves was finally abandoned.

In England perfumes were not in general use before the reign of Queen Elizabeth, when they soon became fashionable. Elizabeth had an especially finely developed sense of smell and nothing was more repugnant to her than a disagreeable odor. She had a cloak of perfumed Spanish leather, and even her shoes were perfumed. Perfumed gloves were also fashionable. The city soon imitated the practices of the court, and that an extravagant use was made of perfumeries and cosmetics is plainly seen from the works of the authors of that time, as well as from an act of Parliament passed in 1770. By the latter it is ordained that any woman, no matter of what age or rank, be she maid or widow, who deceives a man and inveigles him into matrimony by the use of perfumeries, false hair, CrÉpons d'Espagne (a paint), corsets, hooped petticoats, shoes with high heels, and false hips, shall suffer the penalty of the law for procuring, and the marriage shall be null and void.