I came across this site: Perfumes in Ancient Egypt and found it interesting enough to share here. And while we’re on the topic of ancient Egyptian perfumes, here are a couple more links: Ancient Egypt: Perfume Making, Secrets of Ancient Egyptian Perfume. (Well, I am an ancient history major, after all.)

This isn’t really a perfume review. It’s more of an editorial rant.

I was in a pharmacy the other day with my family (daughters currently ages 12 and 10) and I happened to pass the new Justin Bieber fragrance, Someday. I had a pretty good idea what it would be like, but I picked it up and had a sniff anyway. I said, “Oh. I see.”

Then I had my ten-year-old daughter have a sniff of it. As it happens, she’s got quite a good nose. She said exactly what I thought when I smelled it: “It smells like that Britney Spears lolly shop one.” (She means Fantasy, which I let the kids wear, as it’s okay on them, but horrible on me, and far too sweet for my taste.)

Maybe if I’d actually worn the perfume and let it develop and followed it through I might have discovered something interesting about it, but I really doubt it. The market for this perfume is not sophisticated, and they’ll be buying this sweet, fruity floral perfume because of the name attached to it, not because it’s a good perfume (because, really, it isn’t).

I don’t automatically hate celebrity perfumes. I quite like Covet by Sarah Jessica Parker, for example, and I wear it with some regularity (it’s one of the few vanillary based perfumes I can comfortably wear, in fact). I liked Lovely, her first perfume, too. There have been a few celebrity perfumes that I thought were good enough to really stand on their own.

But not this time. I hope all the young girls who buy and wear this perfume enjoy it, although I suspect that as they outgrow Justin (and get real boyfriends), they’ll outgrow this fragrance, too.

“Both bottles – which have to be at least 147 years old – are intact and sealed with their original contents inside. This is a rare and unique discovery, as usually bottles of this type are found empty or broken.

The cologne, a green-yellow liquid inside a narrow clear bottle, is embossed “Murray & Lanman, Florida Water, No. 69 Water Street, New-York.”

The oldest known sample of this famous American eau- d’vie, the bottle’s discovery was a revelation to the cologne company, which recently celebrated its 203rd year in business.

Now known as Lanman & Kemp-Barclay, Inc. and located in New Jersey, the company still makes Florida Water based on their original 1808 formula, and have offered to work with the team to analyze the contents of the bottle from Mary Celestia.

Analysis of the other bottle of perfume, with a clear liquid inside, sealed by a glass stopper has begun. Working with renowned perfume historian David Pybus in the U.K., who also analyzed intact perfume from the wreck of the Titanic, it appears that this bottle contains the oldest known sample from a now defunct high end London perfumery founded in the 1850’s. More details will follow as research continues.”

Read the full article: http://bernews.com/2011/08/150-yr-old-perfume-found-in-shipwreck/

Image via Wikipedia

A couple weeks ago, I ordered some new supplies. Most are unremarkable and mundane (unscented body cream base, for example), but two items are fragrant: Coffee and Cocoa, both CO2 extractions.

Surprisingly, for me, anyway, the Cocoa is actually much more strongly scented than the Coffee. As of now, I haven’t used either one, except to put some of the Cocoa (which, by the way, is extremely thick and has to be scooped out of the jar!) in my oil burner.

I’m not sure what to use the Coffee for. I thought of some sort of bath or shower product, like body wash, but I haven’t done that yet. Mostly, I just like to open the bottle periodically and smell it. Hey, maybe I could use it the way you do coffee beans, to “clear the olfactory” when you’ve been smelling too many things? I admit, I don’t really think smelling one more thing (even something as nice as roasted coffee) clears anything at all (I’ve heard that breathing through a piece of wool, such as a scarf, for a few breaths will help, though), but it’s a fun idea.

For the Cocoa, I have some plans, but I’m not sure yet how I want to execute them. I happen to love the combination of orange and chocolate, so I’m thinking of doing something along those lines, but I don’t want it to be too much like candy. I thought maybe a nice wood base (Cedarwood and Australian Sandalwood, maybe?) with the Cocoa heart and an Orange top with just a hint of Lemon, perhaps?Also, the idea of Cocoa and Cinnamon is quite appealing, but I’m not sure if that would work or not (I guess the only way to find out is to try!).

Unfortunately, my spare time is quite limited these days, as I’ve undertaken to finally get my degree (started one, in Fine and Applied Art and Design, many years ago, and got pretty well into it, but then circumstances and life caused me to pause and I never finished it). My degree is not in anything to do with perfume, though some of the courses might mention it, since the degree is in Ancient History and plenty of ancient peoples were perfumers…