Seductive Scents

Perfumes...what girl doesn't like them? They are our seductive lovers. Their secrative allure can leave a trace in our life and mark an unforgettable reminiscence. Sometimes, the smell in the air awakes an old memory we left behind; the smell of clothes may remind us of someone dear to us; the smell of a specific flower may take us back to our childhood in the exact same time we inhaled that same aroma somewhere ...the power of scent is beyond our imagination. I often think about where do perfumes come from, who were the first people to make them and when? I did some research and this is what I found.

The world's first recorded chemist is a person named Tapputi, a perfume maker who was mentioned in a Cuneiform tablet from the 2nd millennium BC in Mesopotamia.

Archaeologists have found the world's oldest perfumes on Cyprus.The perfumes were scented with extracts of lavender, bay, rosemary, pine or coriander and kept in tiny translucent alabaster bottles. The remaining traces found at Pyrgos, in the south of the island, are more than 4000 years old. The scents are named after the Greek goddesses Aphrodite, Hera, Athena and Artemis.

The World's Oldest Perfume

Greek Goddess Aphrodite

The abundance of perfumes fits well with Cyprus' mythological status as the birthplace of Aphrodite, the Greek goddess of love. The goddess' myth was strongly linked to the perfume she used to get what she wanted.

The Art of Ancient Perfume

Persia and Rome

China and India

Reading about the history of perfume, I rememeber the movie called Perfume: The Story of a Murderer. I love this movie, It's an amazing story, based on the best-selling novel.

He lived to find beauty. He killed to possess it.

Enter an intoxicating world of passion, obsession and murder. Obsession can cause the unthinkable.

He still had enough perfume left to enslave the whole world if he so chose. He could walk to Versailles and have the king kiss his feet. He could write the pope a perfumed letter and reveal himself as the new Messiah. He could do all this, and more, if he wanted to. He possessed a power stronger than the power of money, or terror, or death - the invincible power to command the love of man kind. There was only one thing the perfume could not do. It could not turn him into a person who could love and be loved like everyone else. So, to hell with it he thought. To hell with the world. With the perfume. With himself.