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sherlock60This week, the canon story we’re looking at is The Hound of the Baskervilles, Chaps. 13-15 and the chosen topic is Perfume.
A few facts:
⌸ Perennial favourite scents during the Victorian era were: bergamot, jasmine, lavender, orange-blossom, rose, tuberose, and violet. [Mimi Matthews]
⌸ At the beginning of the Victorian era, the predominant scent was Eau de Cologne. Consisting of a base of neroli oil (an oil derived from orange blossoms and flowers from the bitter orange tree), Eau de Cologne had risen to popularity during the 18th century... Unlike true perfumes, it was diluted with distilled water—hence the name toilet water—and was sold as a relatively inexpensive scent for both Victorian men and Victorian women. [Mimi Matthews]
⌸ Natural scents like florals, herbals, and oils derived from the rinds of citrus fruits were also very popular—and would remain so throughout the era… One of the most well known floral scents was the famous Otto of Roses, [which was made] from the petals of the “hundred-leaved rose”—or rosa centifolia... Though its title as most expensive perfume would soon be eclipsed by the fashionably complex scents of the 1880s and 1890s, Otto of Roses would remain a favorite fragrance throughout the Victorian era and into the 20th century. [Mimi Matthews]
⌸ By the middle of the Victorian era, bergamot and lemon oil had surpassed Eau de Cologne to become the most popular fragrance for women… Readily available at local apothecaries and chemists’ shops, bergamot and lemon oil was much more reasonably priced than Eau de Cologne had been. [Mimi Matthews]
⌸ The advent of inexpensive synthetic fragrances resulted in perfumes being available to an even wider range of Victorian women. Wishing to distance themselves from the perfumes used by the lower classes, wealthy ladies began to demand more complex, and as yet unsynthesized, perfumes. [Mimi Matthews]
⌸ By the 1890s, Goodman states that single scent perfumes had given way to fashionable perfumes made of “eight or twelve different extracts” and sold in “slim, beautifully decorative glass vials.” [Ruth Goodman, via Mimi Matthews]
These expensive, late Victorian perfumes frequently contained spice oils and animal essences, like musk, ambergris, and civet. Animal essences were heavier than botanical scents and their fragrance lasted far longer. [Mimi Matthews]
⌸ However, in the late Victorian era, non-wealthy women were awash in lavender oil. [Ruth Goodman, via Mimi Matthews] [It] became so popular that a new industry of lavender growers in England and France rose up to meet the demand. [Mimi Matthews]
⌸ ...at the beginning of the Victorian era, there were approximately 40 perfumers working in London alone—the same amount as in Paris at that time. Not only did these perfumers sell Eau de Cologne and other popular fragrances of the day, they frequently came up with their own perfumes as well. [Jennifer Rhind, via Mimi Matthews]
⌸ Floris in Jermyn Street, London [was] founded in the 18th century, and [is] still in business today. [It] is the oldest perfume house in the world. [Mimi Matthews] Fragrances they produced during the 19th century include Malmaison and Special No. 127. [Victoria Sherrow, via Mimi Matthews]
⌸ Those of moderate means… bought inexpensive perfumes, toilets waters, and other scented products from chemist’s shops and pharmacies.[Mimi Matthews] ...the middle and poorer classes especially go in for cheap lines of perfumes which have lately been extensively imported from the Continent, particularly Germany. [Bulletin of Pharmacy, 1895, via Mimi Matthews]
⌸ In 1872, the London perfumer Penhaligon’s launched the fragrance Hammam Bouquet. [Mimi Matthews]
[It] is still being manufactured today, [and] is described by Penhaligon's as being ‘...animalic and golden... warm and mature, redolent of old books, powdered resins and ancient rooms. At its heart is the dusky Turkish rose, with jasmine, woods, musk and powdery orris…’ [It] soon became a great favourite with respectable Victorian gentleman [and] owed its provenance to the smells of the Jermyn Street Turkish Baths which William Penhaligon hoped to replicate. [The Virtual Victorian]
[Hammam Bouquet was used by men and women, incidentally. And also, absolutely nothing to do with perfume but I had to include this: from 1888, the Jermyn Street Baths employed a resident tattooist who excelled in an artistic dragon design. [The Virtual Victorian]]
⌸ Modern perfumery… has its roots in the Victorian era… The new synthetics were often more reliable and stable – and sometimes enabled a perfumer to capture the smell of a flower whose own scent proves frustratingly elusive to extract naturally.
A chemist called Dumas Peligot isolated a molecule called ‘cinammaldehyde’, from cinnamon oil. In 1844, a man called Cahours found the main aroma compound in anise oil, ‘anethole’. [The Perfume Society]
In 1837 Liebig & Wöler produced the scent of bitter almonds (benzaldehyde). Years later, in 1889 Fittig & Mielk produced the heliotropin (the scent of hyacinths), and in 1876 Reimer and Delair produced the vanillin. [+ Q Perfume Blog]
...a British chemist called William Perkin came up with ‘coumarin’, described as ‘a scent that could transport you to a holiday in the Alps’, with the scent of just-mown hay. In 1888, chemist Alfred Baur discovered the ‘artificial musks’, and in 1895, the first synthetic jasmine and rose were introduced – the appeal of this… being that it would not ‘become cloudy in the cold, or separate into flakes. It could be relied upon to be always of exactly the same composition.’ [The Perfume Society]
⌸ Perfumes such as Fougére Royale by perfumer Paul Parquet for Houbigant (the first modern perfume - 1882) and Jicky (1889 by Guerlain), were the first fragrances to blend synthetics with natural compounds. [+ Q Perfume Blog]
⌸ In 1864, London perfumer Eugène Rimmel... published The Book of Perfumes. [This] resembled other perfumery books on the market, save for one important difference; Rimmel provided no recipes for women to concoct their own perfumes at home. In this regard, Rimmel’s text signified a shift away from the instructional genre, suggesting that the manufacture of perfumery should be left to professional (and male) perfumers.
[It] remains unclear… the extent to which women continued to concoct perfumery in the home, despite discouragement from professionals like Rimmel… [There is] some evidence to suggest that women continued to make scents. Account books belonging to London chemists George Daniel and Thomas Acraman Coate show female shoppers buying perfumery ingredients in the 1860s. There was also the enduring popularity of Anglo-American recipe collections that included perfumery recipes. A survey of texts produced between 1855 and 1910 reveals that many printed recipe collections continued to include instructions on producing spirituous waters, but also colognes, solid parfums, and scented sachets.
...some published recipes revealed how to create perfumes available in London’s most extravagant perfumery shops. [The Recipes Project]
⌸ One home technique for scent extraction involved layering fresh flowers with thin layers of cotton in a glass jar. After two weeks, the cotton absorbed the oils, which could then be used as a perfume.
For distillation, texts advised placing petals and water in a cold still over a moderate fire, which would eventually produce fragrant waters: rose, lavender, orange, bergamot.
To create solid pastilles de toilette, readers created a paste using perfumed oils and a natural gum, tragacanth. This was fashioned into a desired shape before drying. [The Recipes Project]
⌸ Victorian perfume buttons were manufactured in the United States in the 1800s. They were also massively popular in European countries, particularly France and England. During the Civil War in America, ladies would send their loved ones off to war and give them their perfume buttons as romantic tokens or their affection.
Such buttons had a cloth base, such as velvet or flannel, something that would absorb and hold fragrances, and were ornamented with metal patterns, often floral. [Tanya on Ravenscourt Apothecary.]
Since both women and men shared their fragrant innocuous blends that invariably revolved around violets, rose, lavender and such… there was no social faux pas in having a man waft a woman's scent. [The Perfume Shrine]
⌸ [Victorian perfumes] were rarely applied directly to the skin. Instead, [they] were used to scent handkerchiefs, gloves, and clothing, and even as a fragrant additive in cosmetic products like hair pomade or lip salve. [Mimi Matthews]
Since some of the scented essences involved oily carriers… the medium of carrying the perfume was important to be stain-proof. Dark velvet wasn't exactly immune to oily stains, but they didn't show as they would on the satiny silk and wool fabrics of dresses. Therefore a sort of decorative brass buttons with velvet fabric inside were created to accommodate and a vogue for long "necklaces" or decorative "edges" of buttons emerged. There were even sometimes crafted into pieces of jewelry, such as bracelets, necklaces or earrings… [The Perfume Shrine]
⌸ In the early 1890s several writers suggested that a new fashion was taking hold among the urban women of Europe and America: drinking Eau de Cologne. Stories appeared in both medical journals and popular newspapers of women ingesting perfume in various ways – from the delicate act of swallowing ‘a dose of cologne dropped on loaf sugar’ to the unrestrained swigging of whole bottles of 4711. Strange as the practice seemed, for the woman who wished to drink, perfume was a practical choice at a time when it was less acceptable for her to enter a pub and order herself a brandy. [Jennifer Wallis on Diseases of Modern Life]
Some useful resources:
A Victorian Lady’s Guide to Perfume On Mimi Matthews’ website.
Turkish Baths and the Perfume of ‘Hammam Bouquet’... On The Virtual Victorian.
The Victorians: from violet posies to va-va-voom On The Perfume Society website.
Making Scents in the Victorian Home By Jessica P. Clark on The Recipes Project.
The Book of Perfumes By Eugène Rimmel, 1867. Read online, or there are many download options.
Victorian Perfume Buttons By Tanya on the Ravenscourt Apothecary website.
Love is in the Air: Victorian Perfume Buttons On the Perfume Shrine blog.
Victorian Perfume Bottles Photographs on eBay.
Throwaway Scent Bottles By Candice Hern on the Regency World website.
A 19th century advertisement for The Crown Perfumery Company’s ‘Crab Apple Blossom Perfume’ and 'Lavender Smelling Salts’ Victorian Era Fan Guide on Tumblr.
‘Sweet oblivious antidotes’? Lady perfume drinkers of the late 19th century By Jennifer Wallis on the Diseases of Modern Life website.
Men’s Victorian Accessories On the Victorian Bazaar website. No images but one of the items listed is ‘Tiny scent boxes with sponge for men’s cologne’.
Victorian Era, Violets and Sonoma Scents - Part II On the + Q Perfume Blog.
Please feel free to discuss this topic in the comments.
Please also feel free to comment about the canon story itself or any related aspects outside this week’s theme. For example, any reactions, thoughts, theories, fic recs, favourite adaptations of the canon story… Or any other contribution you wish to make. And if you have any suggestions for fic prompts springing from this week's story, please feel free to share those in the comments as well.
A few facts:
⌸ Perennial favourite scents during the Victorian era were: bergamot, jasmine, lavender, orange-blossom, rose, tuberose, and violet. [Mimi Matthews]
⌸ At the beginning of the Victorian era, the predominant scent was Eau de Cologne. Consisting of a base of neroli oil (an oil derived from orange blossoms and flowers from the bitter orange tree), Eau de Cologne had risen to popularity during the 18th century... Unlike true perfumes, it was diluted with distilled water—hence the name toilet water—and was sold as a relatively inexpensive scent for both Victorian men and Victorian women. [Mimi Matthews]
⌸ Natural scents like florals, herbals, and oils derived from the rinds of citrus fruits were also very popular—and would remain so throughout the era… One of the most well known floral scents was the famous Otto of Roses, [which was made] from the petals of the “hundred-leaved rose”—or rosa centifolia... Though its title as most expensive perfume would soon be eclipsed by the fashionably complex scents of the 1880s and 1890s, Otto of Roses would remain a favorite fragrance throughout the Victorian era and into the 20th century. [Mimi Matthews]
⌸ By the middle of the Victorian era, bergamot and lemon oil had surpassed Eau de Cologne to become the most popular fragrance for women… Readily available at local apothecaries and chemists’ shops, bergamot and lemon oil was much more reasonably priced than Eau de Cologne had been. [Mimi Matthews]
⌸ The advent of inexpensive synthetic fragrances resulted in perfumes being available to an even wider range of Victorian women. Wishing to distance themselves from the perfumes used by the lower classes, wealthy ladies began to demand more complex, and as yet unsynthesized, perfumes. [Mimi Matthews]
⌸ By the 1890s, Goodman states that single scent perfumes had given way to fashionable perfumes made of “eight or twelve different extracts” and sold in “slim, beautifully decorative glass vials.” [Ruth Goodman, via Mimi Matthews]
These expensive, late Victorian perfumes frequently contained spice oils and animal essences, like musk, ambergris, and civet. Animal essences were heavier than botanical scents and their fragrance lasted far longer. [Mimi Matthews]
⌸ However, in the late Victorian era, non-wealthy women were awash in lavender oil. [Ruth Goodman, via Mimi Matthews] [It] became so popular that a new industry of lavender growers in England and France rose up to meet the demand. [Mimi Matthews]
⌸ ...at the beginning of the Victorian era, there were approximately 40 perfumers working in London alone—the same amount as in Paris at that time. Not only did these perfumers sell Eau de Cologne and other popular fragrances of the day, they frequently came up with their own perfumes as well. [Jennifer Rhind, via Mimi Matthews]
⌸ Floris in Jermyn Street, London [was] founded in the 18th century, and [is] still in business today. [It] is the oldest perfume house in the world. [Mimi Matthews] Fragrances they produced during the 19th century include Malmaison and Special No. 127. [Victoria Sherrow, via Mimi Matthews]
⌸ Those of moderate means… bought inexpensive perfumes, toilets waters, and other scented products from chemist’s shops and pharmacies.[Mimi Matthews] ...the middle and poorer classes especially go in for cheap lines of perfumes which have lately been extensively imported from the Continent, particularly Germany. [Bulletin of Pharmacy, 1895, via Mimi Matthews]
⌸ In 1872, the London perfumer Penhaligon’s launched the fragrance Hammam Bouquet. [Mimi Matthews]
[It] is still being manufactured today, [and] is described by Penhaligon's as being ‘...animalic and golden... warm and mature, redolent of old books, powdered resins and ancient rooms. At its heart is the dusky Turkish rose, with jasmine, woods, musk and powdery orris…’ [It] soon became a great favourite with respectable Victorian gentleman [and] owed its provenance to the smells of the Jermyn Street Turkish Baths which William Penhaligon hoped to replicate. [The Virtual Victorian]
[Hammam Bouquet was used by men and women, incidentally. And also, absolutely nothing to do with perfume but I had to include this: from 1888, the Jermyn Street Baths employed a resident tattooist who excelled in an artistic dragon design. [The Virtual Victorian]]
⌸ Modern perfumery… has its roots in the Victorian era… The new synthetics were often more reliable and stable – and sometimes enabled a perfumer to capture the smell of a flower whose own scent proves frustratingly elusive to extract naturally.
A chemist called Dumas Peligot isolated a molecule called ‘cinammaldehyde’, from cinnamon oil. In 1844, a man called Cahours found the main aroma compound in anise oil, ‘anethole’. [The Perfume Society]
In 1837 Liebig & Wöler produced the scent of bitter almonds (benzaldehyde). Years later, in 1889 Fittig & Mielk produced the heliotropin (the scent of hyacinths), and in 1876 Reimer and Delair produced the vanillin. [+ Q Perfume Blog]
...a British chemist called William Perkin came up with ‘coumarin’, described as ‘a scent that could transport you to a holiday in the Alps’, with the scent of just-mown hay. In 1888, chemist Alfred Baur discovered the ‘artificial musks’, and in 1895, the first synthetic jasmine and rose were introduced – the appeal of this… being that it would not ‘become cloudy in the cold, or separate into flakes. It could be relied upon to be always of exactly the same composition.’ [The Perfume Society]
⌸ Perfumes such as Fougére Royale by perfumer Paul Parquet for Houbigant (the first modern perfume - 1882) and Jicky (1889 by Guerlain), were the first fragrances to blend synthetics with natural compounds. [+ Q Perfume Blog]
⌸ In 1864, London perfumer Eugène Rimmel... published The Book of Perfumes. [This] resembled other perfumery books on the market, save for one important difference; Rimmel provided no recipes for women to concoct their own perfumes at home. In this regard, Rimmel’s text signified a shift away from the instructional genre, suggesting that the manufacture of perfumery should be left to professional (and male) perfumers.
[It] remains unclear… the extent to which women continued to concoct perfumery in the home, despite discouragement from professionals like Rimmel… [There is] some evidence to suggest that women continued to make scents. Account books belonging to London chemists George Daniel and Thomas Acraman Coate show female shoppers buying perfumery ingredients in the 1860s. There was also the enduring popularity of Anglo-American recipe collections that included perfumery recipes. A survey of texts produced between 1855 and 1910 reveals that many printed recipe collections continued to include instructions on producing spirituous waters, but also colognes, solid parfums, and scented sachets.
...some published recipes revealed how to create perfumes available in London’s most extravagant perfumery shops. [The Recipes Project]
⌸ One home technique for scent extraction involved layering fresh flowers with thin layers of cotton in a glass jar. After two weeks, the cotton absorbed the oils, which could then be used as a perfume.
For distillation, texts advised placing petals and water in a cold still over a moderate fire, which would eventually produce fragrant waters: rose, lavender, orange, bergamot.
To create solid pastilles de toilette, readers created a paste using perfumed oils and a natural gum, tragacanth. This was fashioned into a desired shape before drying. [The Recipes Project]
⌸ Victorian perfume buttons were manufactured in the United States in the 1800s. They were also massively popular in European countries, particularly France and England. During the Civil War in America, ladies would send their loved ones off to war and give them their perfume buttons as romantic tokens or their affection.
Such buttons had a cloth base, such as velvet or flannel, something that would absorb and hold fragrances, and were ornamented with metal patterns, often floral. [Tanya on Ravenscourt Apothecary.]
Since both women and men shared their fragrant innocuous blends that invariably revolved around violets, rose, lavender and such… there was no social faux pas in having a man waft a woman's scent. [The Perfume Shrine]
⌸ [Victorian perfumes] were rarely applied directly to the skin. Instead, [they] were used to scent handkerchiefs, gloves, and clothing, and even as a fragrant additive in cosmetic products like hair pomade or lip salve. [Mimi Matthews]
Since some of the scented essences involved oily carriers… the medium of carrying the perfume was important to be stain-proof. Dark velvet wasn't exactly immune to oily stains, but they didn't show as they would on the satiny silk and wool fabrics of dresses. Therefore a sort of decorative brass buttons with velvet fabric inside were created to accommodate and a vogue for long "necklaces" or decorative "edges" of buttons emerged. There were even sometimes crafted into pieces of jewelry, such as bracelets, necklaces or earrings… [The Perfume Shrine]
⌸ In the early 1890s several writers suggested that a new fashion was taking hold among the urban women of Europe and America: drinking Eau de Cologne. Stories appeared in both medical journals and popular newspapers of women ingesting perfume in various ways – from the delicate act of swallowing ‘a dose of cologne dropped on loaf sugar’ to the unrestrained swigging of whole bottles of 4711. Strange as the practice seemed, for the woman who wished to drink, perfume was a practical choice at a time when it was less acceptable for her to enter a pub and order herself a brandy. [Jennifer Wallis on Diseases of Modern Life]
Some useful resources:
A Victorian Lady’s Guide to Perfume On Mimi Matthews’ website.
Turkish Baths and the Perfume of ‘Hammam Bouquet’... On The Virtual Victorian.
The Victorians: from violet posies to va-va-voom On The Perfume Society website.
Making Scents in the Victorian Home By Jessica P. Clark on The Recipes Project.
The Book of Perfumes By Eugène Rimmel, 1867. Read online, or there are many download options.
Victorian Perfume Buttons By Tanya on the Ravenscourt Apothecary website.
Love is in the Air: Victorian Perfume Buttons On the Perfume Shrine blog.
Victorian Perfume Bottles Photographs on eBay.
Throwaway Scent Bottles By Candice Hern on the Regency World website.
A 19th century advertisement for The Crown Perfumery Company’s ‘Crab Apple Blossom Perfume’ and 'Lavender Smelling Salts’ Victorian Era Fan Guide on Tumblr.
‘Sweet oblivious antidotes’? Lady perfume drinkers of the late 19th century By Jennifer Wallis on the Diseases of Modern Life website.
Men’s Victorian Accessories On the Victorian Bazaar website. No images but one of the items listed is ‘Tiny scent boxes with sponge for men’s cologne’.
Victorian Era, Violets and Sonoma Scents - Part II On the + Q Perfume Blog.
Please feel free to discuss this topic in the comments.
Please also feel free to comment about the canon story itself or any related aspects outside this week’s theme. For example, any reactions, thoughts, theories, fic recs, favourite adaptations of the canon story… Or any other contribution you wish to make. And if you have any suggestions for fic prompts springing from this week's story, please feel free to share those in the comments as well.
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