The Process To Make The First Known Fragrance Was Written On A Tablet. Who Was The Lady Chemist?

Fragrance has always played an important role throughout history—royalty flaunted it, business empires were changed by it (hello, Chanel), and with just one whiff, a certain fragrance can transport you back in time to a childhood memory, remind you of a person in your life that you love, or, well, someone you loathe.

So on March 21, celebrate your love of all things fragrant with National Fragrance Day.

• 1200 BC – A Cuneiform tablet found in Mesopotamia from this year reveals that a female chemist named Tapputi is the first recorded perfume maker.
• 1370 – Fragrant products transition from being solely used for medicinal purposes into being used for grooming purposes.
• 1752 – Dr. William Hunter, the founder of Caswell and Massey (still in business today) establishes Dr. Hunter’s Dispensary in Newport Connecticut
• 1770 – French barber Jean-Jacques noted that the use of cologne after a shave enhanced the skin.
• 1920 – For The Bacon Lover: Bacōn by Fargginay ($36) was started in 1920 by a Parisian butcher who realized he could dramatically lift his customers’ mood with a blend of 11 essential oils plus the essence of bacon.
• 1921 – Eau de Cigarette: In 1921, Molinard released a fragrance called Habanita that was intended to scent cigarettes. You placed the satchels in your cigarette case, or applied it directly to your cigarette in liquid form for a “delicious, lasting aroma.” And you thought e-cigarettes were fancy!
• We associate summer with the smell of freshly cut grass, thunderstorms with the smell of the damp air, and the acrid scent of sulfur when lightning has struck.
• We often connect memories of the winter holidays with warm spiced pies and cookies.
• Your Nose Doesn’t Know: your nose gets used to your signature fragrance, and you can only smell it when it’s first applied or when you consciously pay attention to it. Lesson: do not over-spritz for the sake of those around you.
• Jasmine—Or So You Thought: Many jasmine notes in some fragrances are actually produced by using a synthetic material named Indole, which is derived from—wait for it—coal tar. When used in a low concentration, it has a sweet, flowery smell.
• Expensive taste: The most expensive perfume in the world is Clive Christian’s Imperial Majesty, priced at $215,000 for 16.9 ounces. It’s served in a Baccarat crystal bottle with an 18-carat gold collar and a five-carat diamond.
• Humble beginnings:  ($98)—one of the best-selling perfumes of all time and the only one Marilyn Monroe famously said she wears to bed—had a surprising start. Coco Chanel came from humble beginnings—her mother was a laundry woman—so the smell of soap and freshly scrubbed skin stayed with her.
• Chanel No. 5 was the first perfume she selected from the ten samples perfumer Ernest Beaux presented, and the first perfume to be made with aldehydes, a synthesized component of an organic compound that just so happens to smell like—you guessed it—soap.
• Rubbing your wrists is a no-no. If you have the habit of rubbing your wrists against each other after spraying a scent, nix the habit immediately. Typically, perfumes are a complex combination of top notes, heart notes, and base notes. The top notes are more delicate and fade quickly, while the base notes are long-lasting. The friction caused by rubbing your wrists increases the interaction of the fragrance with your skin’s natural oils, which can end up distorting the scent.
• Men’s fragrances aren’t just for men. One-third of men’s fragrances sold are worn by women. Surprisingly, there’s little inherently masculine or feminine about a particular scent, it’s all how it’s presented.
• Flower power: Floral scents make women feel most feminine and attractive.
• Flower superpower: Men find women wearing floral fragrances the most attractive and prefer it as a first-date scent.
• Women are into strong characters and strong fragrances: 65 percent of the female survey respondents prefer males who wear strong, classic cedar-dominated fragrances.
• Humans can detect at least one trillion different smells: Although the exact number is yet to be determined, scientists revealed in a 2014 journal that humans can identify at least one trillion different smells. It is thought that the actual number may be significantly higher than this, however, thanks to the 10 million smell receptors in everybody’s nose.
• Women have a stronger sense of smell than men: The battle of the sexes rages on, but one category has a clear winner: tests have found that women have a more developed sense of smell than men, and are capable of identifying a greater number of different odors. This is thanks to women’s orbital prefrontal region of the brain, which is more developed than their male counterparts.
• Dogs have nearly 50% more scent cells than humans: Moving away from the human race for a moment, our canine friends put even the best human nose to shame. With just shy of 44% more scent cells than humans, dogs have a far more developed sense of smell than we do – capable of discerning more subtleties in odor and picking up scents from a greater distance.
• There are seven main smells: Like the five different tastes (sweet, sour, salty, bitter, umami), some scientists believe there are seven different main smells – musky, putrid, pungent, camphoraceous (similar to mothballs), ethereal, floral and minty. It is thought that all scents are a mixture of these seven basic ingredients.
• The world’s first recorded chemist was a person named Tapputi, a perfume maker who was mentioned on a stone tablet from the 2nd millennium BCE in Mesopotamia.
• In the Book of Exodus, the Bible also describes a certain sacred perfume consisting of liquid myrrh, fragrant cinnamon, fragrant cane, and cassia.
• Perfume isn’t great for your hair. We’re all guilty of spritzing a little extra on our hair to reassure ourselves that others (even ourselves) can really smell it. However, we’ve been doing a lot more harm than good. Many perfumes contain alcohol, which can cause dryness if applied frequently.
• Everyone Smells Slightly Different. Our own smell is personal to us and completely unique. How we smell is predetermined, and comes from the same genes which determine our body’s tissue type.
• Scents can alter the mood you’re in. Research has shown that a quick spritz can lift your spirits. Feeling overwhelmed? Apply a fragrance that contains lavender to promote relaxation. Coffee didn’t wake you up this morning? A citrus-infused scent will awaken your senses.
• It’s Possible to Smell Feelings. Amazingly, our sense of smell is so developed it has been discovered that we can smell fear, disgust, happiness, and even sexual arousal in other people.
• When it comes to cologne and perfume, they do come in different strengths. The strongest is Parfum with the highest concentration of fragrance oils and the weakest is Eau de Fraiche with the lowest concentration of fragrance oils. The concentration of oils determines the purity of the fragrance.
  
• Before applying any fragrance, grab your favorite lotion and moisturize the area properly. Perfume diffuses well when applied on moisturized skin, and hydrated skin will hold fragrance longer