Perfume is a mixture of oils, extracts and chemicals that is applied to the skin and hair for a pleasant fragrance. In addition to cosmetic benefits, research indicates that scents have a variety of psychological and physiological effects, including stress reduction, pain tolerance, mood stabilization and cognitive enhancement. A perfume’s aroma can also convey a message about one’s personality and status, such as being perceived as powerful or elegant.
A perfume’s aromatic ingredients are obtained by distillation of natural aromatic plant extracts or through the use of synthetic aromatic chemical compounds known as odorants. Perfumes are usually made from ten to hundreds of different chemical components, with the essential oils or odorants providing most of its scent. Besides the odorants, perfumes contain diluents such as alcohol or ethanol and fixatives, natural or synthetic substances that slow the evaporation rate of the scent to extend its longevity and increase stability.
Traditionally, the most common sources of perfume aromatics are flowers and blossoms, such as rose, jasmine, ylang-ylang, tuberose, lily, hyacinth, scented geranium, narcissus, lily of the valley, peony, and iris. Other odorants include the bark of nutmeg and cinnamon, leaves of vetiver, grasses such as fir needle and juniper, and citrus fruits such as lemon, lime, orange, and grapefruit. Perfumes may also contain a wide variety of herbs, woods and resins such as patchouli, oakmoss and musk.
Many of the same plants used in perfumery were used in ancient times for medicinal purposes. For example, frankincense and myrrh were aphrodisiacs and myrrh was used as a digestive aid in Egypt. In the Middle Ages, perfumery grew into a skilled craft. The personal perfumer of Catherine de’ Medici, the wife of Renaissance Italy’s king, brought Italian refinements to France, where she established her own perfumery at the Château d’Orléans, where recipes were recorded by monks.
Modern perfumes often contain a variety of synthetic odorants, which are easier to produce than the pure scents of botanicals. For example, a compound called calone, which has a clean marine scent, is a popular ingredient in modern oceanic and ozonous perfumes. Synthetics such as coumarin, linalool, and salicylates, which are obtained from certain orchid flowers, can also be produced inexpensively by chemical synthesis.
The combination of a perfume’s top, heart, and base notes creates the harmonious fragrance accord, with the initial impression created by the top notes being perceived first when a person smells the perfume. The middle notes, which last a little longer than the top, add depth to the fragrance. The base notes, which are the longest-lasting components of a perfume, are generally considered to be more sophisticated and complex.
The underlying chemical structures of perfume components are not as well understood as their psychological and physiological effects, but they appear to act on the same areas of the brain that process reward. A study by Herz and colleagues indicated that perfumes evoke positive feelings in men and women. It also found that the context in which a woman wears her perfume is a strong determinant of both its connotation and denotation. For instance, the use of a floral perfume in a job interview might give an unintended message about one’s social status.