The history of Home Fragrance
Written on 26 October 2021
Perfuming your home is now a widespread practice, focused on well-being and the pleasure of being at home. Relaxing, therapeutic, this practice has been anchored in our customs for much longer than you may think… Discover the insane history of the perfume diffusers!
The invention of perfume diffusers dates back to... Neolithic times!
Pottery bowls called “coupes-à-socle” dating from the Neolithic period have been found, with black residues composed of highly perfumed plant resins. These perfume burners would have been used to make fumigations, for therapeutic purposes or just for the pleasure of perfuming.
In Ancient Egypt and during the Greco-Roman period:
Perfume diffusers to get in touch with the divine
We are in 3000 BC, in Ancient Egypt: the divine marks the daily life of Men. Perfume is used as a channel to communicate with these divinities: priests burn essences (incense, essential oils, ointments…) which are transformed into clouds of scents during the ceremonies.
These practices were to travel as far as the Mediterranean: the perfumed fumes were then used as a tribute to the gods or the dead.
Anecdote: “perfume” comes from “per fumum” in Latin which means “by smoke”!
In the Middle Ages, "scented apples" were used to treat diseases
Wars, famines, diseases… The traumas of those times imposed a very radical conception of odors: what smells bad makes you sick, what smells good heals! Aromatherapy will then develop, through small portable personal scent diffusers, in which the practice was to place essential oils and aromatic herbs.
Chic, aesthetic and refined, they were reserved for an elite, and were supposed to protect them from the black plague and other deadly epidemics.
During the Renaissance, people avoided soap but love perfume
The Black Death raged, and at the time the idea spread that it was water that transmitted the disease… Baths became less and less common (legend has it that Louis XIV only took one bath a year!). But, as in the Middle Ages, it is still believed that smelling good will ward off evil. Perfume, especially in Grasse, will then spread. In the homes, people would perfume absolutely everything! Dried flowers, scented pastilles to burn, sprinklers, scented apples, scented sachets…
Anecdote: The court of Louis XV was nicknamed “the perfumed court” because it smelled so good!
During the French Revolution, perfume was considered a sign of belonging to the nobility and the bourgeoisie, and its use was, until the arrival of Napoleon, frowned upon and even dangerous.
The 19th century, the universal use of perfume
The development of chemistry allows the rise of big perfume houses, and the access to perfumes by the greatest number. New techniques of extraction, invention of the vaporizer… Everything can now be perfumed: the body, the laundry, the furniture, the interiors… The diffusers of perfumes are democratized, and are not reserved any more to an elite!
Nowadays, perfume diffusers are seen as accessories of well-being and decoration
The cocooning and “hygge” trends (comfort, conviviality in Danish) invite us to personalize our interior. The scent diffuser, as decorative as useful, will participate to make your interior pleasant and unique.
A single scent will define the olfactory signature of your home, or you can opt for a different fragrance for each room, according to your needs (freshness, softness or elegance).
To learn more, check out our article on “How to scent your home?”
Our range of perfume diffusers :
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