Smell of Success
(continued from page 93)
Si-100NA
KIDS
2454 Orchard Lake Road
at the Loadin8 Dock
sylvan lake 810 738 0579
-
-
"'
(Sizes infant. - junior 16
cloLhing for boys and girls.
Now Open
Monday - (Saturday 10:00 3.111. - 6:00 p.m.
(Sunday 12:00-5:00
Laurie Sall, agent for
Equitable Life, wears
'Lunoru frames
available at Shades
M A P L E
E AS T
205
MI
BIRMINGHAM,
0- 6 4 5 - 0 0 7 5
8 1
1 00 • WINTER 1995 • STYLE
Elizabeth Taylor's popular White Dia-
monds, which made its debut in 1991, al-
ready brings in $60 million a year.
According to Perfume 2000 magazine, last
year alone, 90 new perfumes made their de-
but in the United States and 115 came out
in France — in a market that already boasts
900 scents. The most popular scents for
women and men are Calvin Klein's CKOne,
Escape and Eternity. Rounding out the top
choices are White Diamonds and Givenchy's
Amariage for women and Davidoff's Cool
Water and Ralph Lauren's Safari for men.
Annually, fragrance sales in the United
States are around $5 billion, two-thirds of
which are women's perfumes. That's quite
auspicious for an item that has its roots in
burned wood and resin.
The word "perfume" comes from the
Latin per fumum, or "to smoke," a refer-
ence to incense used in religious ceremonies.
Ingredients both for incense and fragrant
oils used by women in biblical times initial-
ly were quite rare. Cinnamon, for example,
was imported from China and Ceylon; rose
and jasmine also were imported, though
these were later introduced to and cultivat-
ed in Israel. They were used in liquid form,
contained in bags worn about the neck and
mixed with other oils.
King Tutankhamen was buried with fra-
grant scents, and a formula for an ancient
Egyptian perfume (of cardamom, myrrh and
juniper) was discovered in the pyramid of
Cheops. The ancient Greeks and Romans
often wore garlands of rosemary, mint and
thyme.
But it wasn't until the 10th century that a
physician created what most consider the
first modern perfume. Avicenna, of Arabia,
made rose-scented perfume by distilling oil
from the flower's petals.
This was followed some 200 years later
by lavender water, and 1370 saw the first
cologne using alcohol (with a composition
of 92 percent alcohol and 8 percent oil of
rosemary).
By the 19th century, "Society went into
a frenzy over perfumes," according to a guide
from the International Museum of Per-
fumery, published in Grasse, France.
Located just west of Nice, Grasse is the
perfume center of the world. It is home to
some of the finest fragrances and has pro-
duced some of the best "noses" (perfume
designers) in the world.