Wednesday, May 25, 2016
Monday, May 16, 2016
History of Perfume
The Stone age is where the familiar meaning of perfume was passed down through the ages. “To pass through smoke.” Perfume was simply burning various woods and organic matter. The ash was often mixed with fats and used as medicine or in rituals. The Egyptians were the most sophisticated practitioners.
Stone of various kinds was a widely used building material. As their craftsmanship became more refined they went from using sometimes elaborately carved clay jugs for everything to stone for precious things. Beautiful examples of alabaster, calcite, lapis and other stone perfume containers still exist.
The Neolithic age saw the ending of nomadic life. Cultivation was beginning. Plants were always tied to religious beliefs and healing but now with fields of valuable plants, they could make more use of them. They started expressing oils from plants by pressing.
Perfume incense is used to scent cloth, homes, temples, and was even added to drinks to give them more flavor. Incense burners are considered some of the best examples of furniture design from this era.
The world's oldest surviving text from 2000 B.C. is a list of medicinal and perfumery prescriptions. Along with meandering descriptions of how those things fit into larger society and religious practices. They burned incense on street corners. The preferred method of extracting essences was enfleurage.
With the advent of the Bronze Age, it became common to mine, smelt, and alloy copper, tin, and bronze. Distillation begins to be investigated. Perfumes are stored in metal flasks that are at times highly decorated and even gorgeously encrusted in gems.
The Iron Age saw improvements in boating technologies. Iron, metals and raw ingredients of all kinds are shipped around the world. Distillation and tubing improve making the process practical to produce perfume oil.
Shipping reached the Arabian Peninsula. The world had wider access to woods, stems, berries, gums and resins and the techniques the Arabians developed to deal with these special substances.
The Roman Empire was a voracious consumer of scented products and their precursors. They would scent dogs, horses, soles of the feet and walls of buildings. This is partially due to the roman penchant for roads and shipping and the fact that Arab perfumeries improved the distilling process so that the world had access to new ingredients like musk, rose, and amber.
The fall of Rome was blamed on their decadence and with the advent of Christianity; the use of incense is limited to religious rituals. Royal courts of course still had perfumers.
Distillation comes into its own. The perfume industry began production in Grasse. France gains a reputation as a cultured country.
Queen Elizabeth of Hungary is said to have recovered after smelling a fragrant remedy from a monk. “Hungary water” as it was called during the Medieval Age spread through Europe where it was lavishly produced during the Renaissance with a myriad of variation.
Queen Elizabeth of England required all public places to be scented. It was considered a woman’s domain to scent their selves. They carried a pomander, a decorated ball of cloth filled with dried flowers and spices. Perfume smoke was also used with billows to scent rooms and closets. Scent was used to mask the smell from the tanning process of leather accessories such as gloves, handbags, and jackets.
Plague doctors are notorious for their eerie leather bird-beaked masks which they stuffed with perfumed rags and dried flowers.
Perfumery becomes a bonafide worldwide commercial endeavor during the Industrial Revolution. With more production capability many people who had never been able to before enjoyed luxury goods. Not just for royals anymore!
Including perfume, perfumed paper, textiles, and the illustrious gloves. Also handkerchiefs, necklaces, makeup, garters, hair powder, bath salts, and oils. If it could be scented it was. Many women received large perfume filled decorated bottles as part of vanity sets for wedding gifts from their groom.
Most perfumes were produced in small locales. Only 2 trade names existed Coty, and Yardley; making scented waters for wealthy patrons.
Organic chemistry advanced enough to create synthetic scents. The Modern Age exploded from this point using cheaper synthetics for products allowing for a profusion of brands and corporations.
Ethanol became easier and more economic to produce. So it became the prime solvent instead of fats or oils.
Scents are mass produced to spec for every product. Including processed food, drinks, and personal care.
20th Century scientific advances in a sundry of fields lead to many innovative processes and discoveries. Leading to a blurring in the divide between synthetic and natural ingredients.
Is a chemical natural or synthetic if secondary chemicals are harvested through genetic engineering? Is it natural or synthetic if the utterly flexible terpenoids are cracked open to reveal yet more molecules? There are other processes like fermenting engineered yeast to form novel scents.
Even the old standbys of distillation and expressing are getting face-lifts. Distillation with solvents and cold. Expressing with micro-mechanical techniques and mutated hybrid citrus.
The hydrocarbon industry has contributed with unique solvents and processes used in post chemical and post waste processing.
Lest we think that Mother Nature is out of secrets; it has recently been discovered that the scorned Durian may contain as many as 3,000 new parts of scent.
No matter what the future holds Perfumery remains a creative sensory journey full history and magic.
Stone of various kinds was a widely used building material. As their craftsmanship became more refined they went from using sometimes elaborately carved clay jugs for everything to stone for precious things. Beautiful examples of alabaster, calcite, lapis and other stone perfume containers still exist.
The Neolithic age saw the ending of nomadic life. Cultivation was beginning. Plants were always tied to religious beliefs and healing but now with fields of valuable plants, they could make more use of them. They started expressing oils from plants by pressing.
Perfume incense is used to scent cloth, homes, temples, and was even added to drinks to give them more flavor. Incense burners are considered some of the best examples of furniture design from this era.
The world's oldest surviving text from 2000 B.C. is a list of medicinal and perfumery prescriptions. Along with meandering descriptions of how those things fit into larger society and religious practices. They burned incense on street corners. The preferred method of extracting essences was enfleurage.
With the advent of the Bronze Age, it became common to mine, smelt, and alloy copper, tin, and bronze. Distillation begins to be investigated. Perfumes are stored in metal flasks that are at times highly decorated and even gorgeously encrusted in gems.
The Iron Age saw improvements in boating technologies. Iron, metals and raw ingredients of all kinds are shipped around the world. Distillation and tubing improve making the process practical to produce perfume oil.
Shipping reached the Arabian Peninsula. The world had wider access to woods, stems, berries, gums and resins and the techniques the Arabians developed to deal with these special substances.
The Roman Empire was a voracious consumer of scented products and their precursors. They would scent dogs, horses, soles of the feet and walls of buildings. This is partially due to the roman penchant for roads and shipping and the fact that Arab perfumeries improved the distilling process so that the world had access to new ingredients like musk, rose, and amber.
The fall of Rome was blamed on their decadence and with the advent of Christianity; the use of incense is limited to religious rituals. Royal courts of course still had perfumers.
Distillation comes into its own. The perfume industry began production in Grasse. France gains a reputation as a cultured country.
Queen Elizabeth of Hungary is said to have recovered after smelling a fragrant remedy from a monk. “Hungary water” as it was called during the Medieval Age spread through Europe where it was lavishly produced during the Renaissance with a myriad of variation.
Queen Elizabeth of England required all public places to be scented. It was considered a woman’s domain to scent their selves. They carried a pomander, a decorated ball of cloth filled with dried flowers and spices. Perfume smoke was also used with billows to scent rooms and closets. Scent was used to mask the smell from the tanning process of leather accessories such as gloves, handbags, and jackets.
Plague doctors are notorious for their eerie leather bird-beaked masks which they stuffed with perfumed rags and dried flowers.
Perfumery becomes a bonafide worldwide commercial endeavor during the Industrial Revolution. With more production capability many people who had never been able to before enjoyed luxury goods. Not just for royals anymore!
Including perfume, perfumed paper, textiles, and the illustrious gloves. Also handkerchiefs, necklaces, makeup, garters, hair powder, bath salts, and oils. If it could be scented it was. Many women received large perfume filled decorated bottles as part of vanity sets for wedding gifts from their groom.
Most perfumes were produced in small locales. Only 2 trade names existed Coty, and Yardley; making scented waters for wealthy patrons.
Organic chemistry advanced enough to create synthetic scents. The Modern Age exploded from this point using cheaper synthetics for products allowing for a profusion of brands and corporations.
Ethanol became easier and more economic to produce. So it became the prime solvent instead of fats or oils.
Scents are mass produced to spec for every product. Including processed food, drinks, and personal care.
20th Century scientific advances in a sundry of fields lead to many innovative processes and discoveries. Leading to a blurring in the divide between synthetic and natural ingredients.
Is a chemical natural or synthetic if secondary chemicals are harvested through genetic engineering? Is it natural or synthetic if the utterly flexible terpenoids are cracked open to reveal yet more molecules? There are other processes like fermenting engineered yeast to form novel scents.
Even the old standbys of distillation and expressing are getting face-lifts. Distillation with solvents and cold. Expressing with micro-mechanical techniques and mutated hybrid citrus.
The hydrocarbon industry has contributed with unique solvents and processes used in post chemical and post waste processing.
Lest we think that Mother Nature is out of secrets; it has recently been discovered that the scorned Durian may contain as many as 3,000 new parts of scent.
No matter what the future holds Perfumery remains a creative sensory journey full history and magic.
Ok post from naebob!
I'm so sorry I haven't written yet. New job has me so stretched thin. I can't seem to get my act together to do anything but work and sleep!
I am having fun having some money come in since I buy a bottle of perfume materials every once in awhile. I am trying to make another perfume for you but we'll see if I like anything lol.
Good news bad news is my computer mobo died but some friends gave us parts. So now I have a new to me mobo, processor, video card. Best thing is that combined with my old vid card I have a server up and running again. Maybe I'll do something cool with it or play Minecraft again soon.
I took an online perfumery course and to finish it off I wrote 5 perfume haiku's and a history of perfume from the stone ages. I will post it and I hope you will read it.
I am having fun having some money come in since I buy a bottle of perfume materials every once in awhile. I am trying to make another perfume for you but we'll see if I like anything lol.
Good news bad news is my computer mobo died but some friends gave us parts. So now I have a new to me mobo, processor, video card. Best thing is that combined with my old vid card I have a server up and running again. Maybe I'll do something cool with it or play Minecraft again soon.
I took an online perfumery course and to finish it off I wrote 5 perfume haiku's and a history of perfume from the stone ages. I will post it and I hope you will read it.
Goose sleeping in a puddle under the only shady cloud in the grocery store parking lot.
Triple barrel hot dogs. There is a hot dog in each bun!! I got soooo addicted to these. Steve made them probably 5 times in two weeks and we even made them for Mamma.
Stevie put up a new knife rack and bought a new knife for me. I am still having trouble doing anything with my right arm including wielding giant dull knives to cut up squash lol
This beauty is my precious. Monster sharp and only 5 inches long. Lovely folded steel and made for pinch grip. I'm in love with it!
Steve made the meat and I chopped sooooo many veges with knife. Then we ate them with salad and I also ate them the entire rest of the week in tuna salad for work lunches
I even chopped fruit for a crumble cobbler.
Just a nice day.
New avatar pic I made.
Steve from a baby shower.
Voila!! 3 months of news. I haven't done much lol but I totes loves you!
Wednesday, May 4, 2016
Howdy!
Been awhile and I haven't heard from you, so I thought I'd make a post. Mom said she talked to you this weekend and that you sounded good & cheerful.
We were cabin-ing, which was mostly fun, but really cold! It was rainy and our little cabin had a broken heater. It made heat, but the fan was broken so it only warmed about 3 sq feet. We froze! But it was fun because I got to go to the super rocky beach :D and we cooked outside and Gary took his kayak out for the first time.
Gary's parents also came up on one of the days for a visit and we had a nice time with them. And did I take any pictures?! NO, darn it. Lol. I actually did take 2, but just those, and now I'm really sad I didn't take more. But it was raining and I didn't want my phone getting wet, or getting sand in it. etc so I didnt carry it with me. But... here are my two. Lol.
We were cabin-ing, which was mostly fun, but really cold! It was rainy and our little cabin had a broken heater. It made heat, but the fan was broken so it only warmed about 3 sq feet. We froze! But it was fun because I got to go to the super rocky beach :D and we cooked outside and Gary took his kayak out for the first time.
Gary's parents also came up on one of the days for a visit and we had a nice time with them. And did I take any pictures?! NO, darn it. Lol. I actually did take 2, but just those, and now I'm really sad I didn't take more. But it was raining and I didn't want my phone getting wet, or getting sand in it. etc so I didnt carry it with me. But... here are my two. Lol.
Gary trying his kayak. You can kind of see the rocky beach, which looks super plain from this far away, but they are actually mostly all pretty colors and fossils. I didn't bring home bucket-fulls this time, just a few choice special ones I found.
A shot of the spring forest. Hard to see, but some of those green plants were
blooming with tiny white flowers!
And a couple of extras of the girls, mostly the little one because when Willow isn't at school, she's usually on some kind of electronic device.
This was Willow's Market Day at school. They had to think of a business idea, make a business plan, and then her whole class got to go around to all the little businesses and spend their Behavior Bucks. They get those for being awesome. Willow started with 29 (which was already more than anyone else) and ended up with 75! Her store was a mint chocolate bakery. That's why I took this pic, because she dressed up to match, and was super duper excited.
And this one is just because she was being cute. Doesn't look like she has a man-sized temper, does she? :p
The only good picture of a series that Maggie took playing with my phone.
The rest are pretty much up my nose. :p Or up hers!
And let's see, do I have any more news? Well I didn't finish my second book yet, my goal was to finish it by May 1st, but I have been STUCK for almost a month now. So instead Im going back and making all the changes/fixes to Fire that my mentor and I talked through. We just finished walking through the whole book last week! I will be really really sad when the mentor program is over lol. I really hate to lose her. She has a free book this week btw, I'll link it.
It's a short, feel-good read. And she's a WAY better writer than me, so I hope I really am learning stuff from her.
Oh, and I think after 15-ish tries, I landed on covers I like for my series! They are tiny here, but I do have bigger versions I can show you if you want, they are just on the other laptop that can actually run PS.
The giant blank spot is for my picture because it's a FB header. I've been dying to show you! I actually have my book 6 cover (water) done too, but book 5 is still a black hole of nothingness. No idea which element, who the characters are, nothing. No ideas.
I don't want to do combo elementals, like say Magma, which are a combo of earth/fire because the whole idea is that my elementals are the very basic components/forces of life in the universe.
So I have earth, wind, water, fire, electricity, and _______???
In higher tiers there are light/darkness, love/hate, harmony/chaos. And maybe a few others, like plant life/animal life, but for the first series I just wanted to focus on 6 'basics'. Still can't think of the 6th basic for book 5 (water is the leader so his book is last). Humans are special because we are blends of all of these basic things, which is why we get super hunky Elemental warriors to come protect s and tempt us with their hotness. :p Any thoughts on what the missing one could/should be?
I think that's everything i have to talk about for now. I always think it's not much and then it turns into a novel! Except when I'm actually trying to write a novel... lol *cries*.
Hope you and Steve are well and work is good. Look forward to hearing any of your news or seeing pictures! Love you. :)
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