In India, resins, woods, spices and fragrant flowers are used for ritual, medicine and personal adnornment. Many wonderful aromatics grow there, including frangipani, hibiscus, sandlewood, jasmin, patchouli, gum benzoin, vetiver, aloewood, pepper, cardoman and connamon, and the sellers from the main centre for perfumery, Ghazipore, near Benares, are called 'gandhika'. The art of distilling the essential oils was brought from Arabia by the Moghuls. The Indian book of sacred love, the Kama Sutra, prescribed fragrant oils to enhance allure and sandlewood and musk was rubbed on the body as an aphrodisiac. Indian cashmere shawls were steeped in patchouli, a heady scent, which had the added effect of keeping out moths. Its shredded leaves preserved the cloth during the long voyage to the west. Jahangir was a vastly rich Moghul emperor and his fifth wife was his favourite because she was a poet, a good designer and a clever politician. She strew rose petals in a pool in the gardens and made oil and attar from the roses for the Moghul court. He named her 'the light of the world' - Nur Jahan, and she arranged the marriage of her neice, Mumtaz, to his son, Shah Jahan. When she died, he erected a fantastic mausoleum, the Taj Mahal, as a resting place for her for eternity. Aromatherapy is a vital principle of Indian life and is embedded in the Ayurvedic medicinal arts, which uses aromatic potents, oil massages and incences.
French perfumiers used standard bottles to dispense perfumes until expensive presentation bottles became popular. The 1900 Paris Exhibition was a platform for Baccaret, the Paris leading crystal glass manufacturer, to show some wonderful perfume bottles, Egyptian influence bottles and Art Deco coloured glass are especially a collectable. To read another part of this information on perfume, visit: https://wendystokesuk.blogspot.com/2018/07/perfume-part-four.html
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