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Today, the perfume market in Asia is dominated by high end fragrance houses from the US and Europe, where expensive perfumes are considered a status symbol. But in the past, many classic fragrances were developed and worn in the East.During the Cultural Revolution in China, Maoist doctrine declared wearing perfume to be decadent and it was actually illegal at one point. At a result, the traditional Chinese perfume industry was pretty much ended after 1967.Prior to this, however, there was a strong tradition of fragrance in daily life in China. Central to Chinese fragrance was the Taoist belief that the...

One of the most fun ways to create a personal scent is fragrance layering! You can be your own perfumer and create a scent that is totally unique to you. Just like creating a stand alone perfume, building a layered scent on your skin can be best achieved by adhering to a few good tricks and principles! To help you get the best out of our upcoming Layering Accord collection, as well as all your other layering ingredients, we've written up a handy guide of tips and tricks to get you started!One of our favorite ways to create a layered...

The use of perfume and incense in the West goes back as far as 5000BC when the first mentions of burning incense as an offering were made in Egyptian tombs. The first perfumers were priests who compounded sacred offerings from aromatic resins. These blends were used to sweeten the smell of sacrificial offerings and to please the gods. The Egyptians even had a god of perfume named Nefertem.Blends created by Egyptian priests were potent enough that samples found in tombs during modern excavation have retained their original sweet fragrances. Most powerful Egyptians such as priests and Pharoahs were buried with...

There are two main schools of thought when it comes to "resetting one's nose" while sampling perfumes.  Just like taste buds, your nose can become de-sensitized after sniffing different blends in a process similar to anosmia, or nose blindness.  After too long, scent receptors lose their sensitivity to aroma compounds.  Many high end perfume retailers keep bowls of coffee beans on their counters for customers to sniff in between sampling different blends.  Coffee beans are also used by wine tasters along with bread and water for these same purposes. The other common method for keeping one's scent palate clear is...

This Perfume Only fragrance collection is a further exploration of the Layering Accords concept. All of the following accords have been created especially for this collection and are distinctly different from accords used in other Perfume Only collections or the Custom Perfume notes. Created to stand alone, layer with each other, or layer with the accords in the main collection.  Available in Perfume Oil, EdP, Pumpkin Butter, Bubbling Scrub, Whipped Soap and Hair Oil: Birthday Cake - White vanilla cake with a thick layer of buttercream frosting. Vanilla Bean - A balanced blend of 5 varieties of vanilla, resulting in a...