Perfume

This tiny bottle contains a unique substance: a perfume called _Fougère Royale_ created by the master perfumer Paul Parquet back in 1882. The line has since been discontinued or altered, so the smell in this bottle might actually be found nowhere else on the planet. This perfume, and 400 other unique fragrances, make up only a small part of the collection of scents at the French _Osmothèque_, the first perfume archive in the world.

Osmothèke comes from the Greek “osmè” for odor, plus “theke” for storage, and it was founded in 1990 in the city of Versailles, France. Over 3,200 perfumes are in the collection, which is maintained in a cellar (second image) at 12°C (53.6°F) away from sunlight. The fragrances are stored in a layer of argon gas to protect them from decay (argon is an inert gas).

Perfumers study the composition of various scents and research how they might be re-assembled. For instance, one of the museum’s blogs from 22 October 2015 is about the plant “vetiver,” which has been used at least since 1000 BCE and comes originally from southern India. It made its entry into the Western perfumeries in the 19th century beginning with men’s cologne, but by 1921 was an ingredient of the woman’s perfume Chanel N°5. Described as having a very woody smell, it has not yet been able to be matched with a synthetic version.

Perfume historians can turn to old perfume recipes to attempt to recreate them. For instance, there are many attestations to a perfume that since the 14th century has been known as _Eau de la Reine de Hongrie_, one of the first alcohol-based fragrances in Europe, made with rosemary as well as other ingredients such as thyme and orange blossom. You can buy re-creations of it today, but the Osmothèque has the only remaining bottle dating to the pre-Industrial world.